h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Copying Vinyl Recordings To CD - A802306
Author: Jimster - U292

Okay, here is Jimster's version of the Entry which previously caused a stir. I am told that this one does not encourage any activity which could be seen as illegal in the UK. And it is certainly worthwhile information.

Cheers!

Actually, I should stress, this is still JyZude's entry; I just did a minor edit to help it so Scouts could *see* it before they decide to pick it next week

Splendid recommendation there Cheese.

Very useful information for people who don't know how to do this.

As it happens I have some private recordings on vinyl in which I as the artist (a grand word - don't kid yourselves!) own the copyright, and I dare say others have too.

There's also some information on this and related transfers at http://www.zdnet.com/filters/printerfriendly/0,6061,2617351-3,00.html

Presumably the copyright in commercial recordings doesn't last for ever? So if you wait long enough you'll be able to transfer those wonderful classic or historic performances that can never be repeated.

I'm not sure about the copyright issue to be honest, which is why we removed that whole section on copying recordings that are commercially available on CD. best avoid the issue completely.

My mum has a recording that she and some other relatives made in a booth on a pier. It's mainly just them giggling like loons for five minutes, but now that I know how to do it, I'd love to tranfer that onto CD.

of course copying copyright material onto a different medium has been common practice and seen as fair use (recording radio, or vinyl onto tape for example) for many years.

and the fact that you can plug the headphone socket into your souncard makes a nonsense of all those silly and ineffective anti-piracy measures.

an advantage of copying music of vinyl is that it can be post-processed to remove all of the noise you get from worn records.

Hi,

I found a couple of little things.


"made music an cut it onto vinyl?" - should be AND.

The music waveforms PEAK even at low volume. At too high a volume the wave form PEAKS are CLIPPED. (Squared tops.) I think I would substitute peak for clip.


Does this technique record directly to the CD? You say at the end that half the record is "on the computer". Maybe the last step is obvious (transfer from hard drive to CD), but for completeness, maybe you should mention it. Maybe CR/R and CD R/W are described elsewhere on H2G2 and could be linked to? I haven't searched. Just so the reader knows the differnce between a data back up and a sound recording.

If you have a lot to do you should try to arrange to have 700MB or so of contiguous free space on the hard drive for performence reasons.

I think it's legal to back up music to another media for your own use.

Awu.

Depends on where you live. In Germany you're *entitled* to make a backup copy of everything you own (irrespective of what the smallprint written by manufacturer says), and you may even give copies to your relatives as long as it's not for business or reward and is kept in a 'reasonable' scale. Don't ask me what 'reasonable' means, that's just what the lawyers said in order to keep the candle of the issue (and *their* business) burning.

don't knock the use of reasonable in law.

it helps get around a whole host of problems you can have with pedantic enforcers.

Ok, people might ask 'why on Earth is x allowed and x+1 isn't ?' To which my reply would be: 'because there must be some border, and x was chosen to be it. Amen'.
Otherwise, there's an endless series of lawsuits to dermine whether n was 'reasonable' under whichever set of conditions happen to be there.

As I said earlier, I don't know the legal ramifications.... but the BBC lawyers do, which is why we were asked to remove that section of the entry in the first place. It might be "common practice" to copy stuff, but it's still illegal in UK law (which we're governed by) just like under-age drinking and smoking.

Jims

an endless set of cases to determine reasonableness? surely that is what is known as "case law", which is fundamental to both the british and american legal systems.

in both systems, politicians make vague laws, and judges then nail down the boundaries of applicability. the use of "reasonable" in law just recognises this fact, while at the same time reduces the number of "arbitary" cases being brought.

Better that the politicians be vague than set the boundaries themselves, in my opinion.

(of course, I'm a typical American who's cynical to the bones about legislators yet doesn't take the time to write them when I'm angry about what they've done )

An interesting entry and I see here my only real quibble (the heavy legal stuff) has already been discussed and sorted.



- Jimi X

There is, however, a difference between committing the offence and broadcasting *how* to commit the offence, which is the issue here.

Or rather isn't, as we're not.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

"..and too anologue for this Digital Age."
i think 'anologue' should be 'analogue'.
and here ends my small contribution...

I thought it was quite a good, factual, straightforward read. Others have pointed out any quibbles I myself would have had (like burning to cd after recording..)

Congratulations!

I would have picked it, but somebody beat me to it...