Alive in Christ - CD Burning

CD Burning

Is it Biblically acceptable?

"Thou Shalt not Steal"

Should we obey the law? According to the Bible, Yes!

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is not power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God. Romans 13:1

Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. 1 Peter 2:13a

We are expected by God to obey those in authority over us. We obey all of their laws except for those that contradict God's laws.

In this case, both man's laws and God's laws agree. The artists/songwriters/composers make their living from their music. When people 'share' their recordings whether by making physical copies or making it available on a peer-to-peer network (such as Napster), the artists don't receive the royalties due them for those copies of their music. When this happens on a large scale; the sale of the artist's legitimate recordings drop; it is hard to compete with someone who is offering their music for free.

Bootlegged music is stolen music.

What about the high price of CDs? Here is a sensible compromise.

Many people download and burn because they don't want to pay the high prices for CDs. Here is a simple solution to solve the problem of high priced CDs.

Allow people to buy music downloads, for which the artist receives royalties.

Allow people to sample the music before they buy it, either by streaming it to them, or by time-limed downloadable files.

Allow people to buy only the songs they want, and not the entire album.

Allow people to burn CDs for personal use only. This would decrease the demand for professionally done CDs, forcing the recording companies to lower their prices. The artists wouldn't mind because they would sill get royalties from the downloads.

Common Sense Guidelines for Downloading and Burning Music.

Make sure that either the artist gets royalties or that the download site has a written agreement with the artists to offer their music for free.

Just because the website charges you for the music doesn't mean that it is legitimate. Make sure that the site has the proper licensing agreement with the artists.

Burn copies for personal use only. If you burn copies for friends, you'd might as well download it from one of the illegal sites, for you would still be pirating the music, and chanting the artists out of their royalties.

Making 'mixes' (combining favorite tracks from multiple CDs into one), and recording cassettes and LPs into CDs is acceptable if for personal use only.