Is this morally wrong?

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I recently got back into Killswitch Engage and am planning on listening to the two albums I had. Here is where it gets complicated though. I gave one of the albums away and pawned the other. Is it unethical if I downloaded them and listened to them or should I buy the albums again?

Then there's another question I stupidly didn't add...my dad bought some R.E.M. albums that were later pawned and I am considering also downloading those. Difference is he paid for those, not me. Is this wrong as well? Or are both fine or one justified and the other not?

I'm not sure what the laws are, but I think if you gave it away it would be okay to download it, but you should re-buy the one you sold so you're not making any money off of it. But I heard that the government can track your IP address if you go to a downloading site, and they probably wouldn't know the difference and prosecute you anyway, so be careful!

The bottom line is that downloading any music that isn't specifically offered for free, regardless of whether you've purchased it in the past, is illegal. There are no ifs ands or buts about it.

When you say you and your father "pawned" these albums, I think you mean "sold" not pawned. Pawning means you borrowed money and used what you pawned for collateral on the loan. If you pawn anything, you still own it, unless and until you do not repay the loan, for whatever reason, within the allotted time frame for repayment. It is highly unlikely that a pawn shop would loan money for a single recording, and it is very unlikely that any pawn shop would loan money for recordings that aren't highly collectable. I suspect the recordings were not pawned, but sold.

If they were actually pawned, all you would have to do, if it's not too late, is repay the loan, and you get your property back (no need to illegally download them). If they were pawned, and you did not repay the loan in time, ownership of the recordings, according to the loan agreement automatically transfers to the pawn shop. You don't get them back, and lose all rights to them. Yes, you did pay for them in the first place, but now the pawn shop has effectively paid YOU for them by virtue of the fact that you owed them money and didn't pay them back.

If they were actually sold, which is not illegal since you did pay for them in the first place and are deserving of some amount of money in exchange for them, ownership of the recording goes to the person that bought them from you, and you no longer own it. Also, the recording company and artist are not part of that deal, so they get nothing from the deal you made, but did get something once, from your initial purchase. Since you no longer own the recording, but have transfered ownership, you no longer have any rights at all to the recording, and are therefore stealing it by downloading it for free.

You, nor anyone else has any rights to the copying of that recording, ever, except (in the U.S. at least) for the exception of making a copy for your own personal purposes, as a back up for the recording you bought. If you want to get really technical, even if you recorded a CD, then sold it, you're supposed to either destroy or transfer the copy to the person you sold it to, but we all know in reality that never actually happens.

I get that your question is one of morality, and not legal, so you really have to ask yourself whether breaking the law is moral. The legality/illegality of downloading recordings that aren't specifically offered for free is really not debatable. It's illegal. Period. Is it moral? That's a different question, and in the case of pirated downloads, is a highly debatable topic.

I gave all my Manics CDs ten years ago, downloaded the ones I wanted, I see no problem with it.

Get realplayer and get them from YouTube.

It's illegal, but I personally have no moral issues whatsoever with it.

Realplayer is loaded with spyware/adware. I personally refuse to use it. Downloading copyrighted material from YouTube is also illegal. What most people don't realize is that anything anyone creates is automatically protected by copyright law. It doesn't have to be registered with the copyright offices. But again, that is a legality issue, the morality of the law is heavily debated.

Since you didn't go out and steal the album, record it and upload it to the internet and sit back and giggle as you watched people download it saying "Take that Metallica!! !! !" I don't think it really matters does it?

If you don't get caught, it doesn't matter much really. I've been reading about people right near here that have been nailed for downloading only a few songs. Seems the record companies start with threats of huge lawsuits, then offer around a $3000 settlement. From what I've been reading, most of these people just pay up or make payment arrangements. Seems all they are really trying to do is frighten the little guys from downloading, because going after the websites is far too expensive what with international law usually coming into the picture, plus the sites are bigger, and have deeper pockets.

This is why so many people scream that they are going after the fan base. If you really think about it though, why should they care? They are going after non-paying fans, right?

(Let me be perfectly honest about this, I have certain opinions about all this that I won't post online for reasons I won't go into. Let's just say I understand both sides of the issue, and I ain't saying which side I actually come down on.... I have my reasons... I'm very careful what I say and do not say...)

^ Yeah, the record companies have basically resorted to terrorist tactics. They choose someone at random who downloaded ten songs and completely ruin their life with lawsuits, just to make an example and scare people. There was a documentary about fair use law called RIP: A Remix Manifesto that told the story of a woman who got ripped to shreds by these jackholes for downloaded about a dozen songs. The documentary ends with the record companies announcing that they'll no longer go after individuals like this, but I don't trust them to stop dealing with downloading in the most horribly wrong ways possible.

It's illegal.
You have to decide how moral it is...

The world is catching up, though. Get Spotify and you can stream all the music you want (almost) for next to nothing.

Thanks for the input, but I decided against it. I have better bands than Killswitch Engage now and 50 R.E.M. songs will last for at least a year.

You should buy them again. The one that was pawned is a dead loss. If you can reasonably believe that the one you gave away generated considerable dosh for the band that they wouldn't otherwise have gotten (i.e. your friend, who would never otherwise have listened to them, went out and bought a bunch of Killswitch Engage albums or went to see them play or something) you'd have some moral grounds to download them. Or if the band themselves have stated they don't mind people stealing their music (unlikely that they'd say that publically in any case, but I know some bands have done) then again, go ahead.

Well, it is illegal to download any media not in the public domain. It isn't illegal though to buy used or discounted cds from online or in stores. You could also borrow cds from a friend and copy the music onto your computer, though this, I believe, is still technically illegal, but is less likely to be investigated compared to illegal downloading.

Morally it is stealing to illegally download music, but it's up to you to decide if that matters.

Yes, it is illegal. The only reason it is not investigated or prosecuted is because it is nigh to impossible to do so, unless it is a bulk pirating operation (if you are old enough to remember the days of pirated tapes and CD's sold in convenience stores all over the country ~ it's probably still happening with CD's, but I haven't paid much attention since the early Nineties). Private copying between friends and acquaintances is hard and too expensive to prosecute. Nailing illegal downloaders is much easier if the record companies can manage to get court orders to force file hosting companies to turn over their user lists and downloading databases.

As of sometime last year though, the biggest "hawks" after private illegal downloaders announced they would cease going after the downloaders (presumably to seek alternate ways of dealing with the problem) presumably because of the vast amounts of bad press implying they were going after the very fans of their music.