MSN.com has a slide show on 100 ways to save money in 2013. There are a lot of good ways to save money but the one on slide 18 is not good. It recommends not paying for music
If you're a music junkie, you probably download the latest and greatest songs from iTunes without a second thought. A dollar here and another couple of bucks there add up quickly. Go to the library and burn CDs for free instead. (No, it's not lame. It's hip. We promise.) Depending upon your addiction, you could save hundreds of dollars each year.
If we take this statement at face value, it sounds like they're suggesting that you borrow CDs from the library, rip them, and return them. I hope that this is not the case, because they're suggesting that you break the law. Downloading songs from iTunes is called buying the songs, and copying them from CDs borrowed from the library is called stealing the songs.
Most of the music available today is protected by copyright, which means that copying the music outside of the licensing terms is illegal. Borrowing a CD from the library, listening to it, and returning it is perfectly legal. Copying the songs is not.
Now, there is a service called Freegal that is marketed by Library Ideas LLC. They offer services to libraries, one of which is digital-rights-management-free downloads. The corporate site doesn't have much information about the pricing, but allegedly the most generous of the plans is three songs per week, and only of Sony titles. So, if you like Sony artists, then you can theoretically snag about 20 albums' worth of songs, if your library subscribes to the service, which is quite expensive. From what I can tell, it's tantamount to block-buying single digital copies of songs from a service similar to iTunes and then giving them to you. In any case, this service is a far cry from saving “hundreds of dollars each year.”
There may also be public-domain works available, which are not copyrighted, but these are the exception rather than the rule. Top 40 for the 19th century, maybe.
There are lots of ways to listen to music cheaply without stealing it. Used CDs can go for about the price of two songs on iTunes. YouTube has lots of endorsed videos with new music. (As well as some that are not endorsed, but that ultimately is the choice of the owner whether they go after the person posting the video or not. PSY decided consciously not to pursue copyright violations. Oppa Gangnam Style, anyone?) My wife loves Spotify; it's her new source for music while she writes. She finds the premium subscription worth the money.
If this seems holier-than-thou, then consider how much you like listening to good music. The musician spends years, and lots of money, working on their craft. In addition, they'll spend months (at least), and more money, putting together an album. For most, this is before they see their first dime. If the musician or author wants to give away copies of their music, or use a pay-what-you-want model for selling their albums, that's their choice. But ripping their music and denying them a royalty isn't the way to encourage them to write more.
Until copyright becomes a non-issue, copying copyrighted music isn't a good money-saving tip. It's just wrong.
Perhaps they are suggesting to listening to music either on the radio or a Pandora like service. I will never believe Microsoft would advocate copyright infringement.
LK: I didn’t get that impression at all. They use the phrase “burn CDs for free”. That doesn’t say to me “listen to either an analog or digital streaming service”.
Did you see the big Instagram hullaballo? There was a meme that said, “oh, so stealing music is okay but once someone wants to steal your crappy pictures, then you get upset”
Right. A general rule is that it’s copyrighted by the very fact that it’s published. The person creating the song / picture / words / whatever retains the rights to its use by default.
I’m not a huge music fan – I’m the person who subscribes to satellite radio so I can listen to more talk radio (boring, right?) – but I cracked up when you wrote “Top 40 for the 19th century.” That’s how I operate on my Kindle – I download all the books that were written pre-1937 for free!
Just a quick comment: Some works between 1923 and 1937 may still be copyrighted if the owner renewed the copyright. But if you got them to your Kindle then they’re probably fine.