lala.com - What a Great Idea! (And It Works)
A few weeks ago I signed up for a service on the web that struck me as elegantly simple, sensible, useful, and fun…if it worked. I’m happy to report that the anwer to that multiple choice quiz is “all of the above.”
lala.com acts as a middleman between people who would like to trade their old CDs for new ones. You start out by listing any CDs you own that you would be willing to trade. The only catch is that they have to be ones that are already in the lala.com database, but they have nearly everything anyone would have heard of and are adding more all the time. Then you choose CDs that you would like to have from the same huge database. Once you’ve got everything set up, the lala folks send you a supply of postage-paid envelopes and CD clamshells. Then the magic begins.
The service matches your “have” list with the “want” list of others. When a match is made, you get an email. When you respond you are given the address of the person wanting your CD, which you fill in on the prepaid envelope. You then put the CD in the envelope and drop it in any USPS mail drop. Once you begin sending out CDs you accumulate “karma points” which make it more likely that your want list will be matched with other’s have lists. Basically, the more you give, the more you get. For each CD you receive from your want list, you are charged just $1.75 ($1 + 75 cents postage/handling, and 20% of that goes as a royalty to the artist!). By the way, all this is perfectly legal, since you are free to sell or trade your CDs to others.
Within the first two weeks I received five CDs (all of them “oldies” that I used to have on vinyl that was stolen from me years ago). It’s great fun to get these goodies in the mail box! And since I burn new CDs I receive to my computer, I have little interest in keeping them, so I cycle them immediately back into my “have” list so the trading goodness will keep on going. This is the most fun and easiest method for quickly getting new music (that’s legal) that I’ve run across.
And if you decide you’d like to join and would like to help me out, email me first (trappermark AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll send you an invite. If you join through my invite, I get a sweet lala.com t-shirt!
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March 15th, 2007 at 1:15 am
This seems like a great idea. I think I’ll sign up. I love that the artist is getting royalties from used cd trades. I don’t want to be a morality cop, but don’t you think it is at least an ethical gray area to burn a copy and then trade it? You no longer own that album and have someone else’s cd copied on your HD. Maybe I am not clear on the laws.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:07 am
That’s a valid question. My understanding is that once you take possession of the physical media, you are allowed to burn a copy for your own use. I’ve never heard that you are under obligation to destroy that copy if you then sell or trade the media. Anyone else more knowledgeable of that law?
March 15th, 2007 at 7:56 am
I’m pretty sure that Jed is right, but IANAL. This is certainly what the RIAA would say.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I did a little bit of research online this morning, and all I am is more confused. It seems the law is far from clear concerning the life of electronic copies for personal use of purchased music. It is very clear that it is illegal for me to give or sell electronic copies to anyone else, but not so clear on whether I have a lifetime right to electronic copies of music that I purchased in the past regardless of whether or not I still possess the original.
From digitalproducer.com:
“…if there are laws, rules, guidelines, or ethical considerations governing the copying of music–even for private use–few users are aware of what those laws are and how they can or should be applied.
“What is right and what is wrong? What types of copying are permissible and what are not? The answer–no surprise–depends on who you ask.”
The RIAA’s official website is a masterwork of non-information. It’s simply a PR outlet for the organization’s image, with no real answers to the questions we’re all asking.
All I can find out so far with any consistency is that if I purchase a CD legally (and purchasing used CDs is legal), and the CD has no manufacture-placed copying restriction on it, then I may make one digital copy for each playback device that I own and (it appears) keep that copy for as long as I own that device. There are lots of websites proclaiming opinions on the law as to selling or giving away the digital copy, but I can find almost nothing directly addressing the issue of a digital copy from a CD that I once had in my possession but no longer do. There are a lot of bloggers and forum posters agonizing over a scenario where the RIAA comes down on you and you have to prove that you (at some time) purchased the music on your hard drive.
In other words, the short story: it’s a nightmare for which no one seems to have a clear answer.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Speaking from intuition, it seems that if A burns a copy then traded the CD to B, who burned a copy and traded it to C, who burned a copy and traded to D, there could theoretically be dozens of electronic copies of the music, whereas the recording company would have only gotten paid for the original CD.
Not to be too pharisaical or anything, but it seems like someone’s getting gypped.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:29 am
In principle what you are saying makes sense, I have to admit. I’m sure the RIAA would see it your way!
March 15th, 2007 at 9:34 am
David, that was my first instinct. I signed up for lala.com and think it will be a lot of fun. However, if everyone is keeping digital copies of the music they like and then trading the original copy, it seems to work exactly like a fileshare, only in this case much slower. I also looked around a little and could not find any direct law that addresses selling original copies of music while retaining a copy. My guess is that if the reverse is illegal, technically so is this. Another way to think about it is that when I sell my original copy, I no longer own it, someone else does and I have a copy of their record on my computer. That’s only true if there is some sort of spiritual bond between the copy and the original. Thinking about it makes the whole thing absurd. I’m going on the instinct that my inner joy at the thought “free music!” (or next to free) is not a good sign.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Still a good deal, though, if you have plenty of old CDs you are willing to trade but do without whatever digital copies you might have made. So the net effect is that you are not increasing your personal music library, just increasing your opportunities to hear different music.
There is nothing that I can find about this issue on the lala site itself. I would suspect they’ve adopted a “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy on this. They merely facilitate a legal trade; what you do with the CDs after you receive them is not their business or concern.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:21 am
“I’m going on the instinct that my inner joy at the thought “free music!†(or next to free) is not a good sign.”
March 15th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Gary North’s First Universal Law of Economics: TANSTAAFL
(There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)