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Loading CD onto iPod

Good Morning,

I was wondering whether you can help me. I recently became aware that there might be an issue with me loading my iPod with cd’s that my mother buys. My mother buys these cd’s with intentions that they be for her grandchildren (my kids) and me as well. Being that I am an only child and my parents have no one else in her house that would be listening to them either am I allowed to share her cd’s? Thank you for your time.

Answer:

This is fine. If a CD is bought for “a family” there is no problem with a number of family members using the same CD and transferring them to an iPod or other medium.

There is obviously no expectation that each child of a family should buy a separate CD for this purpose, and the same applies for the matter of the question.

Best wishes.

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2 Comments

  1. There are poskim that disagree with this. Their reasoning being that what you purchased is 1 “use”. Using it for yourself, even if you copy onto your ipod, computer, etc, still constitutes 1 use, being that it is just for your convenience so as to have that one use available in different locations. But, sharing with family members, each of which would have available use at any time is against the terms and intent of sale. I myself do not know what to do because I know that different poskim disagree. I would love to see and read thru a copy of the copyright. I don’t know where to get though

    1. Correct, there is a machlokes about this. nowadays however when the overwhelming majority of people are not listening to the music from the actual CD, but from an MP3 player or other devices. Especially that many of the copies of the music is bought by downloading it online or from music stores, it is understood that a person is going to copy it to other media in his possesion, and not going to by two downloads.

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