Legal Question in Technology Law in Virginia

Re: CD Burners

Yes, they are quite legal, and making copies of software that you own (e.g., for back-ups) is expressly permitted under federal copyright law.

Best wishes,

LDWG

Re: CD Burners

A CD burner is legal. However, you cannot make unlawful copies of CDs containing music or software.

What is an unlawful copy? An unlawful copy would be a complete copy of a CD or piece of software for resale or distribution to someone who does not own the software license.

If you own a copy of Quicken, you can make a backup copy on CD without any problems. Similarly, if you own 5 Eagles CDs you can take tracks of all 5 and make your own compiled version of your favorites. But you can't sell either of those two disks to someone else, nor can you give them away, without violating copyright laws.

I have and use a CD burner to make copies of large data files, and to make my own CDs that contain only the songs I want to listen to routinely. If one of my back up CDs gets trashed or broken, I always have the original to make another copy from.

Your parents should allow you to get a CD burner for these lawful purposes, and you should recognize that using it unlawfully hurts those who spent many years putting together their works.