While telling a co-worker how I managed to listen to my private *.ogg music files, I was asked if my music collection was “legal?” Having never spent much attention or time trying to understand what the music industry’s peeve with music swappers, I started to think out loud what the answer should be to his question. The logic I used was as follows:

All of my current music files were originally encoded from my own, store-bought CDs… I have pretty much gotten away with keeping the real CDs at home because [lengthy explanation followed here]… and decided to keep a digitized copy stored in one of my many external hard drives. Following the fact that I legally own my CDs, I can only assume that the answer to your question is:Yes, my current music collection ISlegal!!!

Now, if I were to take one of my own store-bought CDs and gave it away to a friend while still retaining my digitized copy, does that make me violate any copyright law concerning to the music industry? Does it mean that I never actually own the CD (for I cannot do as I please with it)?