Music is generally owned by the creator or music label, so it's not legal to copy or sell.

Even if it's not on cd the rights are still owned by somebody else, you would really have to check on each individual song about ownership.

I'm afraid it's definitely not, KS. It's one of the most blatant breaches of copyright imaginable.

Copyright law, for the most part, is civil law, not criminal law (there are some exceptions to this, though) so it's probably "getting sued" that's the realistic potential legal problem here, rather than "getting prosecuted". The point is that what he's doing is breaching the copyrights of the copyright holders of the older, vinyl/tape versions from which he's reproducing the CD's.

This doesn't, of course, actually answer the question you asked. But the answer to that question depends on the terms of service of the sites/businesses through whom he wants to advertise it online, and what their policies are when someone advertising is breaching third party civil law rights. It's never a trivial question. The reality is that some people/companies care about it and others don't.

I'm not a lawyer, nor even available to play one on TV (but will play a judge if the fee's right).

Alexa,

Thanks for the response.

Honestly, you will make a good "Virtual" Lawyer apart from being an established writer.

Limewire was shut down for doing exactly what you are suggesting...it's theft.plain and simple...nothing to debate...sell em, you will be in deep doo-doo!

If you live in a country which is not signatory to any international copyright agreement, it may be legal. But check with an attorney specialising in such matters.

Tuvalu and Somalia come to mind. There's a reason so many pirate sites are on .tv domains, you know.

Not sure if this is a profitable business anyway. How many songs can't be found in MP3 online witt some or little effort?

Every country has it own copyright laws. In the uk, the copyright of a price of literature is generally 50 years from the end of the calendar yeAr after it was created. This happened recently with a lot of Elvis material, and cliff Richard has recently tried to intervene to prevent copyright loss on his own material. Some countries it is 75 years and others 120 years. I do believe though at copyright and ownership are different, and the soundtrack, even though you have paid for it, generally remains the property of the studio it was released under and it's predecessors.

As already mentioned though, are these studios willing to follow a trail of booty material to Nigeria and take legal action? Probably not. I cant see sir elton John swimming the Niger delta to chase up unpaid royalties.