Whether you are making one or two copies to give to friends, or 50 copies to sell at the flea market , it is illegal. When you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material for any reason whatsoever, you are in violation of the law. These illegal copies are what industry insiders refer to as pirates or pirate copies. With the advent of the recordable CD , Pirates are soon going to be the record label nemesis. In 1996 pirate music CDs were virtually unknown.
Today there are millions worldwide.
As they can now be made by anyone with a few hundred dollars investment, they are going to quickly overtake the counterfeit as the public enemy No. 1 for the major labels. When you hear the term ' counterfeit money ' you automatically know that we are talking about something so illegal as to warrant prison time for those who perpetrate the crime. It is no less an illegal activity to counterfeit copyrighted material such as a data or music CD or tape. As with counterfeit money, the term counterfeit refers to the exact duplication of an item. Exact down to the cover artwork, song titles printed on the cassette, etc. etc.