"Richard Wall" wrote in message
...
Dear Simon
Is it legal, in the UK ? No but you are unlikely to be prosecuted for
copying your own albums for personal use

snip

I can remember some years ago the music industry attempted to prosecute
somebody in court for recording vinyl albums they'd brought onto cassette
tape for listening to while in their car. The music industry was arguing
that you had to but the music in two different formats if you wanted to
listen to vinyl at home but tape in the car. What they were effectively
saying was you had to pay twice for the same music. This was despite the
fact that you pay a tax for royalties when purchasing blank cassette tapes
and these days the same tax for the blank CD-R's specifically marked for
audio copying.
I watched this case with interest and the judgement went against the music
industry. It was decreed that you were indeed allowed to copy music for your
own use if you had paid and still held the original copy. This was stated at
the time that the payment of the tax on the cassette tape had in fact paid
the royalties for the additional copy. If you ever disposed of the original
copy then you're obliged to also destroy or dispose of the copies with the
original copy.

Stephen