Lost Tracks

[Michael Duggan]

I purchased my Brennan B2 in late March 2021 for the purpose of saving the tracks from my extensive CD collection before their sale. Since then, I've stored just under 6.5k tracks on the B2 and have sold the relevant CDs. However, disaster struck yesterday around 8.00pm, when all the tracks disappeared from the B2!

is there any way of retrieving those files as I no longer have the CDs.

Any help and/or advice would be very gratefully received.

Regards

Mike D 

[Daniel Taylor]

What often happens in a case such as this, is that the unit switches the music source to the SD card (it usually being the HDD).  The front panel will say "Source: SD card."  Run the Use HDD command (Maintenance menu) to switch it back, and I think it reboots when it does.  You might have to run the command more than once.  Please let us know how that goes for you.  If that was not the problem, there are other things that can be done.

Once you get back to normal, I strongly suggest that you run the Export command to save a copy of all your music onto a backup disk.

[Michael Duggan]

Daniel - thanks very much for your response, but, the front panel of the B2 says 'Source: Hard Disc' and not 'Source: SD Card". Could you please elaborate on the other things to which you have referred?

[Daniel Taylor]

Try running the Scan Disk command (Settings menu).  I should have thought to mention that before.

Other than that is beyond my expertise.  There are others here who can advise you further.

[Michael Duggan]

Daniel - running the Scan Disk command restored all the tracks that I thought that I had lost! Words cannot express my sheer relief - my very grateful thanks for your kind and excellent advice!

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Mike,

This is the time to run the B2's 'Export' function to a USB device in order to secure your music collection in case of a hard disk failure either through mechanical problems or corruption. The difference between absolute happiness and abject misery is about 0.5 seconds!

Regards,

Peter.

[Mark Fishman]

>  saving the tracks from my extensive CD collection before their sale. Since then, I've stored just under 6.5k tracks on the B2 and have sold the relevant CDs.

I do not know what country you live in. Here in the USA, and probably also in the UK, what you buy when you purchase a CD is the physical disc and a license to listen to the music it contains for as long as you have physical possession of the disc. If you sell, give away, destroy, or throw out the physical disc, you no longer have a license to the music it contained.

The copyright holder is not selling you the right to make a copy and then pass the disc along to someone else to enjoy. Whether you obtain money or not when you dispose of the physical disc, you are no longer entitled to retain a copy of the music it contained.

Think of it like a book: you can read it, or lend it, or re-sell it, but if someone else has it, YOU CANNOT ALSO HAVE IT.

The purpose of the B2 is to make playing and listening to your music more convenient than juggling discs. The B2 is not supposed to be a vehicle to enable theft of intellectual property. When you sold your CDs, legally you should have deleted the ripped copies.

I hate copy-protected discs (and software), and people who try to eat their cake and have it, too, are just encouraging copyright holders to employ ever-more-annoying technological methods to protect themselves from theft.

Feh.

[PMB]

Hi Mike,

Running Scan Disk generates an internal database (called b2db) of the music stored on the B2. The B2 then uses this database to locate and play your music. It sounds like b2db may have been corrupted or something else upset it, so the B2 was unable to see your music.

As Peter suggests, do run a backup (Export to C) at your earliest convenience.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Michael Duggan]

As this Forum has been established to discuss technical aspects of the use of Brennan equipment and to help resolve problems that Brennan owners have with their equipment, I’m sure that it shouldn’t be the arena for discussing the legal & moral aspects of copying music from CDs onto other devices or media - not least because the issues at stake constitute a legal & moral quagmire!

However, it would be wrong to just ignore your comments without, at least, offering some alternative facts and views. I can’t speak to the position in the USA, but the following comments do refer to the position in the UK. 

On 1 October 2014, the private copying exception was introduced in the UK by way of the Copyright and Rights in Performance (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations; this private copying exception allowed consumers to copy works covered by copyright from one device to another. So, individuals could copy songs from CDs or purchased downloads, bought or gifted, onto other devices and to store them in the cloud; provided that these copies were only for personal use and not for any commercial ends, including copies to friends & family, no permission was required from the rightsholders. The exception continued to apply whether the original CD was sold, given away or destroyed - the requirement that you describe as applying in the USA that, if you part company with the CD in any way, you could no longer access the digital copy was not replicated in these UK regulations.

However, following a Judicial Review filed against the Government, the High Court quashed these regulations on 17 July 2015; in response, the Government stated that it would take time to consider whether and how a new exception for private copying should be introduced, but, to date, has declined to do so. The principal reason for the High Court’s actions was that, unlike its EU member state counterparts, the UK did not include any provision in the regulations for some form of ‘fair compensation’ payments, e.g. levies, taxes or charges on media or devices that enable copying, to be shared amongst rightsholders.

All this has left the position for all those who use any devices such as Brennans in a ridiculous position; strictly speaking, copying any music from CDs onto any devices without the permission of the rightsholders is a breach of copyright! So, what you are advocating is, in effect, a ban on the use of Brennans and other similar devices except for those users who contact every artist for permission to copy their songs from CDs!

Personally, I’m in favour of the restoration in law of the private copying exception together with a ‘fair compensation’ arrangement as is common throughout the EU.

Finally, we have to bear in mind the current environmental crisis when considering what to do with massive CD collections like my own, which have to be reduced because of the need for de-cluttering prior to moving home; it’s obvious that the best choice for the planet is for these CDs to be recycled for use by others rather than destroyed or even more new CDs produced. I sell my CDs for much reduced prices to the likes of Music Magpie and Ziffit, who sell them on to other music-lovers - in my opinion, the best possible way for the music on these CDs to continue to be appreciated.

In the absence of a sensible legal framework for private copying, I think that, although far from perfect, what I’m doing is better than effectively outlawing the use of Brennans & similar devices and adding to pollution by destroying CDs!

On Monday, August 9, 2021 at 10:15:11 PM UTC+1 Mark Fishman wrote:

[Mark Fishman]

Thank you for taking the time to clarify the current position of UK law. In order to protect Brennan (the company) and other users, perhaps you should stop mentioning what you have done or plan to do with CDs you rip, and stick to discussing the hardware.

As I understand the de facto position of the copyright holders -- some of which are clearly simply greedy b*st*rds feeding off the work of others, e.g., some record companies vis a vis their contractual obligations to their artists, but which seems irrelevant to their legal rights (if not their moral ones) -- while they would *prefer* that you buy downloadable copies of everything you want to carry around on, say, a phone or music player, if you've bought one copy (say, a CD), they are willing to overlook how you actually listen, as long as it's the same person listening as the one who bought. What they reallly want is that one royalty is paid for each person who has a right to listen to the music.

In practice, this means that if you resell, or give away, the CD, since no additional royalty accrues to the copyright holder (or artist), the number of people who have a "right" to listen to that music should remain the same.

A parallel is that the folks who sell e-books allow you to lend them for a limited time, during which you don't have access, and after whch the person who borrowed loses access. And you can't include DRM-protected content in your will! Physical books have a different protection: the copyright holder has the right of "first sale", after which you can do what you like with the physical book -- except make multiple copies to transfer to others.

There's at least one radio library in Canada that was not allowed to sell or give away their LP and CD collection when downsizing premises, and had to destroy the entire collection in order to remain legal. I agree that this represents an environmental hazard, and a tremendous loss of value to others. Under the current legal framework, though, your need to de-clutter doesn't override the copyright holders right to decide what happens to their intellectual property.

Let's all just avoid the topic entirely, shall we? Don't tell, and we won't ask...