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I do not know why, but yes I do, that I have to teach school over and over again when it comes to the basic mechanics associated with research. So, here goes again.

Under U.S. Copyright Law, "ANY" person may reproduce anything for personal educational purposes.

And additionally, these days, every major college music library allows any student to take an old album, and with their audio transfer equipment, make a flash drive version for you to take home and burn a CD.

Just to clarify, Louis - that is absolutely false; under U.S. Copyright Law, there is absolutely no exemption whatsoever for what you call "personal educational purposes" except to the extent of copying "a small part" of a borrowed work, and never, for example, to copying an entire edition (which would obviously defeat the entire purpose of copyright) unless the library "has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that a copy or phonorecord of the copyrighted work cannot be obtained at a fair price." Beyond that, portions of copyrighted works may also be copied in the context of possible fair use, but only if certain criteria are met. So, no, "ANY" person may not reproduce "anything" for personal use, educational or otherwise.

Granted that copyright law is often honored more in the breach than the observance, and there are likely billions of people who are not entirely guiltless of the odd infringement, could you at least please stop pretending that your assertion is actually true.



Section 108 of the Copyright Law allows libraries to reproduce and distribute additional copies of an original item but only under some very specific circumstances, and prohibits anything that could be construed as the general distribution of such secondary copies (absent a written contract from the copyright owner specifically allowing it). The law, though, does allow libraries to avoid possible liability for this if they display a warning notice that the recipient of the copy may be subject to the copyright law, thus passing the buck for compliance to the user. You could, therefore, conceivably make a CD of a complete copyrighted album, but it wouldn't really be yours to keep past the lending period any more than it would be for a borrowed book.

Your characterization of what I posted is 100% misleading, and then some.

I, nor no one who is serious about researching a particular piece, has any reason to be "AFRAID" of being put in handcuffs for violating the U.S. Copyright laws when it comes to reproducing a specific piece.

The OP's goal was to get material, assuming that he/she is not going to play the entire Chopin repertoire, from specific works.

Okay, find me a section of the U.S. Copyright Laws that says that they cannot do that for "educational purposes.