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Ideas for extra income: can clutter be my friend ?

June 25th, 2009 at 04:19 pm

I have a considerable amount of cds that I could get rid of once I convert all the music I want to keep into mp3s, and hard bound text books and paperbacks that I can do without. So I am leaning towards selling them. Would it be illegal to burn mp3s and then sell the cds? Will I get into trouble with the music police?

Also, have you guys any experience with the craigslist or amazon selling your 2nd hand stuff?

I also have some household items that are only taking up space. Hopefully getting rid of clutter will turn into some extra income. Who knew de-cluttering could be potentially inspiring?

5 Responses to “Ideas for extra income: can clutter be my friend ?”

  1. milehighgal Says:
    1245943793

    I sell books on Amazon, craigslist for pretty much everything else, but I live in a large city. I haven't used ebay in a few years, not worth the hassle and I've got burned once too many times by all the scammers on there. Ofcourse you can sell your old cd's, there are still record stores in Denver that will give you money for them, might be worthwhile to check in your city. Otherwise, I'd put them up on craigslist.

  2. ceejay74 Says:
    1245947905

    We cleared out about three-quarters of our books last year...maybe 750 or so? It was a LOT.

    I recommend Half.com for selling books. It's very well explained and I had no trouble figuring out their system. Best of all, it shows you whether that type of book in that condition has sold recently and how much it went for. I usually slightly undercut the last-sold-for price and it usually goes. Note: If they haven't sold a copy of the book recently, it probably won't sell. I've got listings that are almost a year old that I just keep there because I'm lazy. Smile
    Books that won't make you much more than a couple bucks, take to a used-books store. Books they reject, save for your next yardsale or give to a charity.

    Half.com charge a commission when you make a sale but they also reimburse you a bit for shipping. Ship via media mail and it usually comes it at about what they give you for shipping.

    CDs you might try pawn shops, but I'm always lazy and go to the Cheapo record store; they don't give you a ton of money but it's easy. My husband does eBay but I don't really get it; though I did sell some antique/rare books there when I was clearing mine out.

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1245950470

    Half.com is great for used books. There are also local used book stores that will buy your books...although probably less than half.com. There area also sites like cash4books dot net and booksintocash dot com. On these websites you enter the isbn and they offer you cash for the book. They pay for the shipping with a label you print out. You just box them up and wait for a check. I've used both of the above sites and had no problem getting my check. I think they might take cds too. Or there may be other sites to do that.

  4. Broken Arrow Says:
    1245957965

    Does burning mp3, then selling the original CDs constitute as illegal pirating? What an interesting question! Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but as a guy who has seen episodes of Law & Order, I suppose it could be.

    Because, technically, it comes down to having ownership of the intellectual property. And if you sell the CDs, you are no longer the owner. And if you are no longer, you technically don't have the rights to copies (which if MPAA had their way, we wouldn't have any copies, regardless of ownership).

    But you know though? Presumably, they've already made their money from you, so, I personally wouldn't worry about something like this. It's not like you out-right ripped it off the internet without paying a dime.

  5. baselle Says:
    1246598356

    I'm not a lawyer, but I think that if you bought the CDs, made the copy, then sold the CDs, that all comes under "fair use", especially if you listen to them privately. There's intellectual property argument, but there's also the physical property argument.

    I did the same thing. Actually, I'm wayyyy more wicked than that. I take out CDs from the library, (allowed to under fair use), burn a single copy, then return CD to the library. They say Leavenworth Kansas (Fed prison) is nice this time of year.

    Now if you share your copy on a peer-to-peer site and/or broadcast them and charge money for the privilege you'll be in trouble.

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