CNet has posted a good read on what you can and cannot legally do with the music that you purchase online or in-store. It was surprising to me that if you want to back up to cassettes, the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 makes an explicit exemption for cassette backups. But it doesn’t apply to backing up your collection to a computer. Which means, if you rip your collection to your computer and then upload to any of the various portable music players or backup to a CD you are performing an illegal copyright act. This is under the strictest interpretation of U.S. copyright law. There are exceptions such as iTunes, which encourages you to make as many custom CDs as you’d like - as long as the playlist changes.

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