[Anchoragite]

As long as I am not (directly) charging people for the performance, then there is no problem.

That's not what the copyright law says. The recordings are sold for private use only, no public performance, same as videotapes.

How about if I rented a DVD and showed the movie at my coffee house or bar? "Come see free movies every night!" I could say. And I'd make more money, because people who wouldn't come to buy my coffee WILL come to see a movie and THEN buy my coffee.

It doesn't matter whether you're directly charging for the product or not. You're enhancing your profits by using someone else's work. If you don't like their work, or think it's too much, do the capitalist thing and turn it off.

[Servant of the Nine]

The recordings are sold for private use only, no public performance, same as videotapes.

If I am privately listening to my music at work am I expected to afirmatively prevent others from easedropping?

This is preposterous bullsh!t on a level with the International Olympic Comittee using their copyright on the word "Olympic" to shut down Greek restaurants that have the word in the title. These are perhaps correct in law, but they are laws that need changing.

So9

[FreeTally]

If no one is "publically" playing the music, they are never going to sell it in the first place, making the entire "profiting from its performance" notion a circular argument.

Sheesh.