The legal problem is that you can pop in a friend's CD, rip it to the music box, then give the CD back to the legal owner. It has nothing to do with illegal downloads.

 

I had my music box full, loved it. I understand why they are doing away from it but it was a nice feature. No Ipod, phone or any crap to carry with you or to keep charged etc. Just nice and handy once you had the music loaded. Set it on random and go. That is a feature I really miss from the G.

 

Wow, I had no idea they got rid of it....I've got an 08 and though I don't use it much, I run across an old cd every once in a while and it does come in handy.

 

It was a HUGE copyright infringement thing as G37Jeff eluded too....it would have cost Infiniti millions to continue with it..

 

yep. very disappointed i dont have music box on my 2013 ipl. Thats part of the reason why i sold my tl, to get my dream car. They said, usb, blue tooth is the new wave,

 

iPod use is no different. My classic 160 GB iPod is half-full, mostly with my own CDs, but also with some from the public library and others from friends.

With about 80 gigs of music and books on CD, I've never used the Music Box in my '08. For those without an iPod, however, I can understand how it would be missed in the newer models.

 

the only thing thats crap bout infiniti's stereo system is that when you try to browse through folders, it will stop playing the song you're listening to.

 

I dont know what kind of copyright problems they had because there are a bunch of current cars that still have it, THE Acura TL does, and im pretty sure a bunch of American cars aswell. It was a great feature, had over 90 discs burned into it and goin to be so sad that in possible a few days ( when the Q50 comes out) I will lose them all AGAIN, yes I had them all ripped into my 2007 G35 before my 2010 G37, it was the feature I was most hoping would continue as i do not have a IPOD and the BT connectivity for audio on the G37 wasnt that great. I Guess i may have to invest in a refurb ipod or just get another 32gb card because the Q50 has a SD slot and a USB if i remember correctly from whn i drove it 2 months ago. We shall see

 

Would burning a legitimate music CD onto your PC for personal use also be considered a copyright infringement?

 

Thanks to everyone for their replies to my question. (I was the person who made the original post).

As to the copyright issue, I'm a lawyer, and it's my understanding that under the "fair use" doctrine, you can make one copy of a CD for your personal use. That's why it's ok to burn a CD on to your home computer for your personal use (not for file sharing obviously). I don't know why burning a CD to your car would be any different.

As to the "just burn your CDs to your iPhone or iPod" response, this is a big burden when you have many old CDs. And, even if you've burned them on to your device, then you've got to mess around with the iPhone or iPod in the car to listen to it. Much easier just to have the music on your music box.

I think this was a big mistake by Infiniti to do away with this.

 

Merged the 2 identical threads and removed redundant posts. In the future, please only post a thread topic once, not multiple threads in different forums.

 

Sounds like your salesman didn't have a real reason and just bs'ed that excuse up. You'd think Infiniti would consider the legal aspect involved before releasing a certain spec. Have you not seen how many disclaimers they have in the owners manual? It's like every other line.

 

As a (retired) lawyer (with no patent/copyright experience), I agree with you that "fair use" allows the burning of one's own CDs to the music box with no copyright infringement issues.

As an iPod user, I disagree with you regarding the difficulty of maintaining an iPod library in the car. Sure, all your CDs have to be burned to your computer in iTunes. That however is a one-time task, especially if you use an external hard drive. From your iTunes library, depending on the size of your iPod, you can load all or a selection of your CDs effortlessly. The iPod sits in the car, out of sight, in its own compartment and all your CDs are displayed on the navigation screen, allowing you to scroll through to find the CD you wish to hear. Also, tunes can be played randomly, or even alphabetically, by song title. It really is easy, once the intial creation of the iPod library has been done. I'm not sure how different "messing" around with the iPod is from selecting tunes and artists from Music Box folders, but reading this thread leads me to believe that using the MB is more complicated. And, the cable connection to the iPod in the car charges the iPod when the car is running.

 

I really don't use my music box. I think its a pretty cool feature, but its not very user friendly. It's a painstaking process to add and remove music. Also the music cataloging is so basic; you have to skip through every song/album sequentially. Music is much easier to manage via an external device, unfortunately.

 

Just in response to the posting by Lije Bailey, I'm glad you agree with me that it is not really a copyright issue.

As to the ease of use, I found burning a CD, and then using the music box, very easy. Burning my entire library of old CDs onto my computer, then on to my iPod or iPhone, then connecting the device, then using the library from the device in the car, I don't find easy or a user friendly process. But that's a personal preference I suppose. I just wish Infiniti had kept the music box, and see no good reason that they did not.