technically yes. but they cant possibly prosecute that. the "personal use" is fine its when you start distributing, either in person or on the net, that they get mad

no. it wouldnt even be illegal to specifically give your friend the cd for the purpose of copying it. it isn't illegal to share music among close friends, it is illegal to make it available for free or sale into your own pocket to masses you dont even know. check out your local copyright laws, but i am sure they are in favor of sharing music. i personally have acquired about 5gb of music by swapping with my friends.

No, though the RIAA would want you to think it is.

Yes!!! I have noticed that most people on the site give erroneous advice dealing with copyright law, so I will explain in some detail. First, the act of copying the CD for personal backup is legal ONLY if the CD does not have any form of copy protection on. The fair use exception is quite narrow, but it does allow copying a CD for personal backup. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection for any reason. Many CD’s are copy protected (even though computers often don’t recognize the protection), and many others are not. Even if your CD was not copy protected, you violated copyright law when you gave the CD to a friend. The fair use doctrine allows you to make a copy for personal use. When you gave that copy to a friend while retaining the original, you have now distributed a copy, which is illegal. FYI: the inverse would be true as well. If you gave your friend the original while retaining the copy, you would still be violating the law. If you never made a copy and loaned the CD to your friend, this is completely legal. The first sale doctrine gives you the right to dispose of your legal copy (i.e. the original) in any manner you see fit. This includes lending it out. However, if you lend it to your friend and he makes a copy, then he is violating copyright law. One more thing, if you lend the CD to a friend with the knowledge that he intends to copy it, you could be guilty of “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.” However a “conspiracy” charge is part of criminal law, not copyright law.