My friend's reaction when he saw my entirely legal iTunes library

*then

According to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copying the music files from the CD onto another storage device (your computer) counts as burning the files, and so copying them and breaking their related copyright rules - regardless of if you own the physical CDs. It's the copying of the files that's illegal, not the method of ownership. So it is illegal to import them.

I completed collage before 1988 (Don't look at me, I know I'm old), so of course the entire world has changed. ...sigh...

Haha, don't worry - I had to learn this (and a whole list of other boringly named and dull Internet-related acts) for my iGCSEs. And of course useless titbits like this have stayed firmly lodged in my memory, even though I haven't needed the information since May!