There is no legal prohibition against copying music for personal use, even when it means changing to a different media. You may be thinking of one of two other issues:
- The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (one of the worse laws passed recently) makes it illegal to try to circumvent the copy protection on digital music. So you can buy a copy-protected CD, but not be allowed to copy it. You can possess a copy, you just can't make the copy, because to make the copy you'd have to circumvent the copy protection.
- The Harry Fox Agency licenses mechanical reproduction rights for people who want to reproduce and distribute copyrighted music in a new medium. For example, Supreme Audio gets licenses from HFA to sell MP3s of square dance records. However, this is not an issue if you are only going to keep the copies personally, and doesn't affect the right to perform them. From what I can tell, people who have claimed otherwise in the past regarding square dance callers making MP3s of records they own are simply wrong.
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- The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (one of the worse laws passed recently) makes it illegal to try to circumvent the copy protection on digital music. So you can buy a copy-protected CD, but not be allowed to copy it. You can possess a copy, you just can't make the copy, because to make the copy you'd have to circumvent the copy protection.
- The Harry Fox Agency licenses mechanical reproduction rights for people who want to reproduce and distribute copyrighted music in a new medium. For example, Supreme Audio gets licenses from HFA to sell MP3s of square dance records. However, this is not an issue if you are only going to keep the copies personally, and doesn't affect the right to perform them. From what I can tell, people who have claimed otherwise in the past regarding square dance callers making MP3s of records they own are simply wrong.