See... I told you so....
Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use
RIAA suing citizen for copying legally purchased CDs to PC - Engadget
I've heard that this may be a misterpretation, that the RIAA is suing the guy for copying the music AND putting in a folder that was "shared" via a P2P program (not just "shared" on a local network like the "my shared music" folder on a PC)
However, the story is still alive and well on the internet, and anything that is bad press for the RIAA is good for everyone else.
** UPDATE **
Ok, the gig is up.... the RIAA stops short of stating it believes "personal" use copies are fully legal, but nothing in any RIAA lawsuit actually charges someone with making personal copies on a PC or iPod.
Not that they don't want to, and some record companies have in the past said ripping a CD was infringement, but the RIAA is smart enough to give up on that issue. They're assholes, not idiots.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9839897-1.html
** CORRECTION **
The WashingtonPost Issues an official correction.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
RIAA suing citizen for copying legally purchased CDs to PC
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RIAA Goes After "Personal Use" Doctrine
01.02.08
No longer content to sue MP3-downloading students, now the industry is targeting customers who rip purchased CDs to their computers.
by John C. Dvorak
We've all read about the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), its recently acquired taste for blood, and its quest to sue every student and grandma in the country for downloading MP3s. After a few years of constant subpoenas and news coverage, it finally seemed as if this effort was petering out. But now the RIAA has a new angle: Sue people who rip tracks from purchased CDs onto their computers. The implications are far-reaching and dangerous.
Suing customers for ripping CDs is an attack against fair use that, if successful, would reverse legal precedents and give some momentum to the slow effort to eliminate all consumer recording devices. This would include VCRs, CD burners, DVD burners, DVRs, and even copying machines.
While the likelihood of any of this happening is low, the various industry trade associations, with the probable exception of the consumer electronics manufacturing associations, are praying for it. The RIAA and the MPAA in particular are grasping for some way to make it difficult or impossible for us to reproduce copyrighted content, even for our own use.
Instead of finding some way to benefit from easy copying, these two associations and the companies they represent honestly believe that clogging the American legal system with John Doe nuisance lawsuits will somehow put an end to piracy—the definition of which is ever growing. The RIAA and MPAA now define piracy as buying their product and listening to it or watching it off your computer's hard drive rather than from the CD- or DVD-ROM drawer.
Their argument is that when you rip a CD to your hard drive, you have made an illegal copy. And while it is convenient for you to do this—you can listen to a lot of different songs without swapping CDs, or you can even (gasp!) load songs onto your MP3 player—it is technically an unauthorized copy. They see it as illegal and actionable.
If you think this is a joke, read up on the case against Jeffrey Howell, who has been accused by the RIAA of transferring 2,000 songs to his computer from CDs that he bought.
This sort of suit, besides costing Howell real money simply to mount a defense, is a crapshoot. And on the off chance that the RIAA wins, its new partner, the MPAA, could take things to a further extreme by going after TiVos and DVD burners with crapshoot lawsuits of its own. While these seem like ridiculous targets, they are indeed targets, especially TiVos and DVRs.
The irony here is that years ago, the VCR saved the film industry, despite Hollywood's attempt to ban the device. But those days are over. DVRs serve no useful purpose to the movie industry, so, in the movie industry's view, they must be eliminated. The broadcast industry has a similar attitude: People should sit and watch its products when they are told to watch them. Network broadcasters program a series of shows designed to lead into one another on a specific night for a specific reason. The industry sees no benefit in consumer choice or concepts such as time-shifting.
Then there are the commercials. For every one minute of content there are 30 seconds of commercials. The DVR interferes with the economics of television, since DVR users routinely skip the commercials. This is no good.
So where does that leave us, the public? We're seen as so much mulch that is chopped up and fed to the cash cows of the entertainment industries. If the public does not like the delivery mechanisms as decided by the executives, whether CD or TV broadcast, it can go someplace else (perhaps Russia). What we, the public, cannot do is cheat their system for our convenience.
You'd think this was the tenth century with all these feudal concepts raging around us.
If any of these legal notions get traction you can be sure that the copying machine and even the use of cut-and-paste will eventually be illegal. I also expect to see shrink-wrap licensing on CD music, outlining all the restrictions, and licensing the music to listeners instead of selling them CDs. I'm actually surprised this hasn't already happened.
The greed never ends. The RIAA, the MPAA, and industry executives are seldom berated in public or spat upon, since, luckily for them, the public is generally docile. But docile or not, the public—especially the younger generation—is changing its buying habits, and it will continue to do so until these industries give their customers the freedoms they demand. Personally, I'd like to see the RIAA executives brought up on extortion and racketeering charges and imprisoned for their actions, but I guess that's just wishful thinking, given that our legal system favors the corporation over the citizenry and the public good.
Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use
By Marc Fisher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 30, 2007; M05
Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.
Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."
RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."
They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.
Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. The industry's own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it "won't usually raise concerns," as long as you don't give away the music or lend it to anyone.
Of course, that's exactly what millions of people do every day. In a Los Angeles Times poll, 69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend. The RIAA cites a study that found that more than half of current college students download music and movies illegally.
The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.
But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.
As technologies evolve, old media companies tend not to be the source of the innovation that allows them to survive. Even so, new technologies don't usually kill off old media: That's the good news for the recording industry, as for the TV, movie, newspaper and magazine businesses. But for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.
The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."
The industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement. "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." And, perhaps, for firing up your computer.
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