RIAA Now Filing Suits Against Consumers Who Rip CDs 403
mrneutron2003 writes "With this past week's announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The RIAA, would begin changing its tune. Instead, they are pressing on in their campaign against consumers by suing individuals who merely rip CDs they've purchased legally. '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.'"
2 words (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 words (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, fair use of the end music still applies, but you cant legally get your music into that state due to having to 'break' the copy protection first. Is one reason we are being forced to digital TV in a year or so.
Re:2 words (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:2 words (Score:5, Funny)
That's not funny -- it's sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's not funny -- it's sad (Score:5, Informative)
"In Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA claims that "[once] Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=953494 [avsforum.com]
Odd how both the summary and the Washington Post article skip that particular fact.
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Yes. When the file is in the shared folder it is available for download. Current law decisions uphold the argument that a shared file is a copyright violation. (We all might think that's a bad decision, but it is the current state of the law.)
I assume you're just being a wag and in fact are intelligent enough to understand that. (I award you zero points, and may God have mercy on your soul
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That being said, I still think the RIAA should be thrown to the lions. Just because they're not 100% wrong all the time doesn't mean they should be given free reign to terrorize their customers.
Go directly to jail (Score:5, Funny)
You just broadly communicated a method to circumvent a copy protection device.
Re:Go directly to jail (Score:4, Informative)
I think something completely different is what is usually mentioned. I think the big change is simply driven by going from a market dictated market to a consumer dictated market. In other words, we don't want it your way, we want it our way. At whatever pricepoint we think is reasonable (probably somewhere around $0.10 per song) and in whatever format we want.
As long as that doesn't happen piracy is here to stay, and when it does happen you have to hope that the piracy infrastructure is not so well entrenched that people will not even bother to switch to legal stuff anymore. The longer the wait the larger the chance that the music industry will not survive.
If a significantly large portion of the population commits a crime (say going 20 km above the speed limit) it technically still is a crime but the actual enforcement is no longer feasible. That only works when the percentage of criminals to honest citizens is small enough to warrant enforcement. Past that point the judicial system simply breaks down.
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You mean like this [wellingtongrey.net]?
One word (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One word (Score:4, Informative)
But, if you purchase a CD, any one with the official Phillips CD logo on it, then you are guaranteed to have no copy protection on it. Phillips has been quite good about requiring that any disc with that logo on it be played on any CD player that has ever been made, which effectively prevents DRM systems from being put on to a licensed disc.
Phillips in on record as saying that placing their CD logo onto any disc which doesn't conform to their standards represents trademark infringement. And realistically, that is the way that it should be, kind of a reminder that IP can also be beneficial to consumers as well.
On a side note, with every single story along these lines, and the RIAA press release that goes along with, I am more and more glad that I don't do business with them. If they want my money to fund their crusade, they're going to have to do so responsibly and in conformance with the laws of the US. All of them, including the ones that indicate that you can't bring known fraudulent cases to court.
Re:One word (Score:4, Informative)
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Thanks.
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But a purely Redbook Audio CD can't have rights protection on it
Perhaps that's why they're trying to kill ordinary audio CDs with this move (if you think about it, that's what it is - I for one do buy CDs legally but will never listen to them directly, it's too inconvenient, so first thing I do is rip them - now if I can't even do that legally, I'll just stop buying CDs). Who the hell listens to audio CDs directly these days? I don't know anyone who does anymore. Perhaps the RIAA wants to kill CDs and int
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Re:2 words (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets hope they press charges. It might get this issue sorted out sooner rather than later.
Re:2 words (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't want it sorted out. They know they'd lose. The want the confusion and penny ante change they collect because their other income models are evaporating and extortion is all they have left.
Re:2 words (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you hate America?
Clearly he didn't "rip" the music. He "liberated" all those poor oppressed bits from the tyrrany of an undemocratically-elected plastic disc.
Gordon Brown (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1582428.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
But then later removed it when he was informed it was illegal.
(In Britain there is no concept of "Fair Use" in copyright law)
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And in return we get the bbc, which provides not only some of the worlds best TV, but provides radio that is listened to worldwide, and one of the best websites on the Internet. Oh, yes, and it has one of the largest, if not the largest collections of free audio and video content in existence.
Want a few months worth of interesting material, try this site:
In Our Time (completely fascinating discussions on just a
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For one reason, I'm glad that we don't get adverts every few minutes.
In the USA even free to air tv (apart from PBS) carries ads. You pay for the that in the products you buy.
Personally, I listen to the Radio far more than watch TV. BBC radio is like the TV. No Ad breaks and after all would a commercial broadcaster have made programs like
- Monty Pyhon
- Hitchhikers Guide
- The Office
- Little Britain
- The Goon Show
etc etc etc
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Re:2 words (Score:5, Funny)
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Told a so! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mandatory pay-per-play is their next move. Then criminalization. Once that is complete, the industry will collapse and they will be gone and out of our hair.
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What should we make illegal next, breathing? (Score:2)
Re:What should we make illegal next, breathing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you
Re:What should we make illegal next, breathing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What should we make illegal next, breathing? (Score:4, Funny)
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This is slashdot. What dignity?
That Deacon Blue song you downloaded off Napster at 3am back in the day, that you play when no one else is in the house.
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What do you pay for when you buy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What do you pay for when you buy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Transferred ownership would imply that the music wouldn't belong to the record company anymore. That would be a very bad deal to the record company, so instead, what they sell you is a license to listen to that music. Once you buy a CD, you get to listen to a piece of music as many times as you want.
But you cannot distribute copies of it- the music is protected by copyright law. Now, the record companies argue that making a copy for personal use implies you are not listening to the licensed material anymore- instead, you are listening to a copy (never mind that bits *must* be copied around before the audio hits the speaker).
A case can be made for the fact that an MP3 isn't the licensed material: you can do a bitwise comparison and find out that what you are listening to isn't what you licensed.
This is where the fun starts. Rights and obligations most always come in pairs. If you have the obligation to send your kids to school, this implies the right to have schools built to send your kid to (and building the schools is then in turn the obligation of the state).
So if I cannot make copies for personal use but paid for a license to listen to music represented by a certain pattern of bits, I will have an unalienable right to listen to that music, represented by that *exact* pattern of bits. This implies the obligation of the record company to indefinitely provide me with that exact pattern of bits forever and ever and ever (unless otherwise stated in a written license agreement).
This means that whenever I accidentally scratch the CD that I bought so that it isn't bit-for-bit readable anymore, I'm entitled to a replacement- this obligation arises on RIAA's side of the deal. I guess that is where my microwave oven and sledge hammer come into the picture, and that is where the fun *really* starts.
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RIAA:
But actually, you don't have right to remain silent [counterpunch.org]
Copyright abuse once again. Burn it down. (Score:2)
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Generally, though, this is moot (at least under our jurisdiction). You don't license the bits (because you cannot), you license the content. The work of art. Our copyright is rather lenient in that area. You can transcode, even create derived art (an
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License to read? How copyright law truly operates (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there anyone out there that imagines there is such a thing as a "license to read"? That when you buy a book what you're actually buying a "license to read"?
I find it weird how this "license to listen" meme keeps cropping up from so many different people. The concept "license to listen" does not exist in US law. Nor does it exist anywhere in the law of any country of the Berne copyright convention... meaning pretty much every country on earth.
Transferred ownership would imply that the music wouldn't belong to the record company anymore.
Correct. According to US law and pretty well every country on earth, that particular copy doen't belong to the record company anymore.
When you buy a CD, you are in fact buying the physical medium. You are buying a physical medium that happens to have music encoded on it. By law you become the owner of that physical object, and by law you become the owner of the particular copy of the music that happens to be on that medium.
When you buy a book or a CD or whatnot, you do not receive any license at all. Because you do not need any license at all.
You do not need a license to read a book. You own the book you bought, you have every right to read it. And even if you don't own the book, it doesn't matter. If you can see the text in someone else's book, you are perfectly free to read that too. The same goes for records and CDs and videos and whatnot. You do not need any sort of license to play something you bought. You have every right to drop your chunk of vinyl onto a record player or stick your videocassette into a VCR.
A further point is that the law explicitly states that you need no license whatsoever to install and run software. No, copyright law absolutely positively does not require you to have any sort of EULA to install and run software. EULAs are contract offers, and companies try to rely on a couple of other legal tricks to attempt (with varying degrees of success) to corner you into accepting an EULA. Legal mechanisms that have absolutely nothing to do with copyright. Those issues are therefore wandering off topic of copyright.
Copyright law explicitly itemizes six things it restricts, but for discussion they can pretty well be condensed down to just three different things. (1) Copying (2) Distribution and (3) Public Performance. Nothing outside those three categories is restricted by copyright law. You do not need any sort of license to do anything outside of those three things. You do not need a license to read a book, you do not need a license to play a CD, you do not need a license to chop up you videocassette set it on fire.
Copying, distribution, and public performance are restricted and potentially require licenses to do, however at this point copyright law gets very messy. There are all sorts of rules and exceptions. In some cases unlicensed unauthorized activities are not infringing. The prime example is in distribution. When you buy a book or whatnot, you own that particular copy and you have the distribution right of giving or selling that particular copy. The legal term is "Right of First Sale", and the legal language is that the copyright holder has "exhausted his distribution right" in that particular copy, used up and eliminated his distribution rights in that particular copy. There is also a vast range of copying activities that are unlicensed unauthorized and noninfringing. Some activities are explicitly noninfringing due to exceptions written into law, and (speaking of US law here) many more are protected Fair Use which would often be unconstitutional for copyright law to prohibit. Fair Use cannot be altered, diminished, or eliminated by passing a law. An law attempting to do so would be constitutionally NULL and VOID. Fair Use was established by the courts, and they did so on constitutional grounds. Fair Use was indeed written into US law in 1976, but the congressional record and the US court
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I'm going to have to disclaim that. No formal training here. This is merely one of my geekout subzones of hobby/obsession independent study. I have studied nearly the entirety of US copyright law and read far too many court rulings on the subject etc etc etc.
Kinda like the guy who knows the matting habits of all thirty thousand species of beetle native to the United States. Well ok, I'm not THAT bad. But yeah, I read legislation "for fun" and I can cite by mem
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"About a third of the plastic it took to make a 12-inch LP, at double the price."
Interesting trivia: when CDs began to overtake LPs in the 1980s, LPs could be had for about $10 - $12. If I recall correctly, CDs were being sold for $16 - $18. Of course, that was all in 1988 dollars.
That twelve buck LP in 1988 would cost you about $21 today in 2007 dollars. If CDs were really double the price, we'd be paying $40 for them. The reality is that CDs are about $10 or $12 today. So, in constant dollars, the p
Old cassettes? (Score:2)
Same idea, different generation.
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As far as your little joke about computers, I'm also all for going back a few years to computers that arent in bed with DRM and someting we had control over, or could even build ourselves. ( "you will have to pry my Atari ST from my dead cold hands" sort of thing )
Re:Old cassettes? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft facilitating? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Forget that, what about Itunes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not just Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sure there are a myriad of other examples of hardware and software manufacturer implementing features which expedite the 'illegal' copying of music and other software. I suppose what makes the Sony instance more interesting is that Sony operate a music label as well and are presumably part of the RIAA mafia.
... and Sony? (Score:2, Insightful)
These companies want to have their cake and eat it. When will the courts see this?
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Maybe it's a Microsoft program that rips a CD while you play it, I've seen a program do that without me asking.
Still pleasantly surprised by human nature (Score:5, Funny)
What always surprises me a little is that none of the people they're suing have opened fire in the RIAA offices. While that would be horrible and I can't condone the taking of innocent lives (such as the Pepsi machine refill guy who happens to be there at that moment), I'm still kind of amazed that nobody's done it.
Seriously, though, how do those cretins sleep at night? Even if they don't care about the lives they've destroyed, surely they care about the idea that someone might want revenge. I could imagine someone who loses their house because they ripped a CD might feel like they don't have a lot more to lose.
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Oh, about 3 feet above the mattress, atop a mound of twenties fifties and hundreds.
And they hire illegal immigrants to tape the fives and tens together end-to-end and roll them up on a tube for the bathroom.
-
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They've already lost all hope in their artists making good music. The last hope they have is to get more money. They see the highly-inaccurate but appealling projections made by their staff as to how much more money they could be making, and with nothing left to cling to, they sleep at night with the hope of a new day and a new fortune.
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They see the highly-inaccurate but appealling projections made by their staff as to how much more money they could be making, and with nothing left to cling to, they sleep at night with the hope of a new day and a new fortune.
The thing is, I don't wonder how they can sleep without feeling guilty. That's easy when you're a soulless shell of protein. I just don't know how they can close their eyes at night, wondering if this will be the evening when an armed visitor comes calling.
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RIAA has a big image of Muhammad in all their offices and regularly mock the good name of Islam. Just thought you'd like to know.
~
Stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh well. At some point, it's going to be too expensive for the RIAA to keep their lawyers supplied with crack.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Death spiral (Score:5, Insightful)
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The most famous incident of music "piracy" in history, perpetuated by none other than Mozart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri) [wikipedia.org]
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RIAA Layers have completely lost it (Score:4, Informative)
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.
This is so ridiculous that it would be funny, but I fear they are completely serious about it...
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Farewell, Music Industry (Score:4, Interesting)
Please Die Already (Score:3, Insightful)
Business has been reduced to spreadsheets with no touch with what the actual core business is. Sure, just outsource the core business and let the patents and lawsuits roll!
How was he caught? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How was he caught? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How was he caught? (Score:5, Informative)
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* Boing Boing [boingboing.net] p2pnet [p2pnet.net] reddit [reddit.com] Heise Online [heise.de] (German) Truemors [truemors.com] BlogRunner/Digital Rights [blogrunner.com] Hugh Casey [livejournal.com] IDG [www.idg.pl] (Polish) Geek News Central [geeknewscentral.com] CE Pro [cepro.com] Gizmodo [gizmodo.com] TechDirt [techdirt.com] Read/Write Web [readwriteweb.com] Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection [thomashawk.com] TDPRI [tdpri.com] WhatReallyHappened.com [whatreallyhappened.com] Slyck [slyck.com] Root.cz [www.root.cz] (Czech) Craigslist Forums [craigslist.org] Hard OCP [hardforum.com] Wired.com [wired.com] Uneasy Silence [uneasysilence.com] Overclock.net [overclock.net] Wake World [wakeworld.com] SpaceBattles.com [spacebattles.com] Hydrogen Audio [hydrogenaudio.org] BrickFilms.com [brickfilms.com]
Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
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Unfortunately, you've got to convince juries and judges, which can be easier than convincing sane people.
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Maybe you should RTFA (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you should RTFA. The argument could have been made that distributing, or merely making available for distribution, was the infringement. But they are in fact saying that merely copying the music to the computer is (an) infringement.
And don't think the Audio Home Recording Act [wikipedia.org], especially its section 1008 provision, will necessarily protect you. That law specifies devices that contain the Serial Copy Management System [wikipedia.org], and media (where you store the music) that requires royalty payments (e.g. some
Apple has a page dedicated to this crime (Score:5, Funny)
MS and Apple to the rescue (Score:5, Interesting)
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dupe: unauthorized != illegal (Score:4, Interesting)
What will the damages be ? (Score:2)
So: zero loss means damages of what ?
Good luck with that one. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some things that are just never gonna happen - there's a critical mass of progress or just practicality that prevents it. If the "RIAA" thinks people will go back to carrying around hundreds of 5 inch plastic discs (yes, I typed "discs" - lets check that again - yes phew
This is a little bit like having to run software from the installation disc all the time. The software industry more or less solved this, with other means of licensing other than ownership of the physical delivery media and allowed users to "copy" the software to their PC's internal storage. Yes there is theft, but software vendors know that if they insisted on having the install disc present for every piece of software in your PC, users would vote with their feet and go use something else (plus of course, everyone would just mount ISO images of the discs, or if that wouldn't work, a solution would be found - that's the power of a connected and talented user base).
So if these guys think I'm going to have the install-disc in the stereo for whatever music I'm listening to, I'd like some of whatever they're smoking.
Consider car audio - in the UK it is a criminal offence to use a hand-held telephone whilst operating a vehicle (even if you're stopped at the lights etc). And yet, it's still OK for us to eject a CD, fumble around for a new CD, open the box (all with one hand) and insert it into the player. Now, as anyone who has done this will know, after 2 days, none of the CD boxes will contain the music advertised on the outside - so to play a specific album, you could be fumbling about for quite a while, and at the same time, you must control your vehicle at road speeds, amongst other traffic etc. etc. Madness. Auto changers did a bit to address this, but I can guarantee you most people will take the same 6 CDs out of the car when they sell it, that they put in the day they bought it. It's just too much of a planned activity to firtle around in the boot of your car with those CD magazines, and by the time you think "hmm must change the discs" you're cruising down the M6, so you never do it.
The problem was neatly solved by having a big fat SD card sticking out of your dashboard with all the music you ever wanted at a quality that exceeds that of the acoustic environment that is your car. (Unless you drive the Albert Hall, in which case, you're on your own). This is so good in fact, I never want to see a CD again after I've installed the music on it.
The RIAA's primary objective is "to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists". All very laudable, but I wonder if they consult these artists before they issue these proclamations? After all, sales of billions with some loss due to illegal re-production has to be better financially, than sales of only thousands with no loss. Surely? Would the artists prefer to remain penniless, safe in the knowledge that no one has illegally copied their material?
The RIAA needs to find a better solution if they want to attain any credibility: "go back to a time when this wasn't an issue" is not acceptable. They may as well suggest we all go back to the horse and cart to solve vehicle emissions, or that banks use ledger books and quill pens to avoid all those troublesome data centre issues. Technically, and qualitatively all these things would still work, but none of em are gonna happen, any time this side of a global apocalypse anyway (and maybe not on the other side either - there maybe a shortage of horses...).
Now, excuse me while I go break some laws with my Squeezebox.
Cheers,
Scoot.
Re:Good luck with that one. (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is completely out of step with reality, nobody in their right mind considers it morally wrong either. In fact it has only served to damage the industry. In for a penny in for a pound as the saying goes. As it is just as illegal to copy my own CD's onto my MP3 player as download them for free off the internet, I might as well download them for free.
Someone tell Martha Stewart (Score:2)
Of course this is flat-out illegal (unlike the premise of TFA, which has the RIAA claiming the mere act of ripping is itself illegal), but what else can you expect from a seasoned ex-con like Martha? 4 life, homey. 4 life.
They crossed a line on this one (Score:2)
The Death of the Compact Disk (Score:2)
I have a couple major ways to get music onto my computer. The first is to buy (or steal) Compact Discs (or those old vinyl records if I had something to play them [thinkgeek.com] with) and copy the music onto my computer from there. The second is to download the music, which could be either legally purchased or found being given away illegally by someone. And now the music industry tells me the first option is out.
Given the trends in the way music is listened to [slashdot.org] these days, which involves a spectrum from listening to h
This is just how things work...its not a violation (Score:2)
I do think we should all move to AAC or Flac
Seriously... This is how things evolved and everyone expects this functionality. You cant say ripping a cd is illegal 10 years after its common place! This is evolution baby! Now we're all criminals?
He didn't just rip the tracks.... (Score:2)
.....he also placed them in a shared folder on Kazaa, thus "making available." Yes, the RIAA believes that ripping to a computer or other device is illegal, but if you don't make them publicly available, how would anyone know? As evil as they are, the RIAA is probably not going to start searching millions of computers looking for ripped mp3s. That would either involve planting snooping software through a virus or hack (for which they have already received a good amount of flak) or getting law enforcement to
I've got the solution (Score:4, Funny)
These signs should preferably be placed close to the cash register to turn back customers who may have missed them elsewhere in the store and be unwittingly about to buy a CD for anything other than their grandfather's dust collecting CD player.
This simple solution should deter this heineious crime of people enjoying the music they buy in CD format, and should also (magically, against all expectations) boost CD sales.
Seeing as Appple's iTunes software supports loading of your CDs onto your iPod or (god forbid!) playing them on your PC, it's obvious that the RIAA should also ligitate against Apple to cripple ITunes functionality, and stop people from buying CDs for these nefarious listening purposes, and this should also magically boost CD sales.
from the RIAA website (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't this directly contradict what this lawsuit is about?
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"Doesn't this directly contradict what this lawsuit is about?"
Actually, no. As I understand it, the RIAA is going after him (via a settlement offer... no lawsuit yet) because they believe he is sharing music via P2P.
The key phrase is "unauthorized copies" and how its meaning can change independently of the act of ripping it. Here's how the RIAA sees it:
Question for Ray Beckerman (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr. Beckerman,
Since you're quoted in the article I assume you're familiar with the case. The phrase "suing individuals who merely rip CDs" sounds a bit off... in particular, that word "merely." My guess is that he was targeted as a file sharer, and thus he was not "merely" ripping CDs -- rather, the RIAA alleges that he's sharing music which he happened to rip from his personal collection. Am I correct?
Unless the RIAA is asking for additional damages for ripping CDs (on top of the settlement money they're after, or the damages they might seek if it goes to trial), the headline "RIAA Now Filing Suits Against Consumers Who Rip CDs" seems disingenuous. Legally speaking, if he petted his dog that day, it 's the equivalent of stating "RIAA Now Filing Suits Against Consumers Who Pet Their Dogs." Of course, if the RIAA will be seeking additional damages for the act of ripping (on top of making available), then I'm wrong, but I'm not sure this is the case.
Can you clarify? Do you agree that the write-up and/or the article is misleading in its omission?
Re:When this is going to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You mean mercantilism [wikipedia.org], right? Because the US hasn't been capitalist in a long, long time. Free market capitalism [wikipedia.org] doesn't have these problems.
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