RIAA Goes After People For Ripping Legally Purchased CDs

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html</a><br /><br /><i>"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><br /><br />Is the RIAA just totally <i>insane</i>? Of course, Sony "rootkit" BMG steps in with their thoughts on the issue.<br /><br /><i>"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."</i><br /><br />These people are completely nuts. I don't share music and there is nothing wrong with me making a personal "fair use" copy so I can play it on my MP3 player or laptop when on a trip. To hear how these people are treating honest consumers sure does tempt me to download some filesharing software. :evil: What they are basically saying is, if you have anything but digitally purchased music on your MP3 player, you are a thief, because there is no legal way to carry your own music around with you unless you invest in a portable CD player. :roll: How do they find these people to sue? Do they stand outside of a Wal-Mart and take down the license plate number of people buying MP3 players?<br /><br /><b><i>Update:</i></b> This <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/30/riaa-not-suing-over-cd-ripping-still-kinda-being-jerks-about-it/">Engadget article</a> states that the lawsuits don't involve ripping, but good old fashioned downloading. Still, even if the Washington Post didn't get it completely right, the quotes from Sony "Rootkit" BMG makes it pretty clear how they feel about consumers, so please, continue to rant, complain, etc. :way to go:

[JvanEkris]

This kind of madness makes me wonder: "how is the RIAA going to keep this position, while the rest of the world protects fair use?". What are they going to do when I (European citizin) enter the US when I have 2000+ legally ripped songs on my laptop? They can't keep going on for ever protecting an outdated business-model and sueing paying customers.....

Jaap

[unxmully]

This kind of madness makes me wonder: "how is the RIAA going to keep this position, while the rest of the world protects fair use?". What are they going to do when I (European citizin) enter the US when I have 2000+ legally ripped songs on my laptop?

You'll probably be arrested. There's this place called Guantanamo where they send terrorists like you.

They can't keep going on for ever protecting an outdated business-model and sueing paying customers.....

Jaap

This is the only reason the RIAA exists - to protect a business model that is dying as we speak. Thankfully they're not representative of the American people as a whole and a number of people seem to have had enough including Judges and college legal departments. If you want to see how highly they are esteemed by people, search Slashdot.org for RIAA or MPAA and see what you find.

For an example - here http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/28/1958201

Interestingly, companies like Sony apparently make far more from selling hardware that allows you to rip music and their MP3 players than they do from the rights to music alone. And they're pretty much at the forefront of efforts to make fare use illegal. For reference, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071002-sony-bmgs-chief-anti-piracy-lawyer-copying-music-you-own-is-stealing.html So stop selling MP3 players with CD ripping software then! And sue Apple and Microsoft to take the capability to rip CDs away from iPod and Zune software.

And don't get me started on this latest Canadian stupidity which thankfully seems to be getting kicked out before it can get started - http://www.blogto.com/tech/2007/12/fight_canadas_dmca/ And this in spite of the levy they, and others, have been paying for years on media like cassettes and blank CDs to recompense the studios for "losses".

Really, the cheek of these people beggars belief and leaves me almost speechless.

[CESkins]

...They can't keep going on for ever protecting an outdated business-model and sueing paying customers.....

Jaap
Jaap I think you hit the nail on the head. RIAA's business model is outdated and they missed the opportunities offered by the digital transition of music. The model previously was that for every new technological breakthrough in recording music, one would have to repurchase his/her entire collection on the new media (e.g. I went from vinyl records -> 8 tracks/tape -> CDs). However going from CD -> MP3 doesn't require me to repurchase my music. This means the recording industry looses out on getting my money for something I already own. Rather than offering high quality digital audio (better than CD quality) or finding some other means to extract money from me in this digital age...RIAA falls back on sueing. I wonder if I copied my purchased CD audio to cassette (which one had to do prior to CD players in cars), if that would also be grounds for a suit. It never was before (or at least I never heard anyone being sued). This is getting ridiculous...they keep suing to buy time until they can figure out how to milk more money out the consumer rather than innovating.

[unxmully]

And some interesting conjecture....

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/30/1835210

[jeisner]

It is funny year by year I buy less music due to this kind of rubbish. I only bought one album for 2007.

Of course the more people stop buying new albums (even if they are not pirating either, as in my case) the RIAA will just use the decrease in sales as proof that piracy is costing them money... The truth is, at least in my case, the RIAA is costing themselves and the bands money as I have simply had enough of stories like this and their inability to move with the times.

P.S. Was good to see what Radiohead did this year, that sort of model needs to be encouraged, if it grows it will negate the need for groups like the RIAA to even exist, along with Sony music, EMI etc and good riddance to them too.. 0X

[fresh-popcorn]

I use to be a advid supporter of music in the past. I have a few boxes full of vinyl records, tapes, and at last count over 1000 cd's but since hearing about all of the sue happy RIAA I stopped buying cd's and stopped purchasing music when certain bands were complaining to their fans about downloading music.

Now to get my music fix I just hit up youtube and watch when I want to.
I still write down artists I want to purchase but if I rip a cd for my car and have to worry about getting sued for having my own paid music I might as well start downloading from filesharing sites.

[cgavula]

If making even one copy of a legally owned recording for personal use is illegal, then doesn't the RIAA owe me back all those "taxes" and fees they added to the cost of blank tape and recording material to supposedly cover the financial losses from duplication?

--Chris

[jpaq1]

This is totally and utterly ridiculous! They might as well sue Microsoft for enabling their Windows Media Player to rip songs from a CD to MP3 format as well and all other whatsoever apps from MS and others that enable a person to copy a CD or rip CDs to MP3 format or whatsoever other format. In fact why not start suing pple for backing up legal digitally downloaded songs as well while they are at it. Heck, why not sue pple for buying a PC!!!

The American society has been generally known around the world as a somewhat litigious society which has been encouraged by the way the constitution and the laws of America have been drafted and interpreted. Which is good and bad, depending on how you look at it (I mean no offense to the American people here, as I think in the view of many Americans, they are just asserting and or protecting their rights/interest as allowed by the courts). But this RIAA action is waaaaaaay overdoing it even for America! I hope the American courts strike this action down swiftly and make it clear how the RIAA is acting like a clown!

[hnelson59]

i got an iPod Touch for Christmas. i can go to iTunes, download music and THEN burn a CD . . . is this illegal as well?

just how idiotic can the RIAA get? :roll:

[abubasim]

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.

Sony Ericsson provides Disc2Phone, a CD ripping tool with their UIQ3 smartphones (P990i, P1i, etc.). It is also available here (http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/support/products/software/p990i/disc2phonesetup15english20518?cc=us&amp;lc=en) as a free download. Disc2Phone is produced by a subsidiary of Sony:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5329/disc2phoneml7.jpg

I would imagine that Jennifer Pariser would have to go after her own people first, for providing the tool that allows customers to rip their CDs illegally . . .

[jeisner]

Seems like a lucrative business model, one division of the company provides the tool and another division sues you for using it... :)

[karen]

Even though I live in Canada, I believe I've just bought my last CD, ever.

I may still consider purchasing from iTunes or other online stores, but I will be cutting back severely on all my music purchases in order to protect myself from possible litigation.

...an I'm someone who has never, ever possessed a "shared" song in my life. My friends all think that I'm an ass because I won't lend out our thousands of CDs for them to rip.

[Rob Alexander]

Listen, I am no fan of the RIAA (quite the opposite), but this story is ridiculously misreported. They did not sue this guy for ripping his own CDs. They sued him for making the MP3s he ripped available on a public file-sharing service. Sure, they would like for you not to rip CDs, preferring that you buy the music over and over again, but they still have not sued anyone over it, nor are they likely to unless the current laws are changed. If it were true then I'd be up-in-arms as well, but it's not and I find it hard to feel sorry for this guy who knowingly shared his music collection with the world at large.

[Sven Johannsen]

Listen, I am no fan of the RIAA (quite the opposite), but this story is ridiculously misreported. They did not sue this guy for ripping his own CDs. They sued him for making the MP3s he ripped available on a public file-sharing service.

That may be true, but the quote at the Thomas trial in Minnesota, where 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,' " is a clear indication of the underlaying beliefs these people have regarding the entire industry.

At the very least I would recommend Sony quite selling MP3 players as they are surely to be used in the conduct of a crime.

[jpaq1]

I think we should all just listen to the radio only... :roll:

[Sven Johannsen]

I think we should all just listen to the radio only... :roll:Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[jpaq1]

I think we should all just listen to the radio only... :roll:Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.

So true, so true. Ok, I'll just resort to composing my own songs and singing them! And if anybody steals my songs... I'll sue their a**!!

[Ed Hansberry]

So true, so true. Ok, I'll just resort to composing my own songs and singing them! And if anybody steals my songs... I'll sue their a**!!
I am not going to steal your songs, but please don't mind if I share with 2,000,000 of my closest friends! :lol:

[martin_ayton]

Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.

You jest, but every year I have to pay the Performing Rights Society in the UK a licence fee (of around £25 per person - about US$50pp) because I and my 3 employees occasionally like to stream internet radio or listen to our own CDs whilst at our workstations. Since this is being done at work, it is legally considered a 'public performance.' It's great, isn't it: The radio stations pay a licence fee to broadcast and I have to pay a licence fee to listen. Even better (worse) is that I buy a CD, including the royalty fee, and pay a royalty again to listen to it. Sheesh.

However, it gets worse: If, on our telephone 'on hold' system, I play music that *I* have written and performed myself and which I can *prove* that I own all the copyrights and intellectual property rights over, I would *still* have to pay the PRS a fee for the right to do so and I wouldn't see a penny piece of that back as my royalty, because it all goes to the big music companies. What a mad world :idontthinkso:

[Ed Hansberry]

Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.

You jest, but every year I have to pay
You choose to pay. I wouldn't. I'd do without that kind of service. I just listen to my ripped CD collection.

[Catman51]

I worked in Music Stores for years. Went to a meeting at BMG in Beverly Hills, where they sat around like fat cats saying the public would always need the brick and mortar stores. This was the beginning of the new tech years and they sat on their duffs while the world passed by.
Now the only way they can make money is from a**hole lawsuits like this.
I have no pity for them, they screwed everybody they could with CD pricing, which was fixed from the beginning. Costs less than burning vinyl.
Let's not forget all the artists they screwed along the way too.
Goodbye Record industry, we don't need or want ya!

[Steve Jordan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html

Update: This Engadget article (http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/30/riaa-not-suing-over-cd-ripping-still-kinda-being-jerks-about-it/) states that the lawsuits don't involve ripping, but good old fashioned downloading. Still, even if the Washington Post didn't get it completely right, the quotes from Sony "Rootkit" BMG makes it pretty clear how they feel about consumers, so please, continue to rant, complain, etc. :way to go:

I think we should be more concerned about how the Post got that news so wrong, simply to justify their non-news reporting of the state of the music industry.

And as an e-book author, and knowing that the print industry is carefully studying the music industry to try to figure out how to deal with the similar legal ramifications of e-books, watching the music industry meltdown is disheartening at best. The courts have spent too long looking the other way, and simply choosing not to prosecute bad laws. Now that the RIAA is taking advantage of those old, bad laws, the courts are looking the other way again, and not stepping in to rein in the madness.

This not to say that Thomas or Howell are right in file sharing, because they are not. This is to say that the laws need to keep in step with the times, and these do not.

[k1darkknight]

A critical case ... is Elektra v. Barker. In that case, Tenise Barker, a 29-year-old nursing student in the Bronx, moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint for lack of specificity, and on the ground that merely "making available" does not constitute a copyright infringement. In opposing Ms. Barker's motion, the RIAA argued that "making available" is indeed a copyright infringement. - RIAA entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA#Methodology_of_legal_action)

Hmmm...by that logic, public libraries infringe on copyrights every time they loan out a music CD. I wonder if any public library system makes its records (documentation, not vinyl) publicly available as to how many times CDs are loaned out, in total, over any given length of time. If the RIAA won this case, they could easily go after libraries (and by extension, local governments) for each and every instance of a music CD being loaned out.

Now, libraries in my area typically loan out CDs for three weeks at a time. For simplicity's sake, we'll ignore the facts that a CD can be returned before its due date, or can also be renewed. Based on that, a given CD could be loaned out just over 17 times in the course of a year. In the Wikipedia article, it mentions that the RIAA's actual damages per song (according to one lawsuit) would be about 70 cents - the "prevailing wholesale price of a download". Obviously, in the case of libraries loaning out CDs, they could get around this, using the following argument:

- Loaning a CD, even from a public library, is "making available" each song on that disc for sharing, copying, et al.
- Each time a CD is loaned out constitutes a separate instance of "making available".
- The borrower could make an indefinite number of copies of each song, potentially making copies from copies in perpetuity, however for this argument we'll limit the liability of the library to ten copies per song, per loan period.
- An average CD may contain somewhere around 10 songs, so (again for simplicity) we'll just say 10 songs per disc.
- As previously mentioned, with three week loan periods, a CD can be loaned 17 times per year.

See where this is going?
10 copies per song x 10 songs per disc = 100 song-copies per loan period.
100 song-copies x 17 loan-periods per year = 1700 liable infringements per disc, per year.
1700 infringements x 70 cents damages per infringement = $1190 per CD, per year.

How many CDs does YOUR local library have in relatively heavy circulation?

[k1darkknight]

Now...admittedly, the above example seems pretty unlikely NOW...but what happens when the RIAA sees smaller record labels and distributors drop off their membership rolls, a few at a time, and they start getting desperate for funds? Where will they stop? Libraries? Car stereo manufacturers that include standard audio inputs? Auto makers for building vehicles with passenger seats, allowing more than one individual to LISTEN to a song at once? Any ISP which doesn't actively block users' access to known filesharing sites/programs/torrents? (hello, net neutrality...oh, sorry...different rant there. ;) )

I think the next few years will see an almost exponential increase in lawsuits from the RIAA, until they're only being supported by two or three major labels (and few, if any minor ones). At which point they'll begin to fade into obscurity.
Ten years from now, the RIAA will be virtually defunct, consisting only of Metallica, who will suffer in denial, right up until they see the foreclosure notice on the door of the RIAA main office.

The music industry is dead!
Long live local music scenes!

[Steve Jordan]

Hmmm...by that logic, public libraries infringe on copyrights every time they loan out a music CD.

Not really. In point of fact, libraries don't "loan out CDs" as if they just bought it at the local store and are now giving it away. They pay an additional fee to cover the potential of multiple listeners, and they are granted by copyright licence the right to loan out the CD. Therefore, they are breaking no laws.

However, if you borrow a CD at your library (and if you do, you will probably have your attention brought to the fact that it is illegal to copy or redistribute that CD), and you make copies, you are violating copyright restrictions (even if you do not redistribute your copy). Also, if you did not return the CD, for whatever reason, you would likely be held liable for that copy and charged for it, to cover the costs required for the library to replace it (and possibly a fine besides).

[k1darkknight]

Well, I thought they might have SOME kind of permission like that, but still...the whole point was to show how absurd the RIAA's logic can be. Incidentally, though, I've NEVER had a library employee point out anything about it being illegal to copy music CDs (though of course, I've NEVER done such a thing with borrowed CDs :roll: ). They've never said anything verbally, handed out any pamphlets, pointed to any sign...there's no sign posted near the CDs themselves, nothing on the library doors. In fact, the only place I've EVER seen anything mentioned about it being illegal is on the CDs themselves (and not even all of those), which would be on those same CDs, whether they were from a library or not.

Now...all that said, the libraries could STILL get sued by the RIAA, for not attempting to do anything to prevent or discourage copying. Hell, they've used that tactic against filesharing software makers, whose primary purpose is to allow users to share files however they want. They aren't even providing the material themselves, whereas the libraries ARE! And I'm sure, there's probably some stipulation in the license/permit/whatever that libraries get, indemnifying them against lawsuits by the RIAA for anything other than copying the CDs right there in the library. Again, my point is just to show the RIAA's outrageous logic (or lack thereof).

**edit**
Also, if you did not return the CD, for whatever reason, you would likely be held liable for that copy and charged for it, to cover the costs required for the library to replace it (and possibly a fine besides).
Not exactly sure what you mean by "held liable". If you're talking about being held liable for potential copies, then not likely. If you mean having to pay for the CD itself, then of course. Most libraries around here, when it comes to lost or otherwise "unreturned" materials, they usually drop any fees or fines incurred, and just charge you for the cost of the item.

However, they make a point of charging what the original MSRP price of the item, as of whenever it first came out, rather than what they actually paid for it. Nowadays, that's not a HUGE issue, as most CDs would be MSRP priced no higher than $20 and typically sold for $15 or less...DVDs MSRP'd at $30, typically selling for $20 on initial release, and $5-10 a few years later. But 15 years ago, if a video had come out ten years prior, and was currently selling for $15-20, when it originally came out, it might have been $100-150. Guess which price they'd have charged. (okay, okay...off topic, I know...still...)