I'd be very interested in finding out if they really are taking him to court only because he copied his own CD's onto his computer, without making them available to others, or if he is sharing. If he is sharing fair play I guess, but if they are taking him to court simply for personal use copying then this really is a indicator of how mental they are trying to make things.

This is just getting stupid. They are certainly getting desperate to make money from the so called 'piracy loss'.

Would definatly love to know how they found out he made MP3 versions of his own legally bought CDs.

I seriously hope people will lobby against the RIAA/MPAA and take them to court and get them to pay everyone back.

One Day The People Will Beat Them All!

Paris angle - they are as dumb as she is

It seems incredulous! RIAA Own website says:

"... However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:

The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own

The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying."

Well done RIAA. Continue the good job..... and I predict extinction in the very near future!

Just wait, it will happen. They'll wind up in court against themselves or the people they are paid to represent...

Oh well I'll just throw away my generic MP3 player as the software that came with it rips CD's to MP3's.

...and a case that the RIAA would be well advised to drop immediately.

What exactly are they alleging this person did with the music? It's not clear that they are saying he did anything but rip CDs to his PC. This is an uphill slog for the music industry. I think that the court will look at exactly what copyright says and what you are purchasing when you buy a CD.

When you buy a CD you buy the unlimited right to listen to that music, the music on the CD. The simple act of playing it in a CD player causes the data on the CD to be format shifted to an analog format for your listening pleasure. That aside, you can listen the the disc as many times as you like, whenever and wherever. So you are buying a license to listen to the performance contained on the disc. Ripping the CD to MP3 on your personal computer allows you to make an inferior quality copy of the original. Yet if you are using it for your *personal* use, your use of the music you paid for a license to listen to has not in any way altered, you are still listening to the performance you paid for, and no infringement of rights has happened.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised though, the RIAA believes that playing your boom box amounts to a public performance and is therefore an infringement unless you pay them. What next? Suing the people using iPods if their headphones are turned up to much?

If the RIAA wants to start blithering on about what copyright does and does not allow the consumer to do, they are in my opinion pushing the pendulum too hard and far for their own good, it will eventually swing back and hit them. If you start examining what copyright doesn't allow, then it's fair to start examining what copyright law does allow, and why.

Quite apart from anything else, this case really makes a mockery of the previous attempts at managed copy. The defendant in this case should look carefully at the previous attempts by the RIAA to control the consumer's ability to copy CDs. Previously they have explicitly allowed users to copy CDs, as long as that copy was managed by their software to prevent the copied track(s) from being shared. Look at the various attempts to sell CDs with various copy protection mechanisms. Heck, the latest game consoles come with the ability to rip CDs to their HDD, are we saying that isn't allowed now? That will be news to Sony.

If I can't copy my own CD's to my computer for personal use on my personal music player, then my iPod becomes pretty much useless. If this goes through, maybe everyone who bought an MP3 player should sue the RIAA for making their purchase worthless!

So does it mean that the iPod and other MP3 players are also illegal because they allow music to be copied onto them? And then obviously, iTunes et al are also illegal software because they allow you to 'rip' CDs. So following this logic, the RIAA should also sue Apple, Creative and anbody involved in producing MP3 players and CD ripping software. And then, the CD format is probably illegal too as it doesn't come with DRM so they should sue all companies that produce CDs, especially evil people like 3M and Verbatim who produce writable CDs! And then they should also sue the whole of the music industry for producing music on CD. And therefore they should sue themselves for representing the music industry.

Lost clue. If found, please return to the RIAA.

What a crock. If the RIAA has its way, soon you'll be charged just for LISTENING. Walk into a mall, pay your pence for the musak ...

ban mp3 players. in fact, ban pc's. if you don't listen to your cd on a stereo, no law suit, we just shoot you. much cheaper and simpler. if you're dead, you can't steal music now can you? that'll learn ya

I make personal backup's of all my music on my PC and by burning onto other CD's, so I never truely lose an album and so my car doesn't chew up the original. So according to these idiots what I'm doing is illegal.

I've followed and disagreed with what they are doing for a while. I think it is perfectly acceptable for people to download for free 2 or 3 songs from an album, no more, anymore and you can buy the album, or listen to a friends copy.

Sick, this is sick.

If the RIAA are only going after this guy because he ripped CDs he'd bought, for his own use (and didn't distribute or share the MP3s to anyone else), why don't the RIAA go after Apple, Sony, etc ? These companies have been "aiding and abetting" in these crimes for years, by selling software/hardware combos to do just this. Just think, Sony Electronics could end up being sued by Sony Entertainment ;-)

Come to think of it, it all comes back to Sony anyway for launching the Walkman, which encouraged people to listen to music they had bought, where ever and whenever they wanted to.

M$. I'm sure there was a featurette on the last DRM player that allowed you to 'Rip' from cd to hard drive..

surely the RIAA should go after the facilitators rather than the 'duped' victims of corporate software distributions..

The WP article is short on one little detail - he was sharing his mp3's via P2P software - that's how he was caught. And what he is being charged with.

And as far as the 'unauthorised copies' rubbish goes - any copy of a CD has always been unauthorised. This, however, doesn't make them illegal. Or stealing. It only becomes an offense if you start sharing them amongst other people.

It is quite legal to make an unauthorised copy for personal use; always has been since LP's and reel-to-reels were in common use. This is the 'fair use' doctrine in copyright law.

In short, the WP article is just more FUD.

Is this story really true? I hope so 'cos the RIAA will become more of a joke, the more this story is disseminated.

they really want to push customers away. This sort of mentality will do nothing to convince people to buy music legally - you pay your money and don't even get fair usage?

If any work is copied for your own use, but not in ANY way distributed, then what's the problem? Are they arguing that you're circumventing natural wear and tear on the physical object (the CD, tape, whatever), and stopping them getting re-sales? But then legal MP3 sales have already undercut this argument. Plus, most people won't re-buy the same work twice.

Bad analogy time: It's like if I bought, oh, a hammer, and Black and Decker sued me for using it as a paperweight. I told you it was a bad analogy.

I'll use a stop icon to allow the obvious music/hammer/icon pun...

Er, wouldn't this make using iPods and similar devices completely impossible from a legal standpoint? The very act of ripping music to transfer to the media player creates a copy on the local computer!

I don't listen to CDs except in the car. I buy them, rip them, and use the iPod or computer. The CDs are stored in their cases and my files aren't shared... surely they cannot claim that this previously accepted/expected use is now illegal...

I assume this means they'll be suing Microsoft (for media player) and Apple (itunes) for providing the means to make unauthorised copies of data? and for selling hardware with the capabilities to play these unauthorised tracks (zune, ipod)

No? oh what a surprise.

IIRC, that was settled 20+ years ago with cassettes and Videotapes, you know, that thingy about "fair use".

Keeping a backup copy in your PC is just using another medium, especially if you're trying to, say, copy them to your mp3 player, or your iPod.. whatever.

See, there's even a tool for my W300 that does exactly that: it rips a CD, then transfers it to my cellphone. Except part of this LEGAL process involves copying the stuff into my PC. According to the RIAssA, I'm breaking the law.

Strike 'em down. This is borderline maddness from the RIAA.

You said, "But this latest move by the big record companies to hold individuals personally responsible perhaps signals how weak at the knees they have truly become."

I say, right on. These guys are getting desperate. Maybe they can sue me if I buy a CD cause , OF COURSE, I must be going to copy it. :-) RIGHT?

WIth any luck they could bring the music industry to its knees all by them selves. Maybe we could move to a direct from Artist to audiance model where the Artist owns the copywrite and sells the music directly or thru a service like iTunes. Then RIAA would be left out of the loop.

WOOOO, what an idea. Anyone else agree??

PS, Happy New Year.

Methinks all the SCO lawyers found jobs with the RIAA.

My observations of their modus operandi suggest that legal action and other heavy handed tactics ARE their first choices.

have finally lost the plot. Expect white van and men in white coats to arrive any minute. RIAA = Royalty Insane Assholes of America.

So are they going to sue every iPod owner, because I'm damn sure that most people have not filled them via the iTunes store, at 79p a track it would cost about £13k to fill an 80gb iPod Classic.

So the thousands of songs I have ripped onto my computers (laptop and Desktop) is all illegal now??

Ha, good luck to the RIAA stopping people ripping music. Literally EVERYONE has done it.

What does Steve have to say about this? Seeing as the whole iPod/iTunes business is based on people ripping CD's

Have they not heard of the law called "fair use"? I'd love them to send me a letter like that, so I can sue them into oblivion. Someone has to.

well if they are going sue people for buying CD's then putting on their PC's as MP3's, etc, then you might as well just download it via P2P and save some pounds by not buying the CD's

i think they are going way to far

just out of interest what happens with the money RIAA, etc collect? does the artists see any of it, i bet they dont

This is ridiculous, all of my 250+ cd's have been ripped to my PC so I can listen to them when I want without messing around getting them out of the cases. Surely they are clutching at staws now.

What about the hard drive music players? Are songs transferred onto your MP3 player illegal? The new Sony mini hi-fi with a hard drive? The 4 grand Bose lifestyle stereo with a hard drive?

There will be a few red-faced lawyers after this one goes to court!

I don't agree to the RIAA's new terms of use. I propose that the RIAA settle this by buying back my CD collection at the original price.

How about a link to the court brief PDF? I will bet anyone here $100 to your favorite charity that the language in that brief has to do with copying the file to the "shared" folder of a file sharing app. It's RIAA boilerplate at this point, and not terribly unreasonable.

Engadget has already said this story was debunked. Just no explanation of the debunking.

"Man sued for listening to music: RIAA claims 'unlawful distribution' of sound waves"

Are we to be sued for ripping CDs to put on our computers and mp3 players? I wouldn't be surprised if they tried.

They are, of course, clinically insane. However, their insanity is going to cost a lot of people a lot of money in the short term defending themselves against such a vile interpretation. Given their lobbying budget, they might just be able to make their interpretation stick in the long term. Which would certainly help them finish the task they set themselves of erasing the last vestiges of "copyright" and all its ramifications, thus completely reversing the original 1710 Statute of Anne.

It's also pure greed. Any mention of "artists" in their speeches should be exposed for the lie that it is. Most recording contracts up to quite recently didn't include digital rights for music. So anything the labels are selling electronically on iTunes, Amazon or other places isn't benefiting the artist at all. CD sales are going down as the labels switch to online modes (to the detriment of the artist), yet they still have a cojones to claim that they are "defending the artists".

Vaguely related article here:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke?currentPage=all