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)
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.
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: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:When this is going to stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft facilitating? (Score:5, Insightful)
Death spiral (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Microsoft facilitating? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Forget that, what about Itunes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still pleasantly surprised by human nature (Score:1, Insightful)
As Jack Thompson has proven, lawyers don't cause violence, only videogames cause violence.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
... and Sony? (Score:2, Insightful)
These companies want to have their cake and eat it. When will the courts see this?
That's not funny -- it's sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What do you pay for when you buy? (Score:3, Insightful)
One word (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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
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.
Re:2 words (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, some protections involve putting duff data and/or checksums on the disc so how do I know it is not the drive and/or software doing some clever tricks to correct the said duffness. Does that constitute bypassing protections within the terms of the DMCA?
How do I know the software is bypassing any protections? If it is bypassing protections then it should be illegal so why aren't you suing the developer?
Re:Gordon Brown (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2 words (Score:3, Insightful)
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 introduce a new more DRM-laden DMCA-protected distribution format that's easier for them to control - it's not like they haven't tried this before - but perhaps the timing was off; CDs are inevitably going to go the way of the dinosaur, it's only a question of when and what replaces it.
Re:One word (Score:2, Insightful)
Very true, but it's getting progressively harder to find said logo. It's almost as if it is getting dropped from all disks to help mask which ones are or aren't standards compliant. I think a bit of pressure to the retailers is due as these non-CD disks are in their "CD" sections, labeled as "CDs" in their music catalogs and are generally non-returnable if it's defective by reason of DRM. I can understand them only want to swap out defective disks with the same disk, but if that's how it's made then there's a very screwed pooch someplace. Complaints about selling "music disks" in place of real, true to standards, CDs may have some leverage under any number of consumer protection and truth in advertising laws. If anything, it's a classic bait and switch, but you never know it's a switch until you've rendered the CD unrefundable.
Re:MOD PARENT AND GP DOWN (Score:3, Insightful)
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.)
Re:2 words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
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 memory the section number and occasionally specific paragraph number for a number of portions of copyright law. Heay, at least it's not beetles.
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