“Converting music CDs to audio files on a computer is unapproved and therefore illegal, the Recording Industry Association of America has said in a brief ahead of a crucial Arizona lawsuit. Hoping to support the arguments from group member Atlantic Records in its complaint against the Howell family, the RIAA contends that ripping CDs leads to ‘viral’ copyright infringement,” MacNN reports.
MacDailyNews Note: The RIAA is a trade group that represents the outmoded music cartels who are currently in a desperate and futile search for relevancy as their business undergoes radical and rapid transformation at the hands of Apple Inc.
“The statement partly contradicts the RIAA’s previous stance on the subject. Although the group is careful in the current case to make a separation between illegal file sharing and ‘space-shifting,’ or accessing a user’s own songs to a different device for listening outside of a regular location, it argues that any transfer of songs that has not been explicitly approved is illegal,” MacNN reports.
Full article, including link to the RIAA’s legal brief (PDF), here.
MacDailyNews Take: The only way to effectively compete with piracy is to offer DRM-free (or unobtrusively DRM’ed) content that can be played anywhere for a reasonable price. Then people will buy. It’s a simple solution that most of the world’s content providers have yet to understand.
A first step towards making people pay for a song every time they listen to it.
The music industry is *almost* dead. I can smell it. We’re so close!!!
Keep stealing music, kids. History will thank you.
-c
Write your congressman. Contact the press,but be polite and to the point. Sony took it in the shorts with their encrypted CDs. This has the potential of blowing up in their faces. Also, purchase the indie music that doesn’t go through the “cartel”.
“Also, purchase the indie music that doesn’t go through the “cartel”.”
STEAL THE REST!!!
Those guys cannot write the word brain, as they don’t have some.
What about this:
I buy songs on the iTunes Music Store and burn it 7 times.. or even more times, if I out one song in different playlists to burn?
Hey, woohoo, I am an actively stealing pirate…
Come over to Ireland you dumb@sses and sue me.
@ BiZarRo BaLlmEr:
Yes indeed, your are a copycat and stealing…
The Energizer bunny should endorse the RIAA – they keep going and going…
Hay i wonder how bad for the environment all those CD and Jewell Cases are.
Poor Universal, receiving $1 for every Zune sold. The plan has yet to break-even, $173 doesn’t go very far when offsetting lawyers bills.
But Microsoft has sold over a million you say, did you ever read a contract from Microsoft? Zunes sold at less than MRP don’t count.
This is a joke, or maybe it isn’t. Nothing is what it seems. Especially in Microsft contracts.
Why isn’t there federal legislation clarifying this situation? I just cannot understand why this farce is still going on.
Zune Tang is mostly boring but comes across as meaningless and not very funny in a discussion about relevant laws that may well affect all of us … Zune … boring and no longer funny … move on …
Ah, Zune Thang making sense.
“All manufacturers of MP3 players should be forced to pay a tariff to beleaguered music labels. I applaud Microsoft in this respect.”
You should really put your hands together for Canada then Zune Thang. They are working with the idea of a tax on all media that can store audio files. I think that recordable CD’s are taxed this way. Not only does this sort of process have the potential to help get money back to the artist, it basically legalizes something that other governments are trying to make illegal…sharing.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070720-copyright-board-of-canada-gives-thumbs-up-to-ipod-tax.html
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9131/Canadian+Songwriters+Want+$5+Monthly+Tax+to+Legalize+P2P
Years ago the RIAA came to Canada to try to take someone to court in similar suits that were successful in the US. They failed. It is nice to know that some countries understand some parts of human nature.
So any applause for Canada ZuneThang?
What’s next? Purchasing CDs(The Physical Kind) without the direct written approval is piracy?
MW: Make. I can’t think of anything for this one…
Burning cd’s is illegal? since when do people do that anymore anyways. The industry is being hit from all sides and they don’t know how to go about stopping piracy. Instead of going after people one by one the industry instead would be better off pushing through some draconian law that makes file sharing illegal on the internet through congress. They instead are going after individuals is like somebody looking for a needle in a haystack :-> There is always loopholes, but downloading is in the mainstreams mindset. People have kids who have never paid one penny for a cd or album. Lets hope the kids instead download from the apple store? Keep an eye on your kiddies
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“Zune Tang is mostly boring but comes across as meaningless and not very funny in a discussion about relevant laws…”
Bob you are wrong. ZT is AWAYS boring. If any article about Apple or related material is white, you can be sure he blathers on about it being black, right vs wrong, in vs out, etc etc.
MDN is full of people who find ZT refreshing and funny. They must be the same people who laugh at hearing the same joke 40,000 times. Even more amazing to me are the people who take offense because they thing he/she/it is serious. And even MORE amazing than that are those people who write the people who are offended and tell them he is being satirical.
This is a shitload of amazement.
MacGeek Pro: “Welcome to the Orwellian Era where the gov’t is paid millions by corporate america to take away the rights of the people. Is this the prelude to Communism? You tell me.”
All right, I’ll tell ya. It’s a prelude to fascism, dude….
MW: stand. Make one.
..oh and by the way…screw RIAA, ZT, Microsoft, Universal and NBC, Steve Ballmer, the Zune. Did I miss anything?
Merry Xmas everyone
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It is worth noting that any law which becomes unenforceable by reason of mass public disobedience is in principle revoked by popular consent and can subsequently be argued against as an invalid statute.
Somebody needs to tell the DEA about this. Give it up, jerkos, we’re gonna do what we want to do.
As much as I despise the RIAA…
They have not said that ripping a CD to an MP3 is ILLEGAL.
They have said that it is UNAUTHORIZED, and that’s exactly what it is: An UNAUTHORIZED copy that is PERMITTED by the doctrine of FAIR USE.
The RIAA have not argued that making an MP3 is illegal. Their brief argues that making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted sound recording AND putting it in a shared folder is copyright infringement.
IF “making available” is infringement – and the courts are split on that right now, but leaning towards finding that it is infringement – then what the RIAA has argued is correct.
It’s fair to go on hating the RIAA and their storm trooper mentality, but let’s not put words in their mouths. They do a good enough job shooting themselves in the foot… let’s try to stay calm and take the high road.
Well hello *$$holes… er I mean nice-like consumers,
here’s the thing: I don’t really care about anything so long as I get my money. do you know how long we’ve been waiting for this industry to mature into the piece of crap it is? we used to use talent on our rosters and found that they were always thinking: as in thinking they deserved money or some sorta “fair-deal”. I get a kick outta that~!
well as you all know, I think that’s a bunch of crap, and so do a lot of my buddies. so a while back we started manufacturing “talent”. you know, find some idiot with a dream, give ’em dance lessons, and light vocal training, sign ’em into a highly restrictive (for them) contract, record some piece of crap that some middle aged, washed up salt ‘n’ pepper hair-havin’ bastard (who we own) wrote, make ’em look pretty for the cameras and blammo! they can’t do nothin’ without ya! you just work ’em into the ground
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anyhoo, we’re really just getting started here. there’s still plenty of “work” to be done. I mean we can’t continue to have people like them Foofighters (I think they might be gays), or the so-called Red Hot Chili Peppers (what is with them boys?), or Radiohead (wha???) travlin’ around the planet distributin’ music. they’re like an infection. too much of a glarin’ discrepancy when you put them “artists” up against our true-and-real non-dissenting cash cows like good ole Brittany and the like.
well, I’m off to go shine my money clip.
Mr. Recording Industry
So, who is the “Howell family” and why are they being singled out?
Isn’t a CD ripped into iTunes and transferred to an iPod accomplished via MP4?
Zune Tang®ectum… go away you never ending puss filled boil of annoyance !
Keep digging your own grave, RIAA.
Once the music is off of the CD it is no longer a CD so it is no longer illegal. I’m NOT going to PAY for each copy of a song that is duplicated in any way. I bought the CD and therefore I have the right to do with it as I please.
Dude, that SO Rocks, since I don’t approve of WMA, WooHoo! Its illegal!
Quote “”Converting music CDs to audio files on a computer is unapproved and therefore illegal, the Recording Industry Association of America has said in a brief.”
Phweew, I’m glad they told me that. I always thought that for something to be illegal that both house of Congress had to pass a Bill banning it and that the President had to sign the Bill for it to become Law. Apparently I’m mistaken and all it takes is for a trade group to say “This is Illegal!” to make it so.” End Quote