This is so mind-blowingly ridiculous I’ll leave all of the smarminess to you guys to wipe up in the comments. In the case Atlantic vs. Howell—the couple’s being sued for sharing songs over KaZaA—the RIAA filed a supplemental brief. On page 15, they repeatedly call ripped MP3s “unauthorised copies,” basically arguing that ripping songs from a CD to your computer for personal use is making an “unauthorised” copy. And the money quote so you don’t have to pore over the whole document:
It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorised copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings on his computer … Virtually all of the sound recordings on Exhibit B are in the “.mp3″ format. … Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife’s use.
I wanna give them the benefit of the doubt that they just poorly worded this part of the brief, but they tend to try to hang you with any slack you give them. [The Brief via Recording Industry vs. The People via Slashdot]
Barnesy
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 1:56 PMIt’s worth noting that until recently in Australia, it was illegal to rip CDs to your computer or MP3 player under the Copyright Act of 1968. The same went for making backup copies of software, unless you were explicitly granted the right to do so in the EULA.
Ironically, it was a new Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the US that gave us “Fair Use” rights that you have enjoyed for so long, and now the RIAA wants to take them away.
Ross Carroll
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 2:14 PMThis is just so mind bogglingly stupid it beggars belief. I’ve a suggestion(which some will suggest is equally stupid,). Lets fight this utter stupidity by the record companies by turning ourselves in! All of us. The whole fricken planet!
A world wide campaign coordinated on the net where everyone collects the names of all of the songs they have on their computer, ipod etc and gives themselves up for arrest by these idiots.
My logic being is when the RIAA etc can literally see how people really use their product they will have to back down and change their thinking (or am I being too naive?) I figured a bit of lateral thinking might be in order to fight these cretins. Christ knows logic doesn’t sit well witht them.
David D.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 10:47 PMI think it would be interesting to check the computers of anyone involed with RIAA and I’m willing to bet my nuts that they have some of these very same “unauthorised” copies of music on their computers.
Pac Shady
Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 11:36 AMSo… if we convert them to MP3′s then it’s illegal, but they said nothing about converting into OGG’s ;) maybe we should work on a way to hack iPod’s so they can play OGG’s and we’ll be right! LOL