RIAA redefining piracy: Rip your own CD? You're a thief!

[Nylan]

As an avid supporter of whole albums and hard-copy CDs (I see it as part of the art), this irritates more than probably anything else they've tried to pull. Somebody slap them with an antitrust lawsuit already and get this over with.

 

[carmen510]

Here's something, slap them with CDs and your iPod after using their computers to copy songs, and then copy them onto CDs, and then copy the CDs onto your iPod! Brilliant!

The RIAA will eventually rot and die. Their last stand is approaching!

 

[Nylan]

Here's something, slap them with CDs and your iPod after using their computers to copy songs, and then copy them onto CDs, and then copy the CDs onto your iPod! Brilliant!

The RIAA will eventually rot and die. Their last stand is approaching!

Sure, lets go with that. Just change iPod to something more sensible. Otherwise, its like EMI making money off the Sex Pistols song that insults them. The iPod is an avatar of DRM and ******ation. I won't touch one.

 

[JohnRM]

Consumerism is a plague.

 

[Ondskan]

If I ever become a terrorist the RIAA and the ESA are first on my list.

What next? It's illegal to hum a tune?

Next is forbidding libraries and radio stations. After that we got ourselves a nice corporate police state. Yaaaay. You also got me = Terrorist - big time.

 

[Sims2789]

What next? It's illegal to hum a tune?

What about watching a movie? Your brain makes at least one copy of the film and at least one copy of the audio. Worse yet, store a snippet into long-term memory but not remember it properly, creating a derivative work! Not only are you stealing, you're also changing their art!

 

[REDY]

I think that it went so far. Now best thing to do is break off these organizations. They are clearly ineffective and only harass honourable people.

 

[steviejay]

Am I the only one who gets the feeling that RIAA policy is defined by a man wearing a tinfoil hat in a dark room in the basement of a large building writing ramblings on the wall with a crayon under a bare buld?

I'm waiting for the RIAA to start suing Apple for 'promoting piracy' by making the iPod.

Personally I'd quite like it if they all got beaten horribly by sticks. But that's just because I'm so violent from playing computer games. and speaking of computer games, Jack Thomson ....

 

[Grisu]

I just can't shake the feeling that the PR office of the RIAA is in no way worth its money (no matter what they pay them).

All the recent actions of the RIAA have resulted only in the honest customer to be harassed, while the true pirates don't really mind. I don't know, but I just have the feeling that pissing off your customers isn't really a good police.

I mean, how would you feel if your local department store would conduct a full body search whenever you want to leave their store? Sure, that would cut down on shoplifting but at what price? :crazy:

But anyway, I'll stick to my policy of only buying CDs that are not copy-protected or buy songs that are DRM-free.

 

[steviejay]

It's like harassing the kid hanging out by the pick n mix for putting a sweet in his mouth while two guys at the back are wheeling out 42 inch HD TV's out the front door.

Piracy ain't going to go away. To think of it as such would be folly. But I think they're of the opinion if they're in the public eye it's a good thing. Doesn't work though but hey, you gonna tell the tin foil hat wearing executives that?

 

[sourboy]

This is ridiculous and will never hold up in court.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Well, this is ridiculous, and would never stand up if they tried to prosecute someone on this basis.

However, a part of the article which .Shane. referenced, but (oddly enough ) chose not include in his excerpt, says:

The industry's own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it "won't usually raise concerns," as long as you don't give away the music or lend it to anyone.

Thus it sounds more like a part of drawing out the legal battleground - they don't want to accept that any copying at all is legal as it can lead you down the road of relativism, arguing at what point it actually does become illegal, which we were (sort of) debating on another thread.

 

[warpus]

May not be a legal right?

What happened to fair use rights??

 

[Quintillus]

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.

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.

Any updates on how this is holding up in court? It seems like you might as well sue someone for copying a page of a textbook on a Xerox machine.

While I'm opposed to actual piracy, the idea that you can't make copies for your own use seems ludicrous. If you buy a CD and want to make a cassette so you can play it in your old car, but only ever use both copies for your own use, how is that stealing? I suppose it's possible a thief would rob your house and steal the CD while you were out buying groceries listening to the cassette, but that's rather unlikely. Obviously the same situation would seem to apply to making a copy on your hard drive of a CD or movie.

Enforcement is another issue that seems puzzling. If you never dissiminate the material via the Internet or selling physical copies of the original, how would the RIAA know you copied the data from a CD/DVD to your hard drive? It would seem that there's a bit of a privacy invasion there, perhaps a warrantless search of your hard drive.

At any rate I'm not feeling to sorry for the RIAA because I copied a few DVD's to my hard drive. It's a nice convenience to be able to play them with a few clicks of the mouse and without having to carry the discs around, but half the point of going to the effort was merely the act of defying the dictatorial RIAA...when will companies ever learn to treat their customers well?

edit: Did a bit more research. The MPAA says this:

The Act [DMCA] strengthens the protection of copyrighted materials in digital formats, such as motion pictures on DVDs, by outlawing the manufacture, importation or distribution of devices, programs or services that circumvent technical protection measures that restrict access to or prevent infringement [copying] of copyrighted works. Thus, it prohibits anyone from distributing a software utility designed to circumvent the CSS technology used to protect DVD software.

Buying a DVD does not grant the purchaser the right to violate copyright protections enjoyed by the creators of that work, nor to use software that circumvents copy protection.

http://www.mpaa.org/DVD_FAQ.asp

It explicitly says creating or distributing programs that break copy protection is illegal. It also says buying the DVD doesn't give the consumer a right to use such software - but it doesn't explicitly say you don't have a right to do so in the first place. The MPAA DVD FAQ no doubt implies that copying DVD's for your own use is not legal, but never explicitly states it.

Found another interesting on it: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060124-6036.html. Apparently the MPAA doesn't always follow its own standards.

 

[Left]

Consumerism is a plague.

I like music.

 

[warpus]

It explicitly says creating or distributing programs that break copy protection is illegal. It also says buying the DVD doesn't give the consumer a right to use such software - but it doesn't explicitly say you don't have a right to do so in the first place. The MPAA DVD FAQ no doubt implies that copying DVD's for your own use is not legal, but never explicitly states it.

Found another interesting on it: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060124-6036.html. Apparently the MPAA doesn't always follow its own standards.

Isn't all of that over-ruled by some sort of "fair-use rights" copyright law?

Or is that just in the rest of the civilized world?

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

What's next? Legally purchased CDs are banned because people riding in the car with you can hear them? Seriously, these people are mad!

@Quintillus

There was a thread here earlier about an unwarranted hard disk search at the airport. They now can do that.

 

[woody60707]

I would like to know how this ended up too.

I always hear about cases going to court, I never hear how they end.

 

[Quintillus]

Isn't all of that over-ruled by some sort of "fair-use rights" copyright law?

Or is that just in the rest of the civilized world?

That's what has prevailed with VHS and cassettes, so presumably yes. But by the letter of the law, I believe it is technically illegal now. That doesn't mean fair use won't hold up in court, though - it also doesn't mean it will.

What's next? Legally purchased CDs are banned because people riding in the car with you can hear them? Seriously, these people are mad!

@Quintillus

There was a thread here earlier about an unwarranted hard disk search at the airport. They now can do that.

Did a search and found the thread, which I had missed earlier: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=257932. That's a new level from what already was pretty bad. However, I don't consider it to be a danger. It's entirely impractical. Admittedly, quite a few of the current security measures are, but this goes far beyond any of them in the impracticality. I really don't see this as too much of a concern - though that doesn't make it any better.

I still maintain that by the Fourth Amendment such searches would be illegal. I can see exceptions for when something poses a potential imminent danger - hence why I consented to a luggage search when my board game timer inconveniently started ticking at the security checkpoint last time I flew - but there's nothing about a hard drive that should warrant a search, unless it's been physically tampered with, at which point examining the files on it likely isn't what the police officers should really be doing.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

Did a search and found the thread, which I had missed earlier: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=257932. That's a new level from what already was pretty bad. However, I don't consider it to be a danger. It's entirely impractical. Admittedly, quite a few of the current security measures are, but this goes far beyond any of them in the impracticality. I really don't see this as too much of a concern - though that doesn't make it any better.

I still maintain that by the Fourth Amendment such searches would be illegal. I can see exceptions for when something poses a potential imminent danger - hence why I consented to a luggage search when my board game timer inconveniently started ticking at the security checkpoint last time I flew - but there's nothing about a hard drive that should warrant a search, unless it's been physically tampered with, at which point examining the files on it likely isn't what the police officers should really be doing.

Exactly. I remember something in that thread about like if you have to give away information known only to yourself that isn't tangible (security codes, passwords, lock combinations) you do not have to, or something like that. I don't know the amendments by heart, so could somebody refresh my memory?