This is the recording industry’s last real chance to kill “fair use”. Now that actual technological blocks are possible, if they can’t get them enshrined in law or common pratice, they stand almost no chance of *ever/i] getting them enacted, so they’re pulling out all the stops. They’ve done better this time 'round, so far, than ever before. Maybe they’ll win, maybe not, but this time it’s for all the marbles, and RIAA is playing to win.
Well so far the responses seem to indicate I can do anything I want as long as more than one person can’t listen to the music at the some time.
Tranquilis - I’ve heard about the technology blocks that won’t let you rip a CD. That sounds pretty hard to do. All my computers have audio to digital converters on the microphone or input jack. As long as a CD can be listened to on headphones (why aren’t they called ear phones) people (I wouldn’t break the law) could simply play the CD into their computer and then convert the resulting wav file into an MP3 or whatever they wanted to do.
I guess the Recording Industry’s wet dream would be to sell you a CD that you couldn’t listen to?
Why do CD’s cost more than cassettes?
>Because enough people pay extra for CD’s.
It’s hard to argue with that answer, but on some level I think I’m being screwed.
Thanks for the input,
-Sandwriter
If I am just paying for the media, does it mean that the songs themselves are free? Is the RIAA screwing themselves? :wally
No. The law has not yet enshrined the ‘finders-keepers’ rule. 
Of course, if there’s no way to tell to whom it belongs, ownership can be considered to have been transferred … in which case your archived copy (the MP3 on your PC) no longer belongs to you either. 
It’s debatable to what extent the ‘Fair Use’ laws apply to a ripped copy of an entire CD. What’s not debatable is that the vast majority of the usage of that technology is not ‘Fair Use’, and the recording industry (and the software industry, for that matter) is using that fact as leverage to pressure the legislature to enact barriers to any kind of copying of their products.
The issue is similar in many ways to the various attempts to ban handguns. The U.S. Consitution contains a clause about the right to bear arms. The argument has been made that the clause in question is intended to protect the ‘legitimate’ uses of firearm, but that the primary use of handguns is to facilitate illegal activities. So far, this lobby hasn’t gotten very far with that argument, beyond virtually universal registration and ‘waiting period’ requirements. We’ll see how far the record industry gets with the analogous situation with music copying …