So, I guess that wink was for you, then.
I work in the Sony Music building. They just had another round of layoffs before Christmas. Every time I pass the music guys in the hall I want to yell, “Why are you still here?! Run, run for your lives!”
Let’s not get our panties too twisted about this quite yet. engadget says while RIAA is referring to ripping as “unauthorized copying,” the suit against Jeffery Howell is for good old fashioned illegal downloading. [And even that isn’t strictly true, it is making copyrighted music available in a shared file to be UPloaded]
That said, is there a more stupid & clueless group of the wealthy and powerful than the music industry? [Other than the Bush Administration.] Why the RIAA isn’t working with Apple or even Microsoft for a real solution to this is beyond me.
Yep, I can see them doing that next. Not only that, but they will say that not only can you not have “movie parties” and have people who don’t live in your household over to watch movies with you, but that you must purchase a special “viewer’s license” per member of your household for each member, including pets. Og forbid if you have a problem with roaches, or mice! :rolleyes: Honestly, with the trend they are showing lately I won’t be surprised if that is what they try next.
This reminds me of a story that appeared on a satirical website claiming that the MPAA was requiring a license for TVs over a certain width, claiming that large-screen TVs were harming the movie industry by recreating the feel of a theater at home. Many websites reprinted this piece of satire as truth- including The AV Club, a subsidiary of a little website called the Onion, known for its…um, satircial articles.
Oh, it’s pretty bad already. The music mills managed to get all sorts of interesting restrictions put into law. Just look at this copyright page here: Chapter 1 - Circular 92 | U.S. Copyright Office
…and so on. Note they’re even nitpicking to the point of specifying how big of a TV you can use in certain commercial conditions before it becomes a potential copyright violation - 55-inches. You think they aren’t itching to get their paid-for California representatives to something that nitpicky into law for home use?
Here’s what I don’t understand if they’re making this “unauthorized copies” argument for cd’s ripped to computers. What of ipods? Even if I purchase the mp3 from itunes, I purchase it to download on my computer. When I load it onto my ipod, I have effectively copied the file as it now exists on both my computer and my ipod. However, I am unable to purchase a file specifically for my ipod as it has to be loaded from my computer. How can they legally get around that?
AS I POSTED IN ANOTHER PIT THREAD ABOUT THIS SAME TOPIC…
RIAA is being belligerently stupid. Assuming you only rip songs to your computer so only you can listen to them and never share them on-line, how exactly do they expect enforce this? Are they going to start randomly grabbing iPod listeners off the street and giving them the third-degree to find out if songs on their MP3 player were (gasp!) originally from a CD? Are they going to start paying people to snitch on friends and family who have ripped their CD collection to their computer? Their whole argument deserves to get laughed out of court.
The enforcement is very simple, if completely haphazard and random: The RIAA and MPAA want to create an effective “presumption of guilt” when it comes to copyright law. That is, they want to make it so unreasonable to avoid breaking the law that they know anyone who annoys them is guilty of something and can be harassed into compliance based on their violation of otherwise unenforceable laws.
The backlash to this is people ceasing to take copyright seriously. This is happening all over the world and will not be stopped by passing more laws (duh) or even cracking down on a few notable people. There will always be nations just out of reach of the laws (Sweden and China are the big ones now, maybe some African nations will be the next hotspots) but fully in reach of the Internet.
Well, barring search warrants, that would be basically unenforceable. Except for the shotgun-style lawsuits, this is pretty comical.
Hate to bring a halt to all this snowballing conjecture, but the link does say:
So, no - nobody’s throwing anyone in jail for copying their own cd’s to their own ipod for their own use, and nobody’s planning to either.
As for “giving it to your friends”, I’d like to hear a coherent argument as to why this isn’t stealing. When you buy a recording, are you just paying for the plastic that the cd is made out of, and the ink that the cover is printed with, or are you also paying for the intellectual property that is the music contained on the cd? Surely you all believe it’s the latter, don’t you? You don’t believe that artists should give all their music away for free and not make a cent, do you?
With me so far? Good. So let’s say I buy a cd for $15, and the artist’s share of profit for that cd is 15 cents (don’t know what they would make, but just as an example). Now, if 1000 other people buy that cd, the artist makes $150. But if I file share that cd with 1000 people, the artist only makes 15 cents. Now, you can rant all day about the horrible greedy record companies, and I’m not necessarily going to disagree, but who’s really getting screwed when you file-share? The artist, that’s who.
IIRC, for songs purchased from iTunes there is a clause in the licensing agreement that allows for multiple copies of the songs to be made, including burning onto CD.
And it also says:
…which is really fucking insulting and completely wrong, but we’re pretty much used to that by now, so it doesn’t matter, right? What’s up with the people who watch these goddamn assholes chip away at our rights to do anything at all with the music we buy, and react to it by simply smiling and asking for more lube?
I do like the picture of the crestfallen girl in the article who was fined $9250 apiece for songs by the likes of Richard Marx and fucking Journey. I think I’d be less upset by the fines than I would by having my picture next to those song titles in The Washington Post.
Heeeere we go again. :rolleyes: Why don’t you do us all a favor and shut the fuck up instead of starting that debate for the ten billionth fucking time, okay?
The legality depends on how he was burning said hard disk. Was it outside of his private property, and was there ever any danger of starting a wildfire? How do you get those things to ignite, anyway? 
Fuck the RIAA. Its not like I am in the demographic of people who agree with them anyway, but they can’t win any sympathy by suing private citizens, especially when they rely on Scientology-like scare tactics to force people to settle. Hopefully they will be extinct and providing us oil soon.
But nonetheless, that’s what the RIAA is claiming, and more:
And it looks like Hillary Clinton is guilty of this practice:
Think the RIAA has the stones to take on Hillary? I think not. 
Why is the RIAA not suing Apple for promoting the ripping of CDs onto iTunes and iPod? Apple (and others) are making these tools widely available and suggesting people use them for illegal activities.
If I was Apple, I might be inclined to nip this shit in the bud, and countersue the RIAA, or at least provide this fellow with top notch defense attorneys.
Can we insist that they follow their logic to it’s conclusion? If they try to sue a well-known political figure, that might get Congress to wake up to the way these assholes are stomping all over “fair use” and copyright in general.
As Derleth pointed out, the practical upshot of this sort of nonsense is that it’s creating a popular view of copyright that’s actually harming and weakening copyright in the eyes of the public.
Or, to put it another way - it’s fulfilling a prediction made back around 1840, during debate in Parliament on the subject of copyright:
(Text of the full speech available here , and is still highly illustrative of the issue of copyright, IMNSHO.)
Um, yes? You can’t copy and SHARE music. That (IMHO) makes sense. If your SO wants a mix CD, he or she should legally purchase the music. The music belongs to you, not your SO. What the thread is about is people ripping their OWN legally purchased music and getting in trouble for using it themselves, not for sharing it. Ripping music then sharing it is an entirely different issue.
What I would love to know is how he got “caught”. I don’t know anyone that does **not ** rip their CDs to a digital format to enjoy on their MP3 player.
I see they don’t have the concept of “gifts” on your home planet. 
People have been repeatedly telling the music industry to fuck off in recent years, and deservedly so. Hence declining sales and the problems several major companies have been having.
That’s part of what pisses me off so much in discussions like this; I have heard (I’ll have to research it later, since I’m off to work now) that the music industry has NOT had declining sales since the introduction of mp3s, iPods, iTunes, etc. It’s a control and “We’ve always done it this way, so we’ll always do it this way” issue ONLY. If I were an artist, I’d be staying away from the entrenched music industry in droves. It’s a new world for the music industry and artists, and you can embrace or it get left behind, and all the draconian, ludicrous laws in the world won’t change that reality. (Embracing the new way of doing business, like, for example, this guy, Geoff Byrd. He’s apparently a big deal on the net; we saw him live opening for Hall and Oates, and bought his cd at the show. He is a major talent, and as far as I know, has nothing to do with the [del]dinosours[/del] established music industry.)