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Record companies hate you

stevew

resident influencer
Sep 21, 2001
40,496
9,526
really

Narlus better keep his secret santa mix cd's on the down low.

After seeing that ladies list of songs she got busted for, she should be ashamed.
 

LordOpie

MOTHER HEN
Oct 17, 2002
21,022
3
Denver
Pretty crazy. But I don't see how that will hold if you could legally make a cassette copy for personal use.
 

manimal

Ociffer Tackleberry
Feb 27, 2002
7,212
17
Blindly running into cactus
what a crock. the record companies are just trying to go out with a bang. so they're saying that if i buy a cd and then rip it to my portable mp3 player i am now stealing? i bought it...i paid for the rights to that cd to use as i please as long as i am not taking profit away from the RC.
and they wonder why people don't get their tunes legally; if they're gonna sue you for doing it legally, why not get it for free :disgust:
 

DirtyMike

Turbo Fluffer
Aug 8, 2005
14,437
1,017
My own world inside my head
what a crock. the record companies are just trying to go out with a bang. so they're saying that if i buy a cd and then rip it to my portable mp3 player i am now stealing? i bought it...i paid for the rights to that cd to use as i please as long as i am not taking profit away from the RC.
and they wonder why people don't get their tunes legally; if they're gonna sue you for doing it legally, why not get it for free :disgust:
I couldnt have said it better myself, Since when is it legal to sell Technology that is Illeagal to use??? I mean really, I bought the music, I can rip it to My Ipod if I want to. Were the Hell does the Industry get off saying you cant do that. I know It just might come back to haunt me, But When I buy a new CD I come ohome, Upload it to the Ext HD, make a copy and put the original back in the. Listen to them as long as I like, when they get torn up, I toss them in the shredder. That Or I load up the MP3 and go. Isnt that what all this new tech was made for???
 

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,196
4,419
I read about this... manimal is spot on. I wasn't sure they could sink any lower, but they somehow have. I hope they get BLASTED in court.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: 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.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."
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They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. 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.

Of course, that's exactly what millions of people do every day. In a Los Angeles Times poll, 69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend. The RIAA cites a study that found that more than half of current college students download music and movies illegally.

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, 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.

But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.

As technologies evolve, old media companies tend not to be the source of the innovation that allows them to survive. Even so, new technologies don't usually kill off old media: That's the good news for the recording industry, as for the TV, movie, newspaper and magazine businesses. But for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.

The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

The industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement. "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." And, perhaps, for firing up your computer.
the labels are in a state of denial the likes of which have never been seen.


read bob lefsetz' newsletter if you dig this sort of thing. he's an ex-insider w/ a good view into things.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Engadget claims they are suing for the illegal downloading, not ripping:

[url=http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/30/riaa-not-suing-over-cd-ripping-still-kinda-being-jerks-about-it/]Engadget[/url] said:
Okay, so we've done some digging into the RIAA's lawsuit against Jeffery Howell, in which the industry is claiming that ripped MP3s are "unauthorized copies," and it turns out that Jeffery isn't actually being sued for ripping CDs, like the Washington Post and several other sources have reported, but for plain old illegal downloading. As we're all unfortunately aware, that's pretty standard stuff; the big change from previous downloading cases is the RIAA's newfound aggressiveness in calling MP3s ripped from legally owned CDs "unauthorized copies" -- something it's been doing quietly for a while, but now it looks like the gloves are off. While there's a pretty good argument for the legality of ripping under the market factor of fair use, it's never actually been ruled as such by a judge -- so paradoxically, the RIAA might be shooting itself in the foot here, because a judge wouldn't ever rule on it unless they argue that it's illegal. Looks like someone may end up being too clever for their own good, eh?
 

ire

Turbo Monkey
Aug 6, 2007
6,196
4
why don't the record labels adapt instead of fighting tooth and nail for a dying system? Do they honestly think lawsuits are going to bring record sales back up?
 

Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
The labels want it both ways. They claim the CD is a license, but if that was the case I sure missed the agreement on the outside of the package.

If a CD is a license, then it should be legal to download a copy of music that you have the physical media for, right? All I know is that I bought a ton of music when I was a poor college student and Napster was in it's prime, because I was exposed to so much more stuff that I otherwise would have been.

Now I have the money to buy 20 times the amount of music, but I don't, because I'm happy with my collection of 500 or so CDs and I frankly don't have the time to find new stuff. I maybe buy 5 CDs a year, and those are pretty much all artists that I've bought music from in the past.
 

stevew

resident influencer
Sep 21, 2001
40,496
9,526
When this



is representative of what you are selling, why are they shocked no one is buying records?

Or that they don't want to pay for it.