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RIAA: Ripping CDs to iPod not 'Fair Use'
dotpavan writes "EFF has this article about RIAA saying that ripping CDs and backing them up does not come under Fair use.
Ars Technica also reports on this, by quoting, "The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future. Myriad online downloading services are available and offer varying types of digital rights management alternatives. For example, the Apple FairPlay technology allows users to make a limited number of copies for personal use. Presumably, consumers concerned with the ability to make back up copies would choose to purchase music from a service that allowed such copying. Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices. Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights.""
"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."
Thanks, so I'll just buy another copy. Great solution.
a boycott? Seriously... it seems the only way to get the attention of hostile businesses is to deny them income.
"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."
I thought I was "licensing the content," not "buying the CD." Shouldn't I be able to put my licensed content wherever I want?
Until the companies offer free download replacement of the music I am (ahem) licensing, so I can store that content on a blank CD or wherever else I want, why should I care what they consider "affordable"?
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
If you ask me, the RIAA "enjoys" its copyrights a bit too much already. They're trying to transform the music industry from one in which you "buy a copy of a song" into one in which you "buy a limited licence to play the song" under which you have no fair use rights (since you dont actually own the copy, only the right to play it). This is bad for all of us, and I would suggest that companies like Apple really helped pull off the bait and switch. At this point, if people stopped using the online download services and started using CDs again instead (for the rights) the record companies would probably pull the CDs or encrypt them somehow so you still had to be bound by their overrarching licensing agreements.
Sorry guys, but I think the age of "my music" or "owning music" is dead, and currently in the process of being burried. This is just the latest shovel of dirt.
Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.
I have several CDs that I couldn't replace easily. Sometimes they go out of print.
That isnt their goal at all, in fact, it's quite the opposite. They're trying to kill the CD market in favor of the online download business. Onine downloads do not give us the same rights that buying a CD does, in fact, we get less rights (seemingly only the limited right to play the song, and copy it to another medium a limited number of times). By making CDs more expensive or difficult to acquire, or incompatible with portable music players, they can cause the market to shift itself to mediums that they can better control, even before the CD becomes completely obsolete.
How is ripping a CD I bought and listening to that music on my iPod different than recording a CD I bought onto a cassette and listening to that out of my boom box? Didn't the RIAA already have a 'fair use' tax placed on blank media that takes this into consideration?
What the RIAA doesn't realize is that there are quite a few people like me that ONLY purchase CDs so I can listen to them on my iPod. Before getting a portable mp3 player I would purchase perhaps one CD per year (I listened to the radio in my car and at work). Now I buy CDs so I have new content for my mp3 player.
The RIAA will be shooting themselves in their collective FOOT if they turn a CD into a 'limited playability license'. I for one would not buy another CD if I didn't have legal 'fair use' rights to the content.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Actually each one of these places you can play your files is one copy, and since you have a limited amount of copies, you're gonna have to re-buy the same song you already own once you have no copies left.
In my understadnding, once you buy a CD, you have a license to play it's songs in any format, in as many devices as you want and as many cars you have.
Another problem is iTunes proprietary format not being compatible with all media devices(or devices not compatible with DRMed media in general).
Downloaded tracks cost relatively more than the CD version and you have less control over what you can do with them. With the CD you can rip it, lend it, play it or turn it into a shiny coaster if you want. Just because the RIAA doesn't think it's fair use to rip your CD to your iPod doesn't mean they are right. The only downside to the CD is that there are often only a half or a third of the songs on it that you'll actually listen to. That's a big downside though.
I respectfully disagree completely. In my opinion, buying a CD that has no copy protection on it is the only way music should be purchased at this time. Forget what the RIAA says. I can rip my CD's to my iPod. Why? Because the technology is there and the courts have granted me Fair Use rights.
And why do I want to own CD's instead of songs from iTMS? Several reasons. One, its a physical copy that can be resold. And two, because legally purchased music from online stores such as iTMS have DRM built in. Sure, Apple's Fair Play DRM is the least restrictive measure of DRM there is. But its still restrictive. How? Try playing your music through TiVo's desktop software. It can't play DRM'd AAC files. But every CD player in the world can play a true CD. And that CD can be legally ripped to a format of my liking regardless of what the RIAA's lawyers want to say. And the Fair Play DRM is also on Apple's videos on iTMS. But guess what, unlike the music, they won't let you copy these videos. So, essentially, you are locked into using iTunes and Quicktime for these videos. Which brings up the real reason for DRM. Vendor lock-in.
Sure, the RIAA pretty much insisted that Apple use DRM when they opened iTMS. But it has screwed the RIAA ever since. Had they not insisted on DRM, iTMS would not have the upper hand in their battle with the RIAA. Apple may not have wanted DRM then, but I guarantee you they want it now. Why? Because if the music on iTMS doesn't have DRM, then it would be much easier for you to purchase music from iTMS and play it on any player out there. With the DRM, you are pretty much forced into using the iPod. Do you think that Apple would give up the vendor lock-in now? And what if an independent artist wanted to put their music on iTMS but didn't want any DRM. I wonder if Apple would go along with that or would Apple insist on DRM. Has anybody tried this? I'd be interested to know what Apple said. This would tell once and for all Apple's stance on the DRM issue.
Yes, and then they can cry about piracy causing a slump in CD sales and call for even more draconian "reforms." Copyrights were provided for in the Constitution as a neccesary evil, only to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." When the copyright laws stifle rather than promote that progress, then they need to be repealed.
If they treat it as a license to listen to something (like Windows CDs), then they MUST replace a damaged CD.
They can't have it both ways.
Courts have ruled for past 150 years that the concept of reselling something is sacred. In other words if RIAA sells something to me, i have every right to make a second sale of it to someone i like. RIAA loses the right to dictate whether i can sell it or not once they have sold it to me.
On the other hand, if they license it to me, then we ALL should send back Akon CDs to them (even perfectly good ones) and ask for replacement. That would bankrupts them.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
No, no. That's the entire point of DRM. Piracy is a straw man. What person, having bought an iPod, and collected some music tracks, is going to say, screw it, I'm throwing away this investment, and going with some other service? No, they want to be able to access their whole collection on whatever device they have. That means they stay with an iPod, and with iTunes. It's classic Microsoftian tactics. DRM keeps people locked in APPLE'S DRM-ed vertical stack. That's EVERYONE'S strategy with DRM.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
If they get the right laws passed, sure they can.