RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an Arizona case against a defendant who has no legal representation, Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA is now arguing — contrary to its lawyers' statements to the United States Supreme Court in 2005 MGM v. Grokster — that the defendant's ripping of personal MP3 copies onto his computer is a copyright infringement. At page 15 of its brief (PDF) it states the following: 'It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies... Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use... Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recordings into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies...'"

Comments

Enforce it to the letter

[deniable]

Mr RIAA lawyer better not have any audio files on his laptop. Better have the judge make sure he has a note from every rights holder. Check his car too. Got an iPod, Mr. Lawyer? How about your kids? Unauthorized ring-tones on your phone?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I'm sure we could find violations by the RIAA and it's members and staff.

Can't touch this? It's discovery time.

Re:Learn how to summarise

[Typoboy]

There is an 'and' there. But, line 3 of that page says: "It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings on his computer." and then states that that refers to copies which were made from their original format. So it does seem that they are claiming that possession of mp3s of CDs you own is unauthorized. Unless (and it is a big if) they are saying that possession of mp3s in his shared folder is an unauthorized format. But I can't quite follow that. Page 8 says that space shifting fair use is invalid when it involves distribution to the public. Presumably it could be fair use otherwise?

MP3s and the Audio Home Recording Act

[Anonymous Coward]

The Audio Home Recording Act was a reaction by the RIAA to the dangers of Digital Audio Tape (DAT). Basically, the RIAA was worried that DAT would lead to widespread bit-perfect copies of its recordings. In order to prevent that, the RIAA agreed to the use of the Serial Content Management System to regulate DAT. What SCMS did was but in a flag that allowed one to make a bit-perfect copy of a recording. But one could not make a bit-perfect copy of the copy. (You could, of course, convert the copy to analog and make a perfect copy of the converted track.)

Obviously, DAT never took off and SCMS became a dead end. However, look at what the RIAA agreed to: you can make as many imperfect copies (for personal use) as you wanted. What is an MP3 except an imperfect digital copy?

Unfortunately, this almost certainly has no relevance to the MP3 debate because SCMS is specific to DAT. (If it did have relevance, I'm sure someone would have argued it by now.)

Sue Apple

[iamacat]

I just popped a CD into my drive and iTunes asked me if I want to add it to my music library. Upon clicking yes, the application created mp3 files on my hard drive and shared them with all my coworkers without warning me about making unauthorized copies. I hear that's also the main source of music in most people's iPods. So why not sue Apple rather than going after the small fish?

Ah... you mean Steve Jobs will make a 15 minute reality distortion field speech to the jury and the lawsuit will be over? And one more thing - the precedent will be set that not only format shifting music or anything is fair use but also so is streaming the files to your family or your coworkers. We certainly wouldn't want THAT.

Re:You're *just now* starting to boycott???

[junklight]

no one is asking you to stop buying music - just no via the RIAA.

I buy pretty much everything direct now - from ultra obscure stuff like Richard Skeltons wonderful work: http://www.sustain-release.co.uk/ to mainstreamish things like Neubauten and (drum roll) Radiohead.

More bands should get with the program and opt out of the RIAA as well.

There is Music out there - the RIAA is not interested in music and it is not interested in its customers/victims

Re:You're *just now* starting to boycott???

[unapersson]

You can always buy your mainstream music second hand. I'm pretty sure that pisses them off a lot more than piracy. It's being sold legally yet they don't get a penny and they'd ban it if they could.

Re:You're *just now* starting to boycott???

[PopeRatzo]

You can always buy your mainstream music second hand.

Now you're talking. Next to buying directly from the artist, this is my favorite approach to the issue of all out-of-control corporate entities like RIAA.

But I also believe downloading via torrent trackers is also very effective. The attacks of the RIAA against consumers has gone beyond the polite and has moved into a new arena requiring civil disobedience. The main thing is to deprive the record labels of your money, which they seem to believe is "their money" by divine right of kings.

Re:Learn how to summarise

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

They would have to prove that
(a) actual copies or phonorecords were distributed
(b)to the public
(c)by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by license, lease, or lending....

Re:Fair use!!!

[badasscat]

I'm not sure what you want to see the shareholders do or think, unless it is perhaps "that money is being wasted on lawsuits" which is probably not a foregone conclusion.

I'm sure what he wants them to see is that their accelerating sales declines are because of all this nonsense, not in spite of it. The conventional wisdom right now is that these lawsuits are doing all that can be done to staunch the tide of piracy and prop up sales in a difficult market... I think the reality is the industry is doing more damage to itself with these types of statements and the lawsuits that they go along with than piracy ever did.

People are calling for a boycott... I think a boycott is already in force, if you look at the sales numbers. A lot of people don't buy nearly as much music as they used to, and the declines are growing every year. (Downloads aren't rising nearly fast enough to make up for lost CD sales.) This despite the lawsuits, and the fact that even the RIAA has said that they've stemmed the rising tide of piracy.

You can argue over the reasons for that, and I agree there are probably many reasons, but I don't think it can be disputed that the RIAA's war on its own consumers has tarnished the music industry's image among the public. I don't think anybody says "I'm not buying this CD because the music industry is suing people!" but I think it's in the back of their mind all the time that this industry is at best shady and at worst evil, and so major label music is not going to automatically be put at the top of their internal wish lists. Also, it only takes 10% of people to stop buying music for sales to drop 10% (or more, depending on what types of buyers they were), and I'm sure that this campaign against common sense has turned off more than 10% of the industry's heaviest consumers.

It would be nice if the companies themselves - ie. the investors, which are the money behind everything - would finally recognize this.