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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...'"
OK, here is the deal... I just bought over $200 worth of music on CD and I absolutely guarantee that this will be the last music purchase I make from any RIAA backed artist unless they start recognizing fair use. In fact, in the MGM vs Grokster case, the RIAA suggested that iPods have a substantial and legitimate commercial use in contrast to Grokster.
This case appears to be an absolutely clear fair use case. This individual, like hundreds of thousands of others *purchase* music from legal sources and while I just spent the last ten minutes typing out an explanation for why this may be the case, I have realized that we've all heard this ad nauseum. What is it going to take for the shareholders of all these companies to stand up and say enough? What is it going to take before all consumers simply say "enough of this hassle, no more music purchases?" What is it going to take before these people wake up, realize that they need to stop treating their paying customers like criminals? When are they going to realize that rather than litigate against the pirates, they should simply realize that they should compete against them by offering great service for reasonable prices and get rid of all the DRM? There is a reason that music sales are dropping (actually a dozen or so), but if the RIAA and their associated represented companies simply started going back to basics, finding and promoting good talent (there is lots out there) rather than promoting the engineered bands, or what they think should be popular, they could go back to making money. Look, Long Tail economics gives them everything they need to start making more money, even from music in the public domain. Hey, I'd buy music if made available from a huge variety of artists that are currently out of print or have entered the public domain, but are no longer available.
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Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs. Moreover, Defendant had no authorization to distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted recordings from his KaZaA shared folder.
In other words, they're complaining about sharing the MP3s, not making them. The fight against corporate copyright bullies will not be helped by intellectual dishonesty and exaggeration.
foo mane padme hum
They almost certainly were unauthorized. But that doesn't matter, as copyright law does grant you some limited rights to make copies without authorization.
In most jurisdictions these rights would include transferring cd's to mp3's for personal use.
Madness? This. Is. AMERICA!!
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.
Except that they are claiming that mp3s outside your shared folder are yours, but they are no longer authorized copies once they enter your shared folder?
That's a step beyond claiming that "making available" is piracy, which is a step beyond what most of us accept as piracy.
I do agree with your assessment, though. Nothing is helped by intellectual dishonesty and exaggeration.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Actually, if you read the document, I think you'll see that it says making MP3s and putting them in the shared folder is unauthorized. It doesn't say it would be unauthorized to make MP3s and put them in a non-shared folder.
Just to get people to respond and say how stupid and misleading the article is ... is getting quite old. But heck it works and people come back for more every day spitting out the same tired responses again and again and again. It really makes me feel good about wanting to continue reading and posting tired articles/responses on slashdot. Keep up the *fine* work guys.
The RIAAs problem is they made ripped copies *avaliable* via a shared folder. It does not say the act of ripping is illegal.
What I did find interesting was the description of MP3 as a perfect copy. Niquist aside MP3 is a lossy format. Songs in MP3 format are most certainly not a perfect copy of the origional work but they don't degrade unless re-encoded which I think was the real point they were trying to make.
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.)
Are you serious?
Now I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy but the following quote:
.mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs..."
"...Exhibit B to Plaintiffs' Complaint is a series of screen shots showing the sound recording and other files found in the KaZaA shared folder..."
and
"...Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed
I don't think personal use is the issue - it is the fact he made the recordings potentially public is the problem. I imagine the RIAA will get him on 'unauthorized distribution'.
The guy who did this is pretty stupid - what kind of reaction from the RIAA does he expect?
Pretty much all my music is in some kind of digital form, when I rip cds I certainly don't store them in a sharable folder - it's for my private use.
Then again this is the RIAA this person will probably suffer a ridiculous fine (or jail term?) that can potentially ruin his life (it's only music for christ's sake).
If I knock over someone with my car and kill them I would probably be fined £1000 and incur points on my driving license (or a ban for 12 months).
(Hey it's the old if "it was a car" analogy).
Makes you wonder why they haven't gone after libraries for "making available" yet...
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.
Yet another misleading kdawson post. I haven't had the urge to filter by editor since the JonKatz days, but I think I'm about there again.
Unless I can no longer read and correctly understand and interpret English, this is not anything to get excited over. (But most of y'all will, cos otherwise Slashdot would be no fun at all, right?) That one sentence, in context, links the ripping to mp3 format and the "making available" in a shared folder as being one "unauthorized" process. Yes, I would say the sentence is poorly worded and potentially ambiguous, but the intent is clear. If he had ripped the tracks for his own use, and not made them available to others, no one would know or care, and there would be no case here.
Leave it to the denizens of this board, however, to twist bad syntax into something sinister. You would think that we are suddenly in danger of having the mp3 format declared illegal and ripping software impounded. There are plenty of reasons to despise the RIAA, and they are a sufficiently evil organization as it is -- we don't need to paint them as even more of an asshat than they already are.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Though I don't like this: Second, because online "piracy typically takes place behind closed doors and beyond the watchful eyes of a copyright holder," Warner Bros. Records, Inc. v. Payne, Case No. W-06-CA-051, slip opinion at 7 (W.D. Texas July 17, 2006) (Exhibit B hereto), Plaintiffs should be allowed to prove actual distribution based on circumstantial evidence. Proof based on circumstantial evidence!?
I don't think I can make this any simpler: Stop Buying Music from RIAA Members. Its easy, they don't seem to want you to buy their product anyway. Music CDs might or might not play, just like they might or might not infect your PC with rootkits. Legal downloads might or might not play on whatever portable device you have, and they probably wont play on your next one, or your next PC, so what are you spending your money on anyway? Stop Buying Music from RIAA Members.
The RIAA gets its funding from the big labels in addition to these racketeering activities. As SCO has so thoroughly demonstrated, suing your customers is not a sustainable business plan. Cut off the other source of revenue: Music Sales, and they will eventually wither away and die. I am not condoning piracy here, and as a musician its hard to advocate intentionally killing off an industry I've spent a significant part of my life studying, but it simply must be done. It is the only way to rid the planet of what has become a blight on the world. Only then can something better rise up to fill the void. It is a sacrifice we all have to make for the greater good.
Theres a theme here: Stop Buying Music from RIAA Members.
How can you tell whether music is from an artist represented by the RIAA?
Maybe we should ask for a labeling requirement on all music (CD, on-line, radio) indicating whether the music comes from an RIAA artist or not.
Some people are addicted to their music, and can't live without their occasional fix. Thus, they'll buy music from the RIAA regardless of how much they hate them. To such people, getting a fix is much more important than making a point about the RIAA.
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
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.
Well, what you propose is IMHO no different than the prisoner's dilemma, only scaled to some millions of people. And it just doesn't scale.
The mechanics are just like in the prisoner's dilemma, really. With two people it's just "am I sure that my pal will do the same? or am I shooting myself in the foot?" Which boils down to how well you know him, I guess. There have been plenty of people who've been surprised there. With millions of people, it becomes "am I sure that all these millions will do the same? or am I just the idiot depriving himself of something, while everyone else doesn't give a damn?" Since you don't know them all, the latter becomes the far safer bet. And you know they'll think the same.
Briefly, if your rights depend on some tens of millions of other people doing the same thing, you've already lost them. Isolated individuals are insecure, weak, vulnerable, easy prey for FUD, etc.
No, what most of the world discovered a long time ago, is that you need some laws if you're against something.
E.g., if you want, say, the factories to stop polluting rivers, you need a law that forbids that or at least gives them a cost feedback for it. Because just hoping that everyone will suddenly say "well, I'll refuse to work for anyone who pollutes, or buy their products" just doesn't work.
Same here. If you don't like copyright law and the loopholes/privileges/whatever it gives to the RIAA, then have that law changed. Just hoping that millions of independent people will individually decide to boycott them, never worked, never will.
Or at the very least, get organized. If you want people to stand up for something, at personal cost or inconvenience, see the prisoner's dilemma again: they have to be sure that everyone else, or at least enough others, do the same thing. Plus, it gets you taken more seriously by the other side you're negotiating with. A group of a million or two sworn to never buy CDs until fair use is respected, has some bargaining power. Isolated individuals whining separately do not.
The last paragraph is why unions appeared. Much as that seems to be a swearword for many nerds.
Or before them such things as the guilds or medieval communes. Isolated burghers were no match for the noble of the land. A whole city standing together for their rights, well, now that got taken a bit more seriously.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use..
RIAA Lawyer: Your honor, despite sharing a surname, bank account and residence, Plaintiff's exhibit 23A - a copy of a marriage license - will clearly show that Mr. Defendant and his so-called wife are, in fact, two completely separate people. Furthermore, these DNA samples, marked Plaintiff's exhibit 23B, also provide conclusive evidence that these two "married" people are most certainly two distinct persons.
Our license to this music clearly states that it is for personal use. Copyright law makes clear that this only grants license to one person and yet the Defendant plainly admits that he illegally shared our copyrighted content with his so-called wife, a clearly separate and unauthorized entity.
This is an outrageous, flagrant and willful disregard for the law! On that basis, I move for summary judgement.
...buy your mainstream music second hand... It's being sold legally yet they don't get a penny and they'd ban it if they could. It's probably second on their list next to the removal of fair use. Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for everyone else), DRM serves both of those purposes. Aside from restricting what you personally can do with it, DRM'd music also can't be resold.It's a neat little racket they've got going, and just a few of the many reasons the industry wants to abandon the CD.
This is an issue that deserves some thought. Fair use isn't the only pro-consumer doctrine that can be routed around by some combination of legislation and technology (I'm looking at you, DVD Forum).
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1. Defendant copies files (the copying).
2. Defendant put the files in a shared folder on his HDD.
3. 2. invalidates his fair-use right to 1.
Note that this argument does NOT require that he actually distributed any of the songs, or even connect to another computer.
You get rulings on this sort of stuff with a defendant that does NOT have a lawyer, then cite the precedent for those who do.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
The Fair Use argument was negated when he shared them on KaZaA - RTFA, and look at page 15 that is even mentioned in the summary.
.mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs. Moreover, Defendant had no authorization to distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted recordings from his KaZaA shared folder. .mp3 format in the shared folder on Defendant's computer hard drive, and each of these eleven files were actually disseminated from Defendant's computer.
But let me point out what I believe ruins the Fair Use argument (IANAL):
Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed
Each of the 11 sound recordings on Exhibit A to Plaintiffs' Complaint were stored in the
Ramen
The recording companies are not out there for any artistic, moral, or aesthetic purpose. They are there to make money. They do tons of market research to determine who buys their stuff, and then they cater to those people. They are no different than any other company. It just so happens that most buyers are teenage brats who burn their allowances on $20 CDs. These brats have money, worry about being fashionable and cool, and they spend their money to be such. Through creative advertising and marketing, the recording companies team up with clothing companies and other people to bring forth a product that makes people look "cool".
I would argue that the RIAA is correct in the following way: it costs just as much to make a CD with a pop band as it does one with a "better" band. In both cases, they pay the band, pay for studio time, and the engineers who produce the final product. They then pay for the CDs to get printed, distribution of said CDs, and for advertising of their new releases. Even a fool can see that it's much better to spend, say, a million dollars on some drivel that tons of high school cheerleaders will buy, than to spend a million on something eight bloggers will order from their mothers' basement PCs. You see, the cheerleaders will also buy the clothes, shoes, and other associated crap.
Watch one episode of Run's House and see how Russell Simmons and Rev Run make money. You'll see that they really can set the tone of what is "cool" in this country, and they do. They don't argue about being artsy-fartsy, giving small groups a big chance, or DRM! They just make money. There's no moral issue there...it's just business.
Don't forget Magnatune. Large selection of music, very inexpensive, plenty of download formats, and 50% of what you pay goes directly to the artist.
Fixed that for you.....
I thought I was the only one who, since the Internet made finding independent artists easier, actually enjoyed finding such hidden gems of music. After discovering indie bands, I learned it was cool to listen to something that most others don't know about. There are plenty of people at work that ask me who I'm listening to at any given time. By now, they can guess it's an "indie" artist. Most say it sounds good. I do my best to let them know where to find such music in their favorite genre.
Although a couple long time favorite artists of mine are published only on RIAA labels, I generally gave up on everything but independents. At the risk of a mild superiority complex, I feel great knowing I'm not an RIAA music buying drone.
...mainstreamish things like Neubauten. I'm not sure what mainstreamish means but I'm guessing that if the band is not available in the local outlet malls then it's not mainstream. In other words Neubauten is not mainstreamish. But what is even worse is you miss conception that purchases of Neubauten recordings does not support the RIAA. Neubauten is signed to Mute Records which is a wholly owned subsidiary of EMI with is one of the largest suppliers of funds to the RIAA (Though this has dropped recently it has certainly not dropped to nothing). Even if you purchased a recording directly from members of the band without a single dime of it going to the bands record label (which is probably a violation of their contract) you are still supporting the label by supporting their bands.I love the idea of the boycott as a means of consumer control, but trying to boycott the Big Four is just short of saying that you will no longer be listening to music, record or otherwise (and this is coming from some one with an extensive collections of independent unsigned musics and a promoter of such musicians).
This is going to be unkind, but...
Up your ass with a splintered fiddle you riaa bastards and bitches...
Disks WEAR OUT. You think I'm going to keep replacing player-scratched media? I have finally, for the first time in my life, bought an MP3 player in Nov 07, and I have years worth of CDs I PURCHASED, and some from the net, but I don't have any habit of burning and selling or even giving away to more than 3 people EVER.
Call it space-shifting if you want, but it helps reduce wear and tear on my computer when I listen to 25 hours of music over the weekend. My CDs are in MY possession, and you're lucky I paid for THOSE, considering they are 5-25 times more expensive than they OUGHT to be. Worse, the MUSICIANS are being screwed (not just because they stupidly signed with a label that screws them in contract but) because you REFUSE to reward them for what they are worth. If I could figure out HOW to directly compensate them, I would, and just bypass your asses.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"