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RIAA Not Suing Over CD Ripping, Still Calling Rips 'Unauthorized'
An Engadget article notes that the Washington Post RIAA article we discussed earlier today may have been poorly phrased. The original article implied that the Association's suit stemmed from the music ripping. As it actually stands the defendant isn't being sued over CD ripping, but for placing files in a shared directory. Engadget notes that the difference here is that the RIAA is deliberately describing ripped MP3 backups as '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."
Comment I posted in a firehose story (which took all of 30 seconds to realize the summary was simplistic and wrong):
More Info
here and here
Looks like the person in question was using Kazaa, which listed his mp3 files, although they weren't actually shared (uhh ... does kazaa publish them if they're not shared?) Media Sentry found them (but didn't actually download them?). He represented himself and lost big time.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
As it actually stands the defendant isn't being sued over CD ripping, but for 'old-fashioned' song downloading.
Still wrong.
They sued him over uploading, or at least, having the files in question in his Kazaa shared folder.
Yes, they may have "taken the gloves off" regarding their terminology, but this case has the exact same underlying "offense" as the thousands of other RIAA lawsuits we've heard about in the past few years.