RIAA: Transferring Music From Legally Bought CD to Computer is Illegal Still Okay

We don’t normally post stuff like copyfight and the RIAA’s quest to quash music piracy through lawsuits (blogs like Boing Boing covered this subject well enough), but this recent article in the Washington Post is too good to pass up: apparently the RIAA now maintains that it’s illegal for you to transfer music from a legally bought CD to your computer!

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.

Link

Update 1/3/07: Apparently, the article was wrong: Jeffrey Howell was sued not because he ripped music from CDs to his computer, but for sharing them in a P2P basis. - Thanks Matthew McVickar!

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January 3, 2008 at 4:11 am by Alex
Category: Crime & Law, Music

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6 comments to "RIAA: Transferring Music From Legally Bought CD to Computer is ~~Illegal~~ Still Okay"

Matthew McVickar
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 am
Updates! This story got a bunch of attention over the past few days, but it turns out the original article wasn’t quite accurate. Check it out:

http://www.tenreasonswhy.com/weblog/archives/2007/12/unbelievably_st_1 .html
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/12/30/1835210.shtml?tid=187
Jason E.
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 am
I found the same updates to the story. As such, I think either the title to this post should be changed for accuracy, or the post should be removed. Otherwise, this is a propaganda posting, and that’s not very fitting of the neatorama site.
Pedro
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Glad the corrections got posted. No use propagating something that isn’t true. I agree with Jason E on what should happen to this post.
sam
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
The more they scream, the more nobody cares. I hope they declare listening to CDs you’ve purchased illegal too, or showing the disc to friends. The more they come up with stuff like this, the less people respect them and the more invalid they become.

So keep it up RIAA. Just keep on digging that grave.
Jacques
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
yeah, I too heard that he was “sharing” these mp3s. The RIAA ain’t going to be going after you for ripping for personal use anytime soon, it would be an overwhelming outcry that even the hated RIAA couldn’t ignore.
matt
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
This is why every time I listen to a song or happen to hear music I send a check for 19.95 to the RIAA just to be safe.

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