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.
Next they'll be after schoolteachers for playing music in class without paying royalties. The greed of the recording industry knows no bounds.
UPDATE: Various places are now reporting that the Washington Post story cited above was incorrect; that in fact the user in question was sharing his MP3 files publicly via Kazaa, and it is that sharing which the RIAA is targeting, not the actual copying of the CD to his own computer. Evidently the Washington Post is sticking by its story. Here's the relevant court document.
2 comments:
gee, am i allowed to hum a tune from one of my own CD's, since a copy now resides in my brain after listening to it?
When I read this item and the linked WP article, I thought there *must* be more to the story, and apparently there is. Apparently, Mr. Howell, the target of this lawsuit, had put the copyrighted music into a Kazaa shared folder on his computer, which is the real reason for the lawsuit, something that the Washington Post didn't mention in their flawed story. This was debunked back in late December, so this story is false and should be removed from the ChoralBlog, because hardly anyone reads these comments.
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