It will take another generation to sort this out.

Uh, maybe the 99.99% of musicians worldwide who are NOT selling enough (or any) of their work to earn a living from it? They benefit from free exposure. It’s only an elite few who stand to lose ANYTHING from free distribution of their product.

I think you summed this up perfectly.

It is my understanding that the Supreme Court has said it is OK to make non commercial back-ups of any data or record. Maybe you might want to re-read Justice Steven’s opinion about “fair use” in Sony v. Universal City Studios. The alternative would be to return any CD / DVD to the manufacturer for a replacement if they became scratched or rendered unusable. Remember, you don’t own the music, only the right to listen to it and if the medium is inferior then they would have to replace inferior medium.

As for placing them in a directory shouldn’t make him guilty or liable. Anyone that physically enters my home may legally listen to any of my music. This is no different. He is not offering his music to be copied. If you want to copy it then YOU must enter his computer and copy the files. He just doesn’t care if you do copy any files.

You haven’t shown the MP3s are illegal. Nor has the RIAA. In order to be illegal he would not have had any rights to the music at all. As far as I understand, the RIAA is not even contesting that point.

There is no CRIME. Copyright infringement is a tort not a crime. Al Capone makes for a pretty story but has no bearing on this scenario.

A) It has been the law for several years now that it is illegal to make digital copies of digital music. That’s right: You can’t legally use your own CD to make mp3s that sit on your own computer. That said, this part of the law is essentially unenforcable, and even the RIAA has said that it understands that and looks the other way.

B) So how did the guy get caught, and why is the RIAA on his butt? Because he ripped his CDs and put the mp3s in a directory that was open to a P2P service. Whether this was his intent or not is irrelevant. The point is that by doing so, he made his mp3 collection available to others. In other words, he became a seeder/sharer. That’s how the RIAA knew he had the mp3s on his pc, and that’s how he got busted. In the past, in such a case, the RIAA would attempt to show that the files had been shared, and how, and get their pound of flesh that way. But since, in the end, it’s illegal for those mp3s to even exist on his PC, and it’s much easier to prove that they’re there than to demonstrate who shared them, they’re taking the easy route.

In other words, the crime that is effectively being prosecuted here hasn’t changed, but the method has. It’s kind of like when the government indicted Al Capone for tax evasion. He was a bad guy with a lot of other crimes to his credit, but it was easier to simply get him on tax evasion.

I do not believe that this particular case means that anyone who has ripped mp3s to their hard drive from CDs they own is gonna be next. As long as you don’t share those mp3s, either intentionally or not, through a p2p service, you’re gonna fly way under the radar. The RIAA won’t catch you, and they won’t even want you.

When an iPod is worth more than a car, well, then you really need to start thinking.

Logical next step is who in their right mind would make music anymore?

“if the RIAA wins and it is reported in the major media, people will take notice.”

Not as long as Britney Spears keeps showing her shaved cunt to the public.

Let’s see the RIAA waste some more money on these lawsuits.

http://tinyurl.com/ytywn7

Everyone can relax.