The RIAA wants to Litigate "Fair Use" away...
In a desperate, senseless, lunatic attempt to save the collapse of their business, the recording industry has declared jihad on their own consumers — trying to literally to sue their customers back into the stone age. This war on consumers has taken a bizarre and potentially fatal twist as the music recording industry has declared it illegal to to copy legally purchased music to a computer for personal use.
Yes, you read that right:
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: 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.
And you thought you actually owned the digital bits on the CD you bought. No, silly. The recording industry owns them. Who knows if you even have the right to listen to the music when you have friends over...
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