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vux984 on 31 December 2007
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naznatips said:
vux984 said:
For crying out loud, the RIAA said the ripped from Cd copies were unauthorized. They did not say they were illegal. Unauthorized does not equal illegal.

And unless you have explicit authorization to make the copy from the label, guess what geniuses, THEY ARE UNAUTHORIZED COPIES, even if they are legal under fair use.

Fortunately that's the entire point of fair use. Fair use doesn't ever apply to authorized copies. Fair use ONLY applies to unauthorized copies, and says that its ok to make unauthorized copies provided the use falls within fair use.

So give this a rest, the RIAA said something that's actually 100% fact, and a bunch of forum twits around the world have a collective freak-out about it. If you had a clue how copyright and fair use works you'd realize this.

The RIAA knows they are unauthorized. The lawyers on BOTH sides would agree to this in a heartbeat. At worst they'll disagree whether the USE of those unauthorized copies falls within fair use -- but that's what determines whether the copies are legal or not. But there is no question they are unauthorized.

There is NOTHING to see here.

You (and TheBigFatJ) have no clue what your talking about. They are not just maintaining the copies are unauthorized. They are maintaining they are unauthorized and illegal.

Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

The RIAA maintains that unauthorized copies of music are ILLEGAL.


First, that article is taking the RIAA website quote WAY out of context, and is seriously mis-representing what's in those court documents as well. Take a look for yourself...

 Okay, so we've done some digging into the RIAA's lawsuit against Jeffery Howell, in which the industry is claiming that ripped MP3s are "unauthorized copies," and it turns out that Jeffery isn't actually being sued for ripping CDs, like the Washington Post and several other sources have reported, but for plain old illegal downloading.

  

 http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/30/riaa-not-suing-over-cd-ripping-still-kinda-being-jerks-about-it/ 

The court briefing states that copying a CD to a computer in MP3 format and putting it in their shared KAZA folder is what made the copies illegal.

Secondly, the legality of ripping CD's has never been ruled on. Fair use makes for an extremely likely and credible defense if they ever actually charged someone... but until they do, and until a judge rules on it, its up in the air... and the RIAA can even call it illegal if it wants to, because it technically is until someone actually establishes in court that a fair use defense actually holds.