The Recording Industry Association of America doesn’t seem to understand the ways in which technology is changing the ways in which music fans are listening to music. Not only is the industry targeting people who use file-sharing software to download music free of charge — not exactly smart, but certainly within their rights — the industry says that listeners cannot rip discs that they’ve bought legally for use on their computer or portable players. That means that nearly everyone is in violation of copyright.
Consider: You buy the latest disc by Mariah Carey. You take the disc and copy it onto your computer so that you can do the foloowing: playing it on your iPod; listen to your music while working; make a mix disc for the car or for a party. You have no intention of giving the files to anyone else. You’re making use solely for your own enjoyment.
The record industry, however, says you are breaking copyright law and should be fined.
It’s an absurd position, as Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA, points out in The Washington Post.
“The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation.”
The industry offers this logic (from the Post):
“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 record companies seem to be saying that I can listen to the disc copy of Lyle Lovett’s It’s Not Big, It’s Large on my disc players — whether in my office, my car, at home or wherever. But if I want to listen to some of the songs on my iPod or mix some of the songs in with songs from other discs I’ve purchased, I have to go out and buy the music again. That’s just ridiculous — and destined to further alienate an already alienated music-buying public. Why buy discs, after all, if you have to rebuy the music to make use of your iPod?
The RIAA’s legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only “created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies,” Beckerman says. “Every problem they’re trying to solve is worse now than when they started.”
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 