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Rip A CD You Bought - And Get Sued!!

(23 posts) (14 voices)

Started 16 years ago by FreewareFan
Latest reply from RosnSC

FreewareFan
Member

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this Washington Post story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html by Marc Fisher:

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 [recording] industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

I think the RIAA has driven yet another nail into its own coffin. I can't imagine any normal, sane, rational person accepting the idea that copying a CD you bought onto your PC is a violation of copyright.

They're dinosaurs trying - and failing - to forestall the inevitable. CD sales are down 20% this Christmas. And all of the vultures in RIAA can't change that fact one iota.

Reprinted from http://askwoody.com/

How's that for Big Brother telling you what you can and cannot do with property you bought and paid for, eh?

Posted 16 years ago #
BuBBy
Teh adnim

I think the recording industry can claim whatever they like - I guess it's up to the courts to decide if he has broken any laws. (This guy has obviously decided to take this to court instead of paying the extortion fees - because he believes the legal claims are baseless)

I'm somewhat curious though, if this ripped music was never shared online - and was only on the computer for the private at-home use of Jeffrey Howell, how did the contents of his hard disk end up in the greasy hands of the MAFIAA?

Posted 16 years ago #
LeKanaw
Member

This is just incredible!
A dying industry, clawing their way to... nowhere!
Actually, I've send a contribution to Jammie Thomas fund, the young woman condemned to the $200,000+ fine. I don't even care if she's guilty or not. The whole thing is just ridiculous, and anyone of us(well not "us" per se, bc we are Canadians) could be in her shoes...

-I've subscribed to R.A.I.N, just to keep abreast, in this silly on-going saga w the RIAA, CRB, the corruption in the FCC, etc. It's mind boggling. http://www.kurthanson.com

-We also receive the Lefsetz letter. His rantings are a MUST!, for anybody who wants to know what's up in the music industry.

Did u hear about the Facebook group that organized such a raucous so quickly, that it stopped cold our Minister from trying to surreptitiously pass a new law - within hours of final passing (just b4 Xmas break!), that the RIAA & Associates (in a cross-border effort to trample our rights) had lobbied HARD for in Ottawa, that closely mirrored the one in the US. God help us!!

Peace & Good Music to all, Manu

Posted 16 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

The RIAA are evil.

I have 160 gb of music I have ripped from cd's I have purchased.

We will end up with a phase were people will say screw buying music I will record it from internet radio of which is not illegal and something I have done in the past.

Posted 16 years ago #
FreewareFan
Member

I have 160 gb of music I have ripped from cd's I have purchased.

Now you've done it! Their filters are sure to catch that phrase, and YOU will be next on their list!!! Bwahhaaaa......

Posted 16 years ago #
Lockett
Member

I've ripped two CDs, and combined my favorite tracks from the two onto a new one. What's my sentence?

Posted 16 years ago #
Archangel
Member

Hey everybody and happy new year!

Here are just a few comments for "Food of Thought".

I rip CD's and DVD's (some DVD's that I have rented just like I use to do back in the 80's and 90's but only then on VHS tapes like the other million of people did and were not prosecuted as long as they weren't sold). So whats the difference?

I'm not selling or renting copies of them.

In the USA the Police (yep that was me) can't come to your home and inspect your DVD's and CD's nor check you PC. That is not without "Probably Cause" of committing some type of crime.

Crimes are described/defined by our Government not Private Interest Groups. (But PIG's do buy elected officals).

To sum it all up, regardless of what you do with dvd's and cd's that you own, as long as you don't raise attention to yourself then you have no problem.

There were 3 rules that were taught in the Police Academy to all new cadets.

1. Admit Nothing
2. Deny Everything
3. Demand Proof!

I forgot them at the beginning of this post! LOL

Have a nice day,
Archangel

Posted 16 years ago #
Barry
Member

Hello,
Our flag should fly low, the Maple Leaf is shriveling, our $Loony$ is going to be lousy, the Maple Sugar is turning bitter, and our mighty Beaver will not come out of it's lodge, you guessed it, I am from Canada, our Prime Minister, the right honorable Joe Harper, was on National TV today and admitted that he likes to listen to his 70's TOONS that he has put on his I-Pod, what a RIPP!! OH! the shame of it all!! OLD Joe is not quite so honorable to me anymore, wait till the RIAA hears about this, an ally in the "Ripping Wars" has turned to the DARK SIDE.
You know, now that the initial shock has wore off, maybe Mr. Harper is not so bad a feller after all, and since I'm a RIPPER too, he just might get my vote.
!!Happy New Year!!
Barry

Posted 16 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

RIAA & MPAA are thugs.

They cost more money to run than they make.

Posted 16 years ago #
graylox
Moderator

Hi, it's really something awful with those pirates:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/riaa-liner-notes.php

http://icommons.org/articles/pirates-are-terrorists-who-knew

graylox

other links in this topic :
http://www.fsf.org/
http://softwarefreedomday.org/

Posted 16 years ago #
davee
Member

Apparently this is somewhat of a false alarm; evidently the Washington Post reporter didn't get all of his facts straight. See the story at http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9839170-1.html?tag=nl.e501 for details. (Sorry if this is a duplicate post; I'm not sure my first one went through.)

Posted 16 years ago #
FreewareFan
Member

Seems as if Mr. B's instinct was right after all... I'm somewhat curious though, if this ripped music was never shared online - and was only on the computer for the private at-home use of Jeffrey Howell, how did the contents of his hard disk end up in the greasy hands of the MAFIAA?

Thanks for the update, davee!!

Posted 16 years ago #
davee
Member

No problem, FreewareFan. And thank you for sharing all your finds. I especially appreciated your list of freeware text editors.

Posted 16 years ago #
FreewareFan
Member

Yer welcome, davee! Matter of fact, if you are still looking for candidates, I ran across a really good one, with built-in spell checker, at http://gammadyne.com/docpad.htm
. If you like lots of bells and whistles, this one fits the bill.

DocPad is a superior alternative to Notepad. Although it fills the same role, plain text editing, it has many advantages: 10-level undo, alphabetization, block indent/unindent, bookmark, case conversion, encoding conversion, file history, jump to line, jump to offset, keyboard macros, print preview, search and replace, spell checking, statistics, variable pitch font, and much more. It also includes a built-in calculator, calendar, and character map.

The skins are excellent! If you like wood at all, give that one a try, it's the one I use.

You might want to see how that one fits your needs.... :-)

Update: I think I'll just post this in a new thread, so that others might be more likely to see it also....

Posted 16 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

Really, didn't think that they can sue you for copying music onto your computer, they are evil menaces. I read the full article on the website. Does that mean it's illegal to copy music from CD's to iTunes and then to your iPod? That's crazy.

Posted 16 years ago #
mev1296
Member

I have a 1TB external hard drive with GB's and GB's (thousands) of tunes that I have downloaded and/or ripped over the years (I needed this new hard drive because the one in my machine was getting wayyyy too filled up). I'm talking way back when Napster was still legal and free. On this same external hard drive I also have GB's and GB's of ripped DVD movies and DivX movies. I do not, in any way, feel that I'm breaking any law. None of these people seemed to have a problem when I was a kid in the 80's(I'm now 33)recording radio songs and copying "borrowed" cassettes from friends or recording movies on VHS. Things are getting wayyyy too out of hand. I'm self-employed and I give enough money to the government and people that don't deserve it. I believe in honesty and paying people for what they deserve, however, I don't agree with shelling out $20 to $25 for a cd for only one or two songs that I want to listen too. I know that there are plenty of people there that disagree with this but, IMO, I believe almost everyone, at one point in time or another, has either recorded a song or two on cassette or cd from the radio to listen to in their vehicle, or recorded a movie onto the old VHS tapes from "HBO" for their "movie collection". - COME ON YOU KNOW YOU HAVE DONE IT - There is no difference between then and now except the fact that there are more "technically advanced gizmos" out there of which more and more people, such as the RIAA and the MPAA, (and the government), want their "fair share" of the "honey pot". Well I for one disagree. The government takes enough and we are virtually powerless to stop it. Maybe some believe that this is a way to "break even", who knows. I will continue to "download" and "rip" and "record" and "burn" until they lock me up for it, or worse, make me stop and take my equipment!!! ;)

THIS HAS BEEN ONE GUY'S OPINION!

mev1296

Posted 16 years ago #
mev1296
Member

Oh, BTW, Thank you FWF for that link.

These links below follow somewhat of the same principal but they deal with video games and censorship:

http://www.videogamevoters.org/wallofprotest/

http://www.videogamevoters.org/takeaction/?topicId=9979&gclid=CJy13I31_pACFSF4lgodFBLtFQ

I thought it appropriate for this game website.

mev1296

Posted 16 years ago #
Archangel
Member

Admit nothing, deny everything and DEMAND PROOF! hehehehe I've done all the above and I agree with you mev1296. Everything is about money when it comes to Government and they want there taxes.

But the Paradox is, if everyone copied the songs/movies then there would be only 1 (One) sale so the Artists/Actors and every part of the support group that helped create the entertainment wouldn't get paid.

I do purchase my share of movies but not that many Music CD's. But I do share them. Not for profit though and others share with me. I see nothing wrong with that. Like mother always told me "Share with others".

Have a great day,
Archangel

Posted 16 years ago #
BuBBy
Teh adnim

I do purchase my share of movies but not that many Music CD's. But I do share them. Not for profit though and others share with me. I see nothing wrong with that. Like mother always told me "Share with others".

Although back in those days, sharing was when you had "one of something", and if you shared or lent it to somebody, they then had it and you lost possession and use of it, until (if) it was returned.

Today on the internet - the concept of sharing or lending has been twisted. People do not share or lend in the traditional sense. Using a book as an example - instead of handing over your copy to a friend to read - people are setting up a printing press and publishing house and rolling out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of free copies to anyone interested (and theirs to keep, or duplicate again in the same fashion) - and the author wonders why all the bookshops are empty, and the royalties cheque doesn't even pay last months phone bill.

I'm talking way back when Napster was still legal and free. On this same external hard drive I also have GB's and GB's of ripped DVD movies and DivX movies. I do not, in any way, feel that I'm breaking any law. None of these people seemed to have a problem when I was a kid in the 80's(I'm now 33)recording radio songs and copying "borrowed" cassettes from friends or recording movies on VHS. Things are getting wayyyy too out of hand.

You may think that your behaviour is revolutionary, and you are leading the charge towards free movies, music, software, literature or whatever - but there is no such thing as a free lunch. Sure in the short term, while you are pushing the creators out into another career field that actually pays the bills and puts food on the table.

In the long term, you will suffer when the choice and variety isn't there. When the truly creative, fringe artist who define new boundaries are starved out, because they are too busy working in jobs that actually pay money - to spend all their time writing and performing.

Remember the protest isn't to scream that you have a right to rip off everybody because you hate capitalism (you like to get paid for your work, right?). The complaint is that the prices are too high - and considering the high prices, artists are receiving far too small a slice for their contribution.

Similar concept to why the "Hollywood writers" are striking. They aren't being fairly compensated for all of the ways their work is used.

Posted 16 years ago #
xboxgamer
Member

Hell I get CDs from the library and ripem. I also remove the DRM protection from songs I bought and downloaded so I can use them on my MP3 player. I also download music vid with real player, the rip the audio of them with zamar...

Posted 16 years ago #
LeKanaw
Member

Bonjour Everybody :*)

Well, a bit of bad news for the RIAA & MPAA
Apparently the bill they mostly wrote & have been trying to get into law (in the US) is probably dead in the water ...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10050080-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Small victory, but better than nothing!

Posted 15 years ago #
Anonymous
Unregistered

live in new zealand now it ok to have one back up you to keep the CD, But still not play on MP3 player car P C, 3 in at the same time if you like to do that you to buy 4 CD's & if you like DRM you get Vista.

Posted 15 years ago #
RosnSC
Member

BuBBy, I am just reading this message thread for the first time, but nonetheless I agree with your last post. The same sharing you mentioned about music and books is also affecting other artists, i.e., needle work designers. The person who has/had all that music/movies ripped onto his computer and then got into legal trouble for it was in some way or another sharing with other people on the internet, or other means. If it's on your computer and doesn't leave it, then no one else can gain access to it, let alone know it's on there - unless you subscribe to, say, Bearshare, or such. I have a number of CD's ripped and saved to my computers, but they are there ONLY for my family and me to enjoy. A lot of people think once they buy something they can do as they choose with it, but that's not true. If they distribute a *copy* of something to someone else, whether they charge for it or just flat out give it to them, it is still copyright infringement, and they can get into a heap of trouble for it.

Posted 15 years ago #

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