A story Threat Level reported almost a month ago has finally hit the mainstream press: an RIAA lawyer affirming in a federal lawsuit that it considers copying music from compact disk to computer to be stealing.
In the suit, filed in Arizona, the recording industry's legal arm is again targeting file-sharing, as embodied by alleged pirate Jeffrey Howell of Scottsdale. But in a supplemental brief responding to questions from the judge, RIAA lawyer Ira M. Schwartz states that the simple act of moving your music from CD to a computer is also an "unauthorized copy" that incurs legal liability. (What about
CD players that copy the entire file into a memory cache before playing them?)
The short form: everyone who has ever copied a song from CD to computer
— Apple's iTunes has the functionality built-in — is liable in the
RIAA's view for thousands of dollars per track.
By claiming that reasonable, legal behavior is theft, the RIAA
trivializes piracy. This is a fatal act of self-destruction. This will result in more law-abiding people thinking "screw it" and doing it themselves. After all, when everyone is already a pirate because they
"stole" music from their own CD collections, why not add a few more counts on top?
Dear music industry: legal trickiness may help you win cases, buy plays out in a larger moral context outside the courtroom. Your lawyers'
uncouth sophistry is destroying the credibility of your anti-piracy efforts. Rein in dunces like Schwartz before they do something really stupid, like claim that selling used CDs or playing them loudly enough for others to hear are also forms of "stealing."
