Accidental Criminals
Everyone has heard about how the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has been suing their customers in droves in an attempt to discourage the downloading of music over the internet in various ways. They are having a field day suing everyone from 9 year old kids to 87 year old grand parents. Is it working? Not really, but that is a conversation for another post. The question I had recently explored was more on the order of: “What can I legally do with ‘my’ music?” Well, you might be surprised.I found an interesting article on cnet that reviews this very topic. The first topic they covered was if you can personally back up your own music for your own use. The answer was a little surprising but it set the tone for the rest of the topics. Because of something called the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, you are only allowed to back up your music to analog cassette tapes! That’s right, the use of computers and the process of “ripping” to an alternate format for portable devices (such as MP3), is technically illegal under the strictest interpretations of U.S. copyright law.
Reading further I discovered another interesting little twist. It would seem that under certain circumstances, you may be allowed to make a copy of some CDs for ‘personal use’. However, this copy must be made via the use of an “Audio Recording Device” and computers are not recognized as a device of this type. WTF?! It wasn’t that long ago that these laws were created and they are already so out of date that, if they were pursued with full intent, we wouldn’t have such devices as iPods or CD players that could read alternate file formats. By strict interpretation, these devices are technically in violation of certain laws.
Whew! Is anyone else surprised by this? No wonder the old fogies up on Capital Hill are confused and befuddled by this ‘new’ technology – they are still reading an outdated playbook! I find it amazing that the RIAA has managed to penetrate the legislature to the point that they are allowed to attempt such a stranglehold on intellectual data. Interesting in the extreme.
So what does all of this mean? Not so much really. Although the law is on the books, the money to uphold that law is not so plentiful that they can go out and police every CD purchased in the U.S. and beyond to be sure the user is not breaking copyright laws. That leaves the RIAA and its minions with the tactics they are currently using. The vast number of music consumers out there are in their teens and they are embracing the latest technologies far and ahead of any other group. The RIAA and others can either keep up, or fall out. The legislature is going to have a hard time keeping the pace with technology but if they want to try, it will be interesting to watch.
posted by Bonzai @ 9:03 AM
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