RIAA Claims Ripping CDs for Personal Use is Illegal

They tried this with recordable cassette tapes too, saying it was illegal for you to make cassette tapes of music you bought. They even tried to charge a royalty fee for every blank cassette tape under the assumption that their copyrighted music would be on it at some point.

Any ISP or virus scanner that joined with the RIAA would be committing financial suicide, and they know it.

The recording industry is getting desperate as they leave making good music with talented people behind for money grubbing and "celebrity" singers with less and less genuine talent.

As sad as it is, at least American Idol opened doors a little for people into a business that ignores you if you don't fit into the cookie cutter. They still play the same games, but a lot of those contestants would have gotten ZERO exposure if they had auditioned at any record company.

The RIAA rips original music from audiotapes that come into its factories, filters out extraneous noise and mind-bending frequencies (the Dolby process), then records the music onto other tapes, discs, and computer files. The music is also distributed to writers who score and separate it into sheet music format suitable for mechanical instruments. None of this assures that a copyright will be legal; it only ensures that a copyright form will be "filled out" and performers put on stage.

If you sing through the telephone into a recording device the RIAA will/can seize it and market it.

LAST WORD PEOPLE COPYING THEIR PERSONAL MUSIC OR CDs OR WHAT EVER IS THEIRS SHOULD NOT BE ILLEAGLE IF THE MUSIC COMPANYS WANT TO SUE ANY THEY SHOULD SUE THE MANUFACTURES THAT MAKE THE EQUIPMENT THAT MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR ONE TO MAKE COPIES FOR THEIR OWN PERSONAL USE, WONDER HOW FAR THEY WILL GET WITH THAT ONE????

money money money money --- big industry ---- that is what its all about ---- buy some of my drinking water----

F*ck the RIAA. Rip 'em to digital!!

The suit seems to say they were "no longer the authorized copies" once they were ripped to MP3 AND were in a shared folder.

Is that really the same as "ripping is illegal"?

And how do these Nazi's know who does or does not have personal CDs ripped?

Thats the multi million dollar question. COUNTER SUE!

There were issues when people were making copies of their tapes. When you buy it, it's yours. You can make copies. When you have bought the cd, you can do whatever you want with it for personal use, the point of copyright is so people don't make copies and give them to other people or make money of them. Stupid RIAA.

Its your CD you can copy it, play it backwards upside down play it loud for your friends, take you favorite songs and put together a compilation CD. That is the freedom of being in America. The limp wrists who want to take that away from you want more money, as usual, ignore them and teach your children their names so they can hate them too

if I buy it I will do what ever i want with it. that is legal. so go f@#k off RIAA. All you people from the RIAA find some better to do then waste tax payers dollars feed the homeless do something in life that means something!

If u went out to the store paid for it then u can do what u want.. i think that this whole thing is bs

If RIAA took a 100% contradictory position before, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(a) for sanctions against it and its attorneys would be warranted - little procedural step involved. ALSO, maybe a Class Action expansion/separate suit could get going against RIAA.

hell maybe all of us ought to just go a damn music strike and quit buying ANY CDS tapes dvds etc until they figure out this is not f&*$ing cuba or Russia. This is America well it used to be anyways no more freedom of speech assembly right to bear arms... there is a ban on everything pretty soon we will have to have a law against breathing eating etc.

So now that I spent years re-buying my old records and cassettes on CD, I have to buy them again as MP3 files? How many times to they expect us to buy the same thing? And I'm not talking about artists who constantly put out greatest hits CDs. At least those might have different songs on them. I'm talking about purchasing something you already own in a different format. This seems like it is OBVIOUSLY covered under fair use. I think we should go the opposite direction and REPEAL THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM ACT! Their greed is turning everyone away and will ultimately spell their death. RIP RIIA!

Screw the rich.... It is sick how Greedy some people are.

What the hell is this all about?? I don't remember the industry throwing such a fit when back in the days we would record our favorite songs to a cassette when it came on the radio..or when we would dubb from cassette to cassette..hellooo jackasses this is the same thing..the cd has already been purchased now we're just moving it to our more advanced technology.. JACKASSES!!

This is going too far. I mean, I rip my CDs, pick my favorite songs, pick my favorite songs and either burn mix CDs or put them in the mp3 player. How is that different than in the 80's-90's when I use to put them into mix tapes. This is going way too far.

This article is misleading. I was confused and angered until I actually read the brief. Ripping CD's for your own use, such as to listen on your computer or in your Ipod is completly legal. What the people did here was make mp3 files from their CDs and them place them on Kazaa, a file sharing network, with the intent of distributing the music to anyone else on the file sharing network. That, as shown by the whole Napster incident, is where the problem lies.