Death Throes of an Industry or Just Greed?

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the “trade group that represents the recording industry.” With member organizations that include the “Big Four”, EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. In addition to certifying gold, platinum and diamond sales awards, the RIAA,

“works to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists; conducts consumer, industry and technical research; and monitors and reviews state and federal laws, regulations and policies.”

The RIAA is a fierce opponent of copyright infringement through file-sharing over the internet using P2P software, and rightly so! The RIAA claims the recording industry loses over $4 billion dollars per year through illegal distribution of music over the internet. However, the RIAA now seems to be extending the definition of “copyright infringement” to the copying of a legally owned CD to a personal computer for personal use in an MP3 player, such as an Apple iPod.

Wired magazine posted a letter written by the RIAA to the U.S. Copyright Office, that said “creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use.” Despite the double-negative, the RIAA leaves no doubt that it believes ripping legally owned CDs is illegal. However, this contradicts their previous stance.

In an archived FAQ page, the RIAA said making personal digital copies of CDs is just “great,” in fact they encourage it!

“There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That’s not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that’s great. It’s your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn’t make it right.”

(emphasis added)

As one can easily see, the RIAA didn’t have a problem with personal digital copies, only the distribution of those copies to third parties. So why the change of heart?

The Audio Home Recording Act includes blanket protection from infringement actions for private, non-commercial digital audio copies made with digital audio recording devices. The RIAA knows this an is trying to write new legislation through the courts. I believe the RIAA is trying to take advantage of consumers by forcing them to 1) purchase multiple versions of identical music for replay via different media, or perhaps 2) adding fees for permission to rip legally purchased music. Stopping illegal distribution of copyrighted material is one thing, but holding consumers hostage through distribution control is something else altogether. What it all comes down to is corporate greed!