Ripping purchased music not fair use ?

That´s at least what the RIAA is saying according to an article posted at the electronic frontier foundations deeplinks subsite.

“Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use.”

The big record lables clearly are moving from a “buy once – use everywhere” to a “buy everytime you want to listen” stance. They make it harder to copy music in the first place by adding copy protection to music cds. It´s illegal by the way to copy a copy protected cd in some countries like Germany. People still have to pay fees when buying blank cd´s to cover the cost of copying music.

Sounds insane ? Seems this is only the beginning. My advice:

1. Dont buy music that is copy protected.
2. Dont buy music from the big record labels.
3. Buy independent music, support local bands.
4. Listen to web radio, rip that music which is perfectly legal. See my article about streamripping

[tags]riaa, music, record company, ripping music, copy protection, eff[/tags]

Related Articles:

Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday February 16, 2006 -
Tags:fair, music, ripping music, use