Thursday, October 4, 2007

RIAA Lawyer: Ripping CD's You Bought is "Stealing"

Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG took the stand in the ground breaking trial on P2P filesharing - Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas.*

Ms. Pariser testified that she considered ripping CD's into your musical device - even those that you legitimately bought - is stealing from the poor, helpless recording companies:

Pariser has a very broad definition of "stealing." When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'," she said.

The problem with fair use is that all it really is, is a right to an attorney. You really can't count on content owners to voluntarily cede a margin of property rights for fairness.

* There are literally thousands of factually similar lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America.

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