From our pal gdZiemann at http://azoz.com

(He also has neat thing or 2 up about the "Cheney shoots his buddy" and "makings buildings invisible to terrorist hi-jacked planes" & more...)

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Weird Scenes in the Data Mine
by George Ziemann -- Feb. 15, 2006

Somewhere out there someone has filed an antitrust suit against Apple because, get this, he bought some songs from the iTunes Music Store, which "forced" him to buy an iPod. This will first require him to prove that Apple has a monopoly on the market for digital music. If this guy wins, I'm going to buy a set of guitar strings and bitch because I was forced to buy a new Les Paul to put them on. Then it's on to the auto parts store for wiper blades that fit a Lambourghini.

Speaking of iPods, Amazon has announced that it is going to release its own music player, which will apparently come loaded with tunes that you may or may not want, with the blessings of the music cartel, which apparently isn't happy with Apple, despite the fact that Apple mysteriously sells more songs online than the entire global music industry claims as sales. In other words, the competition to date has been nonexistent. Of course, the "legal" sites like Napster and, uh, there must be another one, don't actually sell anything, they rent it.

Completing this week's iPod trifecta, is a story that has appeared in several places.

Here's what Donald Verilli told the Supreme Court last year -- "The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

Here's what the RIAA is currently telling the US Copyright Office -- "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."

Then they say this. "Similarly, creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use...."

What this all means is that the RIAA is saying that it has never been fair use to rip a CD to mp3 for your personal convenience. It has never been fair use to move a song to your iPod, even if you already bought the CD. Fortunately for us, the music gods have authorized this activity -- so far. They have granted us permission, but it is still illegal in their eyes, although they have chosen to overlook this minor indiscretion. So far. Should they choose to revoke their authorization, well, you criminal bastards that own iPods are in deep shit. No wonder Amazon wants a piece of that market.

So far, I've tried to be a rule-follower in this entire matter. I don't download major label music. I've ripped my CD collection to my hard drive, but I've never shared it online. I've always been more concerned about the position of the artists, which neither the record labels or the p2p crowd seem to have any respect for.

If ripping my CDs was not fair use in the first place, then I'm already an aggregious copyright infringer. Let's see, more than 1,000 songs, $750 each... Holy shit! I'll never pay that back. I thought I was following the rules. If I'm already guilty, the incentive to continue trying to follow the rules just disappeared.

Of course, in order to have the inertia to go look for it, I would have to hear something that I want to hear a second time. If that ever happens, I'll let you know.

Have they ever heard of first sale.

Fair use has nothing to do with what the copyright holder decides he/she/it wants to allow or not allow, as I understand the concept. There are four or five criteria used to determine what is or isn't fair use, and what the owner wants is not one of those criteria. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the guy suing Apple, it is stories like this that make me wonder why so many people seem to think Dick Cheney shooting a lawyer was a *bad* thing.

"What this all means is that the RIAA is saying that it has never been fair use to rip a CD to mp3 for your personal convenience."

Isn't this similar to the old copying from LP to tape?

Yep, Capt' - it sounds similar to me.