Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
Blow it out yer ass, RIAA. I buy my music. I have never, ever downloaded any music illegally, and I have made maybe three CDs to give to friends who wouldn't have bought those albums anyway. You charge me $13-18 dollars for a product that cost you maybe a buck to produce, and then you try to screw everybody, from me to the artists, and then you whine because you're not wringing every last cent out of everybody involved?
Once your CD, legally purchased, is my property, I can do whatever the hell I want with it. I use my computer as another record player and I put the albums in my media player because it's easier than going to my record rack. If I make a CD to give to a friend once in a while, particularly theme mixes that are unavailable anywhere else, just suck it.
Note to RIAA: Man up and fuck off. I bought your goddam records. If you ain't gettin' as rich as you think you oughta be, that's just tough shit.
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