Then It’s time I tell them to kiss my ass!!
Just as I thought they would do, they are taking this thing too far and now they will loose their own asses!

The key to these lawsuits are “greed” and “failed business model.”

Royalties and “theft” have been around since people were recording LP records onto audio cassettes to play in their car.

Give up. The public is bigger than your corporate empire.

from BoingBoing.net

Record industry practices revisionism about music recording
Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, December 31, 2007 11:19 AM

The Record Industry has changed its tune on personal use of music you own. It used to say that copying songs from your CDs was fine, but now it’s pretending it didn’t say that.

The Washington Post reports:

200712311121-1 Sony BMG’s chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that “when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Copying a song you bought is “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy,’” she said.

On Dave Farber’s IP mailing list, Dan Gillmor points out that the recording industry used to have a different opinion on personal use. It removed the following statement from its website (but you can still read it on archive.org):

“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.”

Gillmor adds: “Also, from the Supreme Court oral arguments in the Grokster case, Donald Virrelli, on behalf of the entertainment companies:”

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. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.”

RIAA et al: Why not just charge Clear Channel some royalties? That would end all this crap.

The government has helped them set things up so they can now be a litigious industry. Rather than placing the Onus on the RIAA to protect it’s products if it needs to, they are quickly criminalizing an activity that humans have been involved in since the begining of time… copying music we like. Before the age of recordings, when a person liked a song, they would learn it and replay it when they wanted. The RIAA would now have you arrested if you had the audacity to learn and playback that song.

When most people do not have the means to fight such a huge corporation with a vast money chest and the corporation is backed by the federal government against you, then you have the perfect conditions for the RIAA to abuse it’s ability to sue. They will sue anyone in the hopes they will prefer to settle out of court for a few thousand dollars. Which they usually do, since they have no real way of knowing what evidence there may be of apparent malfeasance.

If industry and government had their way, breathing air will be charged at a premium since they have been kind enough to load it with CO2 for us. Those caught breathign without an oxygen meter will be imprisoned for 5 years in an oxygen depleated environment.

the portable MP3 player and cell phone markets are in the 10s of Billions of dollars. The hardware markets can go to court multiple times over against the software (song) markets. This is laughable and the Supreme Court will not stand with the little guy (RIAA) on this one.