Is the RIAA Suing People for Ripping CDs?

It makes for a great headline: the RIAA, that biggest of music-industry bullies, is hauling people into court for ripping their own CDs! Thing is, it just ain't true.

The bloggers at Crave (and Gizmodo, Engadget, and TechDirt, for that matter) are taking the Washington Post (and other outlets that are repeating the story) to task for accusing the RIAA of going after an Arizona man for merely ripping a CD into MP3s—something most of us had assumed was perfectly legal. Granted, at first blush, the story sure has the ring of truth; after all, isn't the RIAA notorious for dragging grandmothers into court and suing them for file sharing? Makes sense that RIAA lawyers might take the next step and go after CD ripping, too.

Believe it or not, though, it looks like the RIAA may have gotten a bum rap. Eagle-eyed bloggers are now saying that the Post missed a key element in the RIAA's legal brief: To wit, that a ripped MP3 file is only illegal if you put it in the shared folder of, say, KaZaa or another P2P file-sharing application. Here's the exact quote from the RIAA brief, courtesy of Crave: "Once (the defendant) converted plaintiff's recording into the compressed MP3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiff." The Post, for its part, is sticking to its guns.

So no—the RIAA isn't going to come after you for ripping that CD you bought at Target (well, not yet, anyway). As an RIAA spokesman told Crave, "The case is about the illegal distribution of copyrighted songs on a peer-to-peer network, not making copies of legally acquired music for personal use."

Of course, that's not to say that the RIAA (which, as of September 2007, has sued upward of 30,000 music lovers for illegal file sharing) has seen the light and embraced digital music. Just ask Jammie Thomas.

Related:
Washington Post sticks by RIAA story despite evidence it goofed [Crave]