Has the RIAA Taken A New Legal Position on Ripping CDs?

Posted by Eriq Gardner

The Washington Post published an interesting story over the weekend noting that the RIAA was "taking its argument against music sharing one step further" by arguing that "it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer."

Sounds frightening. The argument supposedly came from a brief filed by attorney Ira Schwartz in a case against accused file-sharer Jeffrey Howell. Since almost everyone who owns a computer has ripped MP3s from CDs, the RIAA's position has gathered an enormous amount of attention. Even the Czech blogs are talking about it.

But a thorough reading of the brief itself paints a more nuanced picture. Here are the actual words from the brief that have caused alarm: "Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recordings into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies." (boldface ours)

The brief argues that the court was correct to grant plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. The hyped passage comes on the 15th page of a section and a brief that argues the defendant is guilty of unauthorized distribution by making available MP3s on peer-to-peer services. The boldfaced excerpt of the passage also seems to indicate the RIAA has its eyes focused squarely on the defendant's "distribution" activities, not the defendant's illicit acquisition of copyrighted music.

On his blog, Ray Beckerman, the lawyer who stoked the fire by first pointing out this case, defends his reading of the RIAA's position by pointing to the choice of grammar and what the judge was asking, but consider us skeptical. At the Supreme Court during the Grokster case and on its website, the RIAA has given a less-than-enthusiastic blessing to ripping CDs for personal use, and while they could undoubtedly nip this controversy in the bud by issuing a clear statement, we'd need better evidence to indicate their position has indeed changed.