RIAA continues to attack personal use

An article in the Washington Post has highlighted a ongoing lawsuit between the Recording Industry Association of America and a Scottsdale, AZ man. The case is significant in that involves yet another challenge to personal use: purchasing a CD and copying it to a computer with no intent to distribute those copies.

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.

You can see the full article at the Post: Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

Update: Some clarification has come in via tech blog Engadget who report that Howell is being sued for the same reasons as most of the RIAA defendants – downloading. The difference is that the organization is calling ripping of purchased CDs "unauthorized" but this isn't the main action in the case.