MP3 files that you create on your computer from legally purchased CDs, are "unau

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MP3 files that you create on your computer from legally purchased CDs, are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings, so sayeth the music industry in the latest legal battle.  :

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use


By Marc Fisher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 30, 2007; Page M05

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.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

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.

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"The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright.

lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.

The RIAA will need to increase the payoffs it gives to judges if it hopes to win this case.