The RIAA, Fair Use, and Your Music · 270 words posted 02/16/2006 02:30 PM
Midway through last month’s iTunes privacy dust-up, several readers asked (reasonably): what’s the harm? What does it matter if Apple sends your listening information to third parties? I answered with a hypothetical:
I admit that this instance of data mining appears to be innocuous. But is it? How hard would it be for Apple to check whether my music comes from an RIAA approved source and, if not, simply disable it within iTMS? Is that really such a paranoid fantasy after the Sony rootkit fiasco? I don’t have an answer, but I know this: the more you push back now against apparently harmless invasions of privacy, the less likely Apple will be to breach your privacy substantively later.
Cue the scoffing. Said one representative respondent:
Anyone thinking that Apple is working with the RIAA on a system that will detect pirated tunes on your computer should buy themselves a better tinfoil hat.
Ripping your CD’s to MP3’s or unDRMed AAC is perfectly legal.
Err, except for when the RIAA says it isn’t. As noticed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and picked up by Slashdot and BoingBoing, the RIAA does not acknowledge that ripping CDs constitutes fair use:
Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use.
Put that in your tinfoil hat and smoke it.
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