RIAA Lobbies To Make Ripping Your Own CD's Illegal

A post at the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that as part of the legislative procedures surrounding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, our pals at the RIAA want to make ripping CD's you've purchased to digital files, an illegal action.

Since I can remember, making mix tapes has been a crucial part of the music experience. I personally remember getting a cassette dub of the Misfits out of print singles (before it was re-issued as The Collection) from a friend, and treating it like gold. That old-school viral legacy was very important to keeping that band's name alive. Now Big Brother is telling me that even taking my old collection and putting it on my iPod is illegal?

How exactly would anyone enforce this? Track ISP numbers that reference CDDB? Have Apple, Microsoft, et. al create hardware/ software prohibitions on CD ripping? Are they REALLY THAT FUCKING ARROGANT AND STUPID?

The only thing that this would do, on the outside chance that it does come to fruition, is create a wave of piracy which will probably even include legal downloaders (like myself.) My attitude as a music consumer is, I bought the CD and I should be able to play it through whatever device I want. What it will also do is speed along the death of the major label system as it exists.

Speaking directly for my label, there's no way I would ever support this knuckleheaded move. I want people that actually purchased my music in any format to be able to listen to it without the need to repurchase it for every device they own. I consider that part of the unwritten contract a label has with their customers.