Rou

That's right; the RIAA is at it again. Having been found reprehensible in the court of public opinion, and only gaining small steps in their pursuit of online music piracy, the company has drifted out of the limelight recently. But hey, with the Sony rootkit and a bunch of other issues to contend with, they had good reason to hide in shame.

But never fear; they’re back and just as bad as ever! Yeah! And in order to remind the world that they suck the wind out of a dead dog’s ass, they have made filing to the DMCA rule making proceedings. Now, that may not seem unusual, but the content of that filing has some interesting gems.

Like for example, format shifting to copy music from CD to your iPod doesn’t constitute fair use in the minds of the RIAA. Nor does ripping to mp3 for backup copies of the music for that matter. Even if you never share the music in any way.

It’s an interesting argument. If you’re an insane person, that it. Particularly interesting in light of the following comments delivered to the Supreme Court by the RIAA’s lawyer last year:

The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod.

Basically, the RIAA can’t even decide what they mean. All they know is they want your money, they want it now, and they want you to like giving it to them. The problem being that more and more people refuse to give them money, and they find the RIAA and it’s methods to be despicable. Even more than that, they think the music industry sucks because they keep pushing crappy singers (term used very loosely) with few worthwhile songs per CD.

Of course, the RIAA tends to over look that and continues to blame the declining profits on music piracy. Because it’s easier to blame others then see the obvious flaws in yourself.