This is absolutely fucking absurd and infuriating:
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.
"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."
Intellectual Property is a colossally hideous notion in the first place, not unlike Marxism or Creationism (not only do they not "work" in practice, but the theories themselves are fundamentally unsound -- obviously so; the Labor Theory of Value, for instance, is pure bullshit, yet it's a cornerstone of Marx's economic analysis). The economic arguments in favor of Intellectual Property are all unsound. What Intellectual Property amounts to is a violation of property rights for everyone not receiving its privileged protection. The idea that some people ought to be able to tell other people what patterns of light, sound, motion, or language they (the other people) may engage in with their own bodies or their own property is absolutely idiotic and tyrannical.
And the idea that you think you still own something you sold to me -- a compact disc, for instance -- and can then tell me what I can do with it (I can't store the data on it to my computer) is the height of arrogant entitlement.
Property Rights are a bundle of rights:
- Use Right - If you own something, you have the right to use it anyway you see fit, provided your use of it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others.
- Exclude Right - If you own something, you have the right to exclude others from using it.
- Abandon Right - If you own something, you have the right to cease being its owner.
When the RIAA sells you a compact disc and then tells you what you can do with it, they are violating your property rights (see above). When some asshole patents a method of swinging back and forth, he is violating your property rights.
There was art before there was Intellectual Property: literature, paintings, drawings, sculptures, music, what have you. There was technology before there was Intellectual Property: mathematics, exploration, invention, biology, chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, military, medicine, etc.
Intellectual Property is just another form of protectionism similar to tariffs, quotas, subsidies, barriers to entry, and other special privileges. It's bullshit and it needs to end. The RIAA doesn't own me, it doesn't own my computer, it doesn't own my compact discs, my tape decks, my radio, my vocal cords, or my middle finger -- which is currently shooting the bird at those fucking douche-bags. Don't let those assholes use the coercive force of government to strip you of your property rights.