1.1.2008 | 11:46 am

Cuban Linx, 2008 Edition: Radiohead plays webcast, RIAA gets dumber, LAist’s albums list

In case you were otherwise occupied last night, Radiohead performed their new album on a still-available “Scotch Mist” Current TV webcast. The album, In Rainbows, is in stores today in case you feel like paying for it again – or for most of us, the very first time.

There haven’t been very many actual court cases (usually suits get settled pretty quickly) involving the RIAA and piracy, but an ongoing case in Arizona is providing an opportunity for the group to completely alienate the entire iPod-owning, CD-ripping public: Now they’re saying that ripping CDs is stealing, not fair use. “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” testified Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG’s chief of litigation, in a recent Minnesota trial. Awesomely, the Washington Post article also notes that an LA Times survey found that “69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend.”

If the bottom 50 is any indication, LAist‘s top 100 albums of 2007 is, quibbling about rankings aside, the best list of the year.

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  • Sarah

    that really is dumb. i took one semester of copyright law and the professor pointed to the section that allows you to make copies for friends. the only illegal thing about p2p networks is that you don’t know the person downloading from you.
    has anyone at the RIAA gone to law school? of course it is 2008 and they probably got on congress to omit that bit by now.

  • Steve

    With reference to the iPod thing: Didn’t he actually copy several zillion songs AND upload them for other people to share/steal?

    Try this on for size: I live in Denmark. We have an excellent library service. From which I borrow many, many CDs. You can browse your local library’s CDs, or the main library’s very extensive library of CDs (here in Aarhus). Or you can order them from their on-line database. The majority of the people you lot write about are/will be there at some point. They buy many CDs every month and all you have to do is wait three months before you can loan them. They never raise an eyebrow at however many CDs you borrow. I’ve occasionally borrowed 15 or so at a time. You can have them for up to 14 days, or go on-line to extend that time (providing there isn’t a huge queue ‘behind’ you).

    According to the law here, it is illegal to copy a CD loaned from the library.

  • Anonymous

    “The Washington Post story is wrong,” said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. “As numerous commentators have since discovered after taking the time to read our brief, the record companies did not allege that ripping a lawfully acquired CD to a computer or transferring a copy to an MP3 player is infringement. This case is about the illegal distribution of copyrighted songs on a peer-to-peer network, not making copies of legally acquired music for personal use.” (source)

    Correction to This Article

    A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry “maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.” In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry’s lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a “shared folder” on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network.

    The Washington Post reported the facts incorrectly. Most people chose to rely on a third party’s interpretation of the brief rather than reading it themselves.