11th
When asked by the RIAA’s lead counsel whether it was wrong for consumers to make copies of CDs they have purchased, Jennifer Pariser replied in the negative. “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” said Pariser. Making “a copy” of a song you own is just “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy’,” according to Pariser.
At least the recording industry is consistent. Last year, during the triennial review of the DMCA by the US Copyright Office, the record labels made the case that although consumers could freely and easily make copies of music on CDs, doing so is not explicitly authorized by the labels. Since they have not expressly authorized copying—even for the purposes of making backups—the ability to make copies should not be mistaken for fair use.
Based on the filing in Atlantic v. Howell and Pariser’s testimony, a lot of us have a bunch of “unauthorized” and “stolen” music on our hard drives—music that we’ve purchased ourselves.
