Washington Post says it 'incorrectly' reported RIAA story

The Washington Post has backed off a story that erroneously accused the recording industry of trying to criminalize ripping CDs to a computer.

The Post issued a correction Saturday, more than a week after the paper triggered a wave of media coverage by claiming that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was trying to outlaw the very common practice of copying music from a CD onto a computer or iPod.

'We appreciate that the Washington Post cleared the record.'

--Statement from RIAA

"A Dec. 30 Style and 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," the Post's correction reads. "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 reference to "shared folder" was key. In the Post's story, the writer quoted from a legal brief filed by the RIAA in the case of Jeffrey Howell, an Arizona man accused by recording companies of illegal file sharing. The author of the Post's story said that the RIAA maintained "that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer."

But anyone reading the brief will see that in all such references, the RIAA was arguing that it was illegal for someone to make copies and then distribute those copies over file-sharing networks.

Soon after the story appeared, several high-profile blogs, including Techdirt, Gizmodo, and Engadget, wrote that something was amiss.

Mike Masnick at Techdirt noted that other previous stories about the RIAA's legal brief had been debunked.

"Unfortunately (and for reasons unclear to me), the Washington Post has revived the story," Masnick wrote on Jan. 2. "That's simply not true."

Nonetheless, dozens of other media sites repeated the Post's claims. The Web was filled with headlines like "RIAA Goes After 'Personal Use' Doctrine," "We're All Thieves to the RIAA," and "RIAA Equates Ripping With Stealing."

In response to the Post's decision to correct the story, the RIAA issued a brief statement on Monday: "We appreciate that the Washington Post cleared the record."

Editor's note: Greg Sandoval is a former Washington Post staff writer.

[ghaff]

I agree but RIAA is wiggling

The initial story was just inaccurate. However, as you alluded to in your original post, the labels aren't ceding any ground they don't feel they absolutely have to in this debate. William Patry comes down hard on them in his latest post. http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-riaa-has-said-about-home-taping.html
Doesn't excuse the initial story but RIAA doesn't look good here either.

[suyts]

Good for you!!!

Congrats to you, Greg, for sticking by your guns. I know you and many others took some bad mouthing for sticking by your guns. Because the RIAA is deemed evil by many, it is easy to believe the story the Post ran. So much so, many wanted it to be true. It wasn't. And while many missed the point of your articles, many did not miss the point. Perhaps, many will come away with a lesson or two(thanks to you and guys like you), just because it is believable, it doesn't mean it is true. And, just because it's printed doesn't mean it was printed by the Gutenberg. Thanks again. :-)

[lampietheclown]

The RIAA. I didn't vote for em!

I've been following the piracy vs. RIAA conflict for quite a while
now, and I'm puzzled by something.

Why is everybody looking to the RIAA to say what is and is not
legal to do with our CD's? They are not elected, they are not
judges, they are a, mmm well, I'm not sure what they contribute, but they have not been elected to create or interpret
law for the general public.

There are people who are supposed to do that, but it seems
they are sitting this one out. Fair use needs to be defined, dare
I say it? Fairly. Not by the RIAA, and not by Pirate Bay.

Lampie The Clown

[umbrae]

Maybe not, but you voted for people they paid for...

They have a large lobbying effort and provided money to many campaigns. You don't think those politicians actually work for YOU, did ya?

[sadchild]

"clear the record" - RIAA

let's talk about price fixing, $15 euro-singles with 3 songs on them, their decade-long fight against online distribution, raping internet radio, payola, suing 80 year-old ladies, suing pre-teens, the WMG CEO's kids using P2P to illegally download mp3s (with no legal ramifications), sneaking riders in on laws that only benefit their business model and hurt consumers, etc etc etc.

yeah mr sherman, let's "clear the record"

[Renegade Knight]

One Small Victory for the RIAA One Step Close to their Demise

If you have a media center, and everone will soon enough, then you store your files where you can access them by whatever is connected to your network. Simple as that.
Stereo,
TV,
Laptop.
Sharing your files is what makes a media center useful. That's a close file shareing network but it's a file sharing network just the same.

[shadowfort]

My 2 Cents

I wish I had the whole interview to see what they all said, but form the article it sounds like the RIAA is trying to obscure their stance on the issue until the can get all the laws and presidents in place to make you pay for each copy of the song you have in what ever format you have it in for each time you listen to it. That is a slight exaggeration, they just want you to pay for each copy you have in each format you have.


Let us take a look at some excerpts form the legal brief to see what they really say.

?First, Defendant actually distributed the 11 sound recordings listed on Exhibit A to Plaintiffs? Complaint from the KaZaA shared folder on his computer to Plaintiffs? investigator, MediaSentry ?

I disagree. If downloading the songs is Illegal, the Plaintiff illegally acquired the copies of the 11 songs from the defendant. The defendant was following his right of display:

TITLE 17 CHAPTER 1 § 109(c)
?Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (5), the owner of a particular copy lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to display that copy publicly, either directly or by the projection of no more than one image at a time, to viewers present at the place where the copy is located. ?


Next

?Virtually all of the sound recordings on Exhibit B are in the ?.mp3? format. ?? Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife?s use. ?? The .mp3 format is a ?compressed format [that] allows for rapid transmission of digital audio files from one computer to another by electronic mail or any other file transfer protocol.? ??. Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs? recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs. ?

Here is one part they are arguing that I think is real sticky. One is the part of conversion to the MP3. So are they saying if he left the song in the original format and put it in his share file it would be ok? Probably not. To me the plaintiff is saying that Both acts separately violate copyright law.

The RIAA is saying it was miss quoted and the article focused on only one sentence in the Legal Brief about the Shared Folder. That the inclusion of ?shared folder? was omitted. So what, I have a Shared Folder on my brand new computer that I did not put there. It came as part of Windows. They did not say KaZaa Share Folder. They simply say ?SHARED? folder. How long before they drop that word too?

However:

TITLE 17 CHAPTER 1 § 109(a)
?Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.?

Now the RIAA is not deputing that he is or has ownership of the original copy of the songs he has legally purchased. Dose that not give him the right to do with his property what he wants? I think it should, after all he purchased the songs. Moreover dose not the sale of the songs transfer the ownership of that copy to the purchaser?


?Moreover, in adopting the language of section 106(3), Congress specifically noted that that section established the exclusive right of publication and gave the copyright owner the right to control the first public distribution of an authorized copy of the work. ?

I think for a lot of these works we are well beyond ?first public distribution?. Unless they person bought the copies of the songs directly from the artist, the copies have gone through at least two people to get to them. The record company, that bought them fro the artist, And the distributor that bought the songs from the record company. Yes, that is the most simple model there could be, but it is accurate. After all, the songwriter should be the copywrite holder. It is their work that is getting passed off as the RIAAs.

Now there are three things in this that are some red flags beyond what I have already written. One from the Brief, and two from the article. First from the brief:

?Plaintiffs should be allowed to prove actual distribution based on circumstantial evidence. ?

I know that ?circumstantial evidence? can be made to look a lot different than it is. Facts can be slanted enough as it is.

"The Sony person who (Fisher) relies on actually misspoke in that trial," Sherman said. "I know because I asked her after stories started appearing. It turns out that she had misheard the question. She thought that this was a question about illegal downloading when it was actually a question about ripping CDs. That is not the position of Sony BMG. That is not the position of that spokesperson. That is not the position of the industry."

How did she miss speak? Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG(a lawyer), was asked a question about coping music a person Legally Purchased, not Downloaded or Ripped from CDs. She is reported to reply:

?When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a Purchased Song is just a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy? ."

She said a Purchased song. How is there any doubt in what she meant to say. If she had any doubt about the question, she could have asked right then and there for clarification. After all she should know how it work in a court room.

"Not a single (legal) case has ever been brought (by the RIAA against someone for copying music for personal use)," Sherman said. "Not a single claim has ever been made."

In that statement I hear a very loud YET!!!

But hey, this just how I read it.

[JohnnyL]

RIAA Still Weasaling

"But anyone reading the brief will see that in all such references, the RIAA was arguing that it was illegal for someone to make copies and then distribute those copies over file-sharing networks."

Yes, the Howell case is strictly about distributing content illegally. However, the statement in the brief about converting the CD in question to MP3 files and placing in the shared folder explicitly states that the act of converting the files on the CD to the computer creates and "unauthorized" copy. Unauthorized copies are illegal copies. This has always been the RIAA's position. That's why Cary Sherman of the RIAA refuses to state that copying CD's to a computer for your own personal use is legal. Even their own site states that a consumer has no legal "right" to copy music to their computer. Simply because this isn't the reason that Howell is being sued does not mean that this is not what the RIAA believes. The simple statement in the brief that converting the files to MP3's creates an unauthorized copy is all the backup anybody needs to understand their position. They may not be trying to outlaw it in this particular case but they still regard it as illegal.