RIAA wants to ban CD ripping - trying to get the genie back in the bottle?

In what appears to be a relentless effort on the part of RIAA to take the initiative to recover its perceived loss of rights as a result of the use of technologies that allows music enthusiasts to rip music off CDs and listen in MP3 format - RIAA has applied to the US government to make the claim that the act of ripping a purchased CD itself to be illegal. Their case is argued that the widespread practice of ripping CDs does not make it right nor legal.

While the law is clear that it is in the copyright owner's court, what is surprising is that it is a complete reversal of its position when RIAA in last year's MGM v Grokster case described that ripping a CD is "perfectly lawful".

Unfortunately, music enthusiasts have little to turn to for a legal defence of copyright breach as 'fair use' here is not available for the act of . If RIAA is able to convince the law makers to agree to its point of view (and the law makers must realise this as a matter of policy) what does it intend to do? Clearly it has two choices (either one or both is open to them) - to go after the people that enables users to rip CDs or go after the users who rip their CDs. Both are unsavoury outcomes for the music enthusiasts. Whatever it may be, it seems inevitable that the RIAA will become very unpopular with the public as well as tech businesses that provides the ripping software.

RIAA aims to ban CD ripping - PC Magazine