[rpdillon]

You're confused about what was actually illegal and what the industry wanted you to believe was illegal. They didn't want to take anybody to court for actually ripping a CD because they didn't want to lose and have the precedent set like it was in Sony versus Betamax. This isn't "bigger fish to fry". This is "terrified of the precedent".

> The dispute arises from a suit the RIAA filed against a man in Arizona who bought CDs, copied them into his computer as MP3 files, and then put them into a shared folder that other people could access through Kazaa, a computer program for sharing music. He's being sued for that last part.

Then they state what they wish were true:

> But according to Marc Fisher, legal documents and some statements by industry officials make it clear that the industry regards the simple act of copying a CD onto your computer or your iPod as illegal.

But just because they wished it to be did not make it so. Trillion-dollar companies have provided end-users with software to rip CDs (including iTunes), and there's never been a court case over it.