[dan1son]

I believe Real lost that battle, IIRC.

However, they were a commercial company selling software that breaks a copy protection mechanism.

I can't see them ever suing an individual for ripping purchased media to a computer for their own personal/home use.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-200116...=mncol;txt

Phone jailbreaking/rooting is legal, and ripping is legal if used for certain uses now. They've loosened it up a little, but it's still technically illegal to make "backups" of your own purchased encrypted stuff. A complete joke in my eyes, and has still not been tested in court. I doubt it will be any time soon.

It'd be more of a dick move than selling CD-Rs for audio only with a cut going to the RIAA (yeah they did that).


As far as downloading from usenet... it's definitely illegal, but that too hasn't been directly tested in court (doesn't make it legal). Most cases assume you're "sharing." I'd say the main reason is because when simply stealing the material the value isn't high enough to warrant a law suit. Fair use only extends to yourself (and other legal entities - wife/kids). So making a copy of a CD and giving it to a friend is NOT legal for either party (which is what you're doing downloading from usenet).

TV Shows fall in the same guidelines. Taping something for personal use is fine, but giving it to others (or taking it from others) is not (also not tested in court as far as I know). The old betamax lawsuit made it personal use to record something from TV for yourself.