Ripping - Legality - United States

United States

U.S. copyright law (Title 17 of the United States Code) generally says that making a copy of an original work, if conducted without the consent of the copyright owner, is infringement. The law makes no explicit grant or denial of a right to make a "personal use" copy of another's copyrighted content on one's own digital media and devices. For example, space shifting, by making a copy of a personally-owned audio CD for transfer to an MP3 player for that person's personal use, is not explicitly allowed or forbidden.

Existing copyright statutes may apply to specific acts of personal copying, as determined in cases in the civil or criminal court systems, building up a body of case law. Consumer copyright infringement cases in this area, to date, have only focused on issues related to consumer rights and the applicability of the law to the sharing of ripped files, not to the act of ripping, per se.

Recording industry representatives have claimed (in the context of Atlantic v. Howell) that ripping may be regarded as copyright infringement. However, there is no legal precedent for this and, even within the industry, this is the minority view. In oral arguments before the Supreme Court in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., MGM attorney Don Verrilli (later appointed United States Solicitor General by the Obama administration), stated: "And let me clarify something I think is unclear from the amicus briefs. The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward." Nevertheless, in lawsuits against individuals accused of copyright infringement for making files available via file-sharing networks, RIAA lawyers and PR officials have characterized CD ripping as "illegal" and "stealing". Asked directly about the issue, RIAA president Cary Sherman asserted that the lawyers misspoke, and that the RIAA has never said if it was legal or illegal, and he emphasized that the RIAA had not yet taken anyone to court over that issue alone.