Wow. I got it right.
If I had any doubt that my interpretation of the RIAA's Atlantic v. Howell brief and the Washington Post's lousy reporting on the case was dead on, those have been washed away by William Patry, current Senior Copyright Counsel at Google and former copyright counsel to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. Patry also pretty much wrote the book on copyright, the "book" being a 7-volume, 5500-page treatise on copyright with a foreword by former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.
On The Patry Copyright Blog, he writes:
On page 15 of the brief, we find the flashpoint:Pretty much spot on the argument I was making. Vindicated! :-)
"Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recordings into the compressed
.mp3 format AND they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the
authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs." I have capitalized the word "and" because it is here that the RIAA is making the point that placing the mp3 files into the share folder is what makes the copy unauthorized. The RIAA
is not saying that the mere format copying of a CD to an mp3 file that
resides only on one's hard drive and is never shared is infringement.
This is a huge distinction and is surprising the Post didn't understand
it.
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