An interesting contrast.

I know I'm a bit like a broken record on this one, but I can't help but point out this little interest factoid.

In the Grokster hearing, there was a slight frisson of excitement/interest/wonder when counsel for the RIAA said:

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.

People wondered if the RIAA had ever actually made this concession before. A bit of digging around indicates that in fact, on the FAQs on the RIAA site, they do take this position. In response to the FAQ 'What is your stand on MP3?', the response is:

'This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right.

The interesting point I want to note is that the Australian equivalent to the RIAA, ARIA, take quite a different view on their FAQs:

'I have bought a legitimate CD. Isn't it legal to make copies for my own personal use?
Except in very limited circumstances which are specifically set out in the Copyright Act (e.g. for the purposes of research, study, criticism or review), no such general right exists under Australian law.
In the same way that buying a copy of a book doesn't give you ownership rights in the author's manuscript, the purchase of a copy of a CD doesn't mean that you own (and can do anything that you like with) the recording that is on that CD.
As a consumer, the purchase of a CD only gives you the right to own the physical disc, to play it privately, and to pass on the same physical disc to another person. You have not bought the right to make or distribute copies, whether on CD-R or over the internet. This means that copying the music on the CD, without the permission of all relevant copyright owners, is an infringement of copyright.

The ironic thing about this, of course, is that in the United States, iPods would have lots of legitimate uses even if copying personal CDs was not ok - because the US have an iTunes store. By strong contrast, in Australia, there are lots of iPods, but the official position is that most of the reasons why people would buy iPods (ie, most music-related reasons) are to do illegal acts.