Derek sent me this link about the ruling by a judge that downloads are not considered “public performances” for fee collection purposes. I don’t know the final results that will shake out from this, but it seems like the first court ruling in a long time about the digital world that didn’t come down on the side of the oligarchy. Fight the power!
The courts need to swing back to the middle of the road. When Sony tried to sue people who made copies of their own movies on videotape the courts made a sensible decision to allow back ups to be made for any video and audio tape you owned.
If you bought the movie or song you should not have to rebuy the song in a different format