• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, January 2, 2008

The RIAA has filed a lot of lawsuits against file-sharers in the last several years, but one pending case is leaving even veteran RIAA-observers scratching their heads.

The record labels sued Jeffrey Howell and his wife Pamela of Scottsdale, Ariz., for allegedly sharing tracks via peer-to-peer service Kazaa. But one of the RIAA's filings in the case appears to indicate the industry takes the position that merely converting tracks on a legally purchased CD to MP3 format can constitute an infringement.

In a legal brief filed last month, the RIAA refers to the MP3s that were on Howell's computer as "unauthorized copies." But the industry isn't actually suing Howell for that.

In fact, that reference to unauthorized copies was part of the RIAA's inelegantly crafted argument that Howell had violated copyright by posting the tracks to Kazaa, not merely converting them.

"It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings on his computer," the RIAA argued. "Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife's use. ... Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs."

Excerpts from this brief surfaced online a few weeks ago, spurring a wave of blogosphere commentary as people tried to interpret the industry's language. But it didn't attract widespread notice until this week, when the Washington Post wrote about the case under the headline, "Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use."

While people have good reason to be wary of the RIAA's interpretation of copyright law, it doesn't look like the industry has in fact changed its policies to start suing people simply for ripping songs to their computers.