RIAA: Nodding and Grooving While Wearing Headphones is Piracy

IPod-listeners beware. The Recording Industry Association of America aims to stamp out piracy.

The RIAA is taking the position, in its suits against alleged file-sharers, that making personal copies of music CDs onto one's own computer hard drive is unlawful. But sources close to the recording industry have revealed to As I Please's team of investigative reporters the next front soon to be opened in the RIAA's war against piracy: grooving to music in public.

Is this music piracy?

Some industry observers say that a music pirate on a subway, city bus, or even just walking down the street, must actually sing along or at least hum the tune for infringement, or "pirate performance" to take place.

But the RIAA holds that anyone who grooves to headphone music even silently is a pirate performer. "That's stolen music in the first place," says one source. "Even if the courts holds that some pirate performance is not music theft — and no court has yet said that it is not — the sort of scum who engages in pirate performance is in all probability grooving to stolen music in the first place. It's prima facie evidence of piracy. It's probable cause for police investigation."

Asked if cracking down on subway music listeners might be seen by the public at large as unfairly targeting people of specific cultural backgrounds, the source responded, "The RIAA has a zero-tolerance policy towards piracy. The problem keeps growing. We need to get the message out to the public: Pirates aren't cool. Piracy sucks."