RIAA to Sue Everybody and Their Cousin

I am not quite sure what the Recording Industry Association of America does. I know its a consortium of record labels. And I also know that the record labels neither create the music or own the processes to manufacture/distribute music. In my own simplified version, the record labels decide what artists will be popular and what songs will be sung, and for this they make a princely profit. Sound right?

With this large sum of money record labels can fund the RIAA, which in turn can hire high-priced lawyers who now are telling us that we can't rip our own CDs.

Under their logic, when you buy a CD and rip the songs into mp3s using iTunes or Windows Media Player or any other countless ripping program you are creating an unauthorized copy of the music.

At a going rate of $9,250 per song, a $15 CD could cost you upward of $140,000. What a deal.