Rip your CDs to MP3s and face fines up to $10,000 per song.

Ever since the Recording Industry Artists of America (RIAA) filed suit against Napster, the original music-sharing program on the Internet, in December of 1999, Americans interested in sharing and downloading music have had to look to new and more privacy-conscious programs to do their trading. Shortly after winning their suit against Napster, the RIAA began targeting individuals, many of whom weren't even aware of the sheer volume of downloads that were coming from their computer, and didn't realize the illegality of the situation.

Since then music sharers, deemed "pirates" by those opposed to the idea of freely shared music online, have had to constantly update the tools of their "trade". KaZaa, Limewire, Gnutella, and eventually Bit Torrent each came into existence before the destruction of its predecessor, always leaving the trading public with options on how to get, and give, more of the music they loved.

Over the past 8 years, the RIAA has closed down many of these platforms, and according to the Wall Street Journal, has filed suit against over 20,000 individuals in the same period. Individuals have been slapped with fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though some of them could never have a way to pay such exorbitant fines.

In 2003, some users who had not yet been caught sharing their music, and some of whom decided it wasn't worth the risk, discovered a new addition to Apple's iTunes. Apple opened the iTunes music store on April 28, 2003 and quickly became the teenager's and college student's way to get music at very affordable prices and in an absolutely legal way. For 99 cents, Internet users could immediately download a song and enjoy the right of ownership, listening, copying to their iPods or burning to CDs with absolutely no danger of getting in any trouble.

Now, I decided a few years ago that, although I don't believe it likely that the RIAA would ever single me out, perhaps it would just feel better to not have to worry about it. I systematically either deleted songs from albums I did not own, or decided to purchase the album instead (usually in the original vinyl LP format). I had thousands of songs in my music database store on my computer, and over a period of time, found that I still had thousands.

I own over 500 record albums (LPs and 45s) and a couple dozen CDs. I found that ripping the CDs to my computer and downloading versions (through KaZaa, Limewire, and Bit Torrent) of the songs I had on LP, I had enough music to listen for over a week without hearing a repeat.

From time to time, I did come across a song or album that I absolutely could not help but enter into my database, and I admit to that. Most of the time, I eventually stopped listening and removed it from my computer or purchased the album legitimately, through eBay, a music store, or iTunes. I actually enjoy the iTunes music store, especially since it allows me to find all new songs and artists that I had never heard of and now could not live without.

So for a few years now, all has been well and good and I have had a good feeling about my vast music collection. Today, however, I came across an article that sent all of that tumbling to the ground.

The Washington Post has reported today that the RIAA has filed suit against a student and claimed "that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer. "

Now I am certain that this applies to my 500 albums as well, which really puts a damper on the situation. The RIAA claims that ripping CDs to your "computer from legally bought CDs are 'unauthorized copies' of copyrighted recordings. "

At any rate, read the article and let us all know what you think. Comments go below.