At the heart of two music recording industry trials is whether digital piracy will make people stop buying CDs. As the judge prepares to rule on the first of the lawsuits, statistics show that people are buying more albums than ever. For the Recording Industry Association of America, the news couldn't have come at a worse time.
People still have to purchase the CDs.
That lawsuit centers on whether Robertson violated copyrights when his company purchased 80,000 CDs and digitized the content on its servers. As part of their case, the recording industry has to prove that this distribution had caused consumers to stop purchasing CDs. According to Broussard, that might make the rise in sales a moot point. Other things would not be fair use, such as bootlegging albums. There isn't a bright line that determines what is and isn't fair use.