Firstly let me congratulate you on an excellent article. This issue has been coming to a head for a few years and the popularity of digital music players is at last drawing attention to this issue. I have had several telephone discussions with RISA on this issue and there stance is
“It is illigal to copy any copyrighted CD”
This was a few years ago and at the time I had a company which offered jukeboxes for hire. We were interested in switching from CD based jukeboxes to MP3 based jukeboxes. We then offered RISA a percentage of the income and (this is the part where you just have to laugh)RISA as the representative of the recording companies of South Africa was not authorised by the members to negotiate on the behalf of its members. They suggested we negotiate with each company directly(what a joke, there are hundreds). Well we submitted a proposal via our lawyers to several of the largest recording companies. To date we have not received a single reply.
It is evident that either the record companies are at a loss or are in total confusion as to the digital issue. Personally I think the only criminal activity is the criminal greed shown by the record companies.
Ipod users might want to read this article about the future of the various formats
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72412-0.html