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I thought the courts had already thrown out a filesharing lawsuit.

The judge ruled that a particular program could not be held liable for its users actions. The judge went on to say that the users' actions were clearly copyright infringement. But that's not what that suit was about.

Yes, sorry to say, but what your father is engaging in is copyright infringement, and that should be pretty obvious. He didn't pay for a copy of the material. It's not his to own.

As for artists and their "support" -- it would be wise to remember that "file-sharing" has taken on these kind of quasi-spiritual dimensions among big blocks of people online. Speaking out against it is a potential PR disaster. Artists and labels are both fine with the labels taking the black eye. Anyhow, many artists ARE publicly against online copyright infringement. See http://www.musicunited.net.

Take my dad to court - the judge will laugh you out. There's still something called "fair use." Again - the courts are going to make some judgements here that will both please and displease RIAA. They want to go after people like my dad, they're going to get their ass handed to them on a plate. There are court cases that establish the precedent that what my father does is in fact not illegal - however, since he's using digital and not analog media now, RIAA somehow wants to argue that it is.

Scale of distribution is also taken into account in these cases, no matter what RIAA thinks. That's why they're only going after the people with hundreds of songs on their hard drive. My father is not breaking the law, at least when he makes one copy.

You guys sound good, but you're not really telling the whole story. There's a variety of factors the court considers in these cases, and making one copy (or even several copies) hasn't traditionally crossed the line. Issues of scale and profit are also considered. But RIAA doesn't like to talk about that.

If I have time tomorrow I'll look up and cite the relevent case law. Too late now . . .