The RIAA is arguing that you have no right to make copies of your CDs or transfer them to your iPod:

The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future. Myriad online downloading services are available and offer varying types of digital rights management alternatives. For example, the Apple FairPlay technology allows users to make a limited number of copies for personal use. Presumably, consumers concerned with the ability to make back up copies would choose to purchase music from a service that allowed such copying. Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices. Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights.

According to the music industry, you cannot take your CD collection and put it on your iPod - -you have to buy it all over again. You cannot burn your disk so that you have a copy for the car and the office - -you have to purchase a separate disk. You cannot make copies of your CDs and store the originals offsite, in order to protect them. Since you can always buy replacements (except when you don’t have the money or the CD is no longer in print), the RIAA thinks that you shouldn’t be allowed to back up your CDs.

This is a direct attack on your fair use rights and it has nothing to do with piracy. The RIAA is trying to use copyright laws to force you to spend more money than you should to be able to enjoy music that you have already purchased. They want you to have to ask their permission to do any number of things that you have always been able to do in the past. And since the alternative to giving you permission is forcing you to give them more money, permission will not, in all likelihood, be forthcoming. And what is worse is that they fully intend to use technology to take away those fair use rights whatever the courts may say.

There are already CDs that will not allow themselves to be copied, and iTunes limits the number of computers that you can play the song you just bough on. Fortunately in the case of iTunes, the number is large enough to encompass almost anyone’s home network, but that fact remains that Apple, under pressure from the RIAA, is using technology to prevent you from listening to music you bought in the means you see fit for your personal consumption.

Piracy and file sharing concerns are a smokescreen. The RIAA is interested only in using the courts, Congress, and technology to protect their outdated business model and ensure that they balance their books on your backs.