Cuban Linx, 2008 Edition: Radiohead plays webcast, RIAA gets dumber, LAist’s albums list

In case you were otherwise occupied last night, Radiohead performed their new album on a still-available “Scotch Mist” Current TV webcast. The album, In Rainbows, is in stores today in case you feel like paying for it again – or for most of us, the very first time.

There haven’t been very many actual court cases (usually suits get settled pretty quickly) involving the RIAA and piracy, but an ongoing case in Arizona is providing an opportunity for the group to completely alienate the entire iPod-owning, CD-ripping public: Now they’re saying that ripping CDs is stealing, not fair use. “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” testified Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG’s chief of litigation, in a recent Minnesota trial. Awesomely, the Washington Post article also notes that an LA Times survey found that “69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend.”

If the bottom 50 is any indication, LAist‘s top 100 albums of 2007 is, quibbling about rankings aside, the best list of the year.

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