In the USA, the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) law expressly permits, and excludes from infringement, the manufacture and use of an analog or digital Audio Home Recording device by Individuals. The Betamax decision is slightly weaker but allows the same for Video Recording. I say slightly weaker because individuals may get in trouble for modifying a video descrambler, while it is not illegal to modify a radio to receive Muzak and other paid audio radio services (except NOT for commercial purposes). The satellite radio service XMSirius lost an AHRA defense on the "sale" (rent) of MP3 recorders because the recorders were bundled with their service and were designed to be Napster-like, with the ability to request specific songs for recording without collecting royalty like iTunes does. A general-purpose user-owned and user-operated equivalent device would be AHRA compliant. Tape decks and CD recorders may be connected to radios or included in boom box stereos. Mixtapes and MixCDs are permitted by the AHRA. CD Recorders are legal for duplicating CDs but generally require blank CDs marked for MUSIC which have a higher royalty levy. (Many CD players fail to play music on CDs that are not labeled as MUSIC CD-R). Libraries full of copyrighted books are also full of copying machines to copy them, and borrowing books or other media is free. Patents offer commercial exclusivity of an invention in exchange for instructions for making inventions available. Libraries and Patents are for Public Education, for which Literacy and Science is very important. An individual may build a patented machine as well as buy and disassemble one for the learning of science, but not build the patented inventions for sale or commercial gain.
The purpose of Patents and Copyrights are for "limited times" incentive to profit from inventions in exchange for making them available to the public and "to promote the arts". Dead authors don't need 70 year copyrights in this fast paced world if live ones got only 14 years in 1789 on their letter presses, which were invented by a monk to make more copies of the bible.
Conclusion: An individual cannot possibly infringe or Pirate in isolation; the RIAA and Madoff didn't even do those things as individuals. An individual could not even commit a solo act of Piracy if he had tried to steal a Nuke Sub. NOBODY EVER STOLE A SINGLE CD FROM A STORE BY USING NAPSTER. MP3 is not a copy of a CD, but a lossy compression code. Piracy and Infringement of Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights are inherently Corporate Crimes only. Charging individuals for a corporate offense is illegal, as is industrial espionage against individuals, which is Wiretapping.
In other words, what Business do the entertainment industry clowns have, by modifying my private home machines to advertise and SPAM and malfunction by means of Microsoft's Virus-Prone Defective and Expensive Invention, especially since I have not signed a EULA nor agreed to indemnify them for damages caused by their willful sale and distribution of a known hazardous product. Nor do I indemnify SONY or RIAA for rootkit virus damages by also selling and distributing hazardous products which are Trojan Horses in the form of MUSIC CDs, such as XCP, Specific Harm Music and Lid Rock.
I have a literal ton of Vinyl, but I haven't bought an RIAA product since before 2005, and I do not download MP3s even though there is nothing wrong with doing that except for the unconscionable EULAs and malware that prevent me from accessing them. Instead I practice unique music synthesis techniques which I had completely designed and even used before I had ever heard of anyone using a computer to play songs other than myself. All rights reserved, including the right of free speech which even includes singing Happy Birthday in Public.
Amateur Muzak Decoders
Audio Home Recording Act (summary)
Audio Home Recording Act
Sue the hell out of SONY
RIAA wants to hack all my (band's) music off my computer(and they did, too!)
SONY rootkit (google search)
SONY still makes rootkits in videogames...SPORE
Spore rootkit controversy
New York Times rates SPORE in top ten Christmas Gifts (down the Memory Hole) Don't believe in NEWS(tm)Entertainment Product
NEWS(tm):Actel chips article 100% solar radhard (really N-bomb) proof chip compared to Brand-X failures by Actel Marketing Manager, so it must be true! (drifting off topic)
XCP Rootkit