Legal Question in Technology Law in Texas

This is what is termed "format shifting". Google the term and you will see it's legal in the US so long as strictly noncommercial and done using a "digital audio recording device". Whether the cloud service is such a device is the question.

17 USC 1008 provides:

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

[See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1008]

The law has not caught up with the cloud on this, but it is reasonable to assume the cloud service could likely be deemed a "digital audio recording device" . However, there are lawyers who would argue otherwise, unless the cloud services pay the tax imposed on digital media and recorders by 17 USC � 1004

[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1004]

The practicality is that unless you share, the RIAA/MPAA will not even know. The DMCA is a law [17 USC 512], but the RIAA and MPAA are agencies not laws.