The question here is whether you bought a real, solid, tangible item, such as a cassette or record, or whether you licensed a virtual, theoretical, intangible thing, such as a copyright.

As I understand the current law, you bought a real, solid item. Your rights under AHRA to make a backup only apply to the item that you bought. Of course, if you look further into the current copyright laws, you will find that making copies of friends CDs falls into their 'fair use' rights too. Whether that is morally or ethically correct....

But the RIAA would have Congress half-believe that they never really sold you an item, and what they were doing was licensing you the copyright. They wanted this to combat p2p downloads as it is impossible for them to prove who is *your* friend online. I say 'half-believe' because, ironically, if that were the case then obtaining a digital copy of something that you've already licensed would be perfectly legal. Whether it came from your best friend's CD or from the digital jukebox of the Little Green Men from Mars wouldn't make a difference - as long as it was from the same copyright registration that is. But that'd be a moot point under true licensing anyway - in theory you could phone the record company concerned, tell them that the 11 year old magnetic copy that they recorded on cheap tape with a 10 year lifespan has died, and they'd be bound to enable you to obtain a new copy. And they'd have a very difficult time justifying giving you a new tape as CDs are cheaper to produce. It'd be cheapest for them just to email you a new copy.

I think that is why the RIAA suddenly went a bit quiet on the idea of licensing - they realised that it wasn't such a good proposition for them after all. But they still try to use their favorite elements of the licensing model when it suits their arguments.

AFAIC, you're covered. They've had your money for that album.