UK government to legalise DVD and CD 'ripping'

[Stephen!]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...overnment-to-legalise-DVD-and-CD-ripping.html

Copying CDs and DVDs for personal use will be legalised as part of an attempt to bring UK copyright law up to date for the digital age

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has announced plans to make the practice of 'ripping' content from CDs and DVDs legal, as part of changes designed to bring UK copyright law up to date for the digital age.

It is currently illegal to copy content that you have bought on a CD onto your MP3 player. The changes will update copyright law to make this legal, as long as you own what you are copying, and the copy you make is for your own private use.

The changes will also mean that you will be able to copy a book or film you have purchased for one device onto another without infringing copyright.

However, it will still be illegal to make copies for friends or family, or to make a copy of something you do not own or have acquired illegally, without the copyright owner’s permission. So you will not be able to make copies of CDs for your friends, copy CDs borrowed from friends, or copy videos illegally downloaded from file-sharing websites.

It will also be illegal to copy from borrowed or rented CDs and DVDs, on-demand streaming services or broadcasts.

"The changes make small but important reforms to UK copyright law and aim to end the current situation where minor and reasonable acts of copying which benefit consumers, society and the economy are unlawful," said the IPO in a statement.

"They also remove a range of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book in line with the government’s aim to reduce regulation."

The IPO warned that some media, such as DVDs, are often protected by anti-copying technology to guard against copyright piracy, and this is protected by law. Copyright owners will still be able to apply this protection. However, if copy protection is too restrictive, consumers can raise a complaint with the Secretary of State.

The government said the proposed legislation strikes an important balance between enabling reasonable use of copyright material in the modern age with minimal impact on copyright owners.

The regulations will now be debated in both Houses of Parliament. If they are approved they will come into force on 1 June 2014.

 

[JarodRussell]

First step into the right direction.

 

[Metryq]

^True, but also fixing the proverbial barn door after the horse has already been using Handbrake for years.

 

[JarodRussell]

The important thing is that you will be able to officially complain about restrictive copy protection.

 

[MacLeod]

Define too restrictive?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Define too restrictive?

Any protection is too restrictive.

On one hand, the work will sooner or later fall out of copyright, and an effective copy protection will prevent the work from entering the public domain (thankfully, no effective copy protection is yet possible).

On the other, any copy protection limits your ability to use the work that you've purchased, even within the limits of the law. It can prevent you from playing works on your system (unless it conforms to what the distributor of said work wants your system to be), it can force you to purchase additional goods and services that you don't want and shouldn't need. It increases the price of playback equipment, and gives unwanted power over the works and/or equipment to those who introduced the copy protection in the first place.

It also prevents you from excercising your fair use rights (in the US) or their equivalent (in the rest of the world) – you can't publish small parts of the work in your critical review, or make a parody, or do anything that includes portions of the work, even if that were legal, effectively limiting your freedom of speech.

Oh, and you can't make backups. Your dog ate your DVDs? Buy new ones.

 

[MacLeod]

^Perhaps but as clearly stated in the article, use of copy-protection isn't illegal. Just that it can't be overly restrictive.

Copyright protection can last for decades.

Distrubtors want to sell something to as many people as possible so limiting it to the number or type of devices that can play it might not be a smart buisness move.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Is CD ripping illegal? Windows Media Player has a ripper built right in & I copy every CD I purchase.

 

[MacLeod]

It depends on which country you are in, laws vary from country to country so what might be legal in one is illegal in another.

 

[Amaris]

It's a clusterfuck. In the U.S., it's legal and it isn't legal, depending upon how you look at it, and in what way, and how you define things. You have a right, under Fair Use, to make a backup copy of your CD/DVD/etc., but under the DMCA, you can't bypass DRM, which makes it all pointless.

It's like saying, "you can drive the car, but you have to do it without starting the engine."

In fact, in the U.S. just recently, a Federal judge ordered Slysoft AnyDVD to pay for breeching AACS copyright protection with its software, and the judge also had the assets of Fengtao, the company who makes DVDFab, frozen, so they can't process payments anywhere, and had all of their domains shut down. Now, Fengtao, and Slysoft, exist outside of the U.S. (Fengtao is in China, and Slysoft is in Antigua), but these decisions affect the companies directly, which means it also keeps them from operating in markets where their services are completely legal. It's a hell of a reach, but it's been made. Now we'll see what happens from here.

Which raises an interesting question: What will the U.S. do should the U.K. actually allow this to happen? The two nations work very close together, and one doesn't take a shit without the other handing it something by which to wipe. Maybe the U.S. will relax their copyright/copy protection claims. Hold on a second...

<laughs uncontrollably for an hour>

*ahem*. But who knows?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ I have both of those apps. I think the U.S., as usual, has overstepped it's bounds.

I mean, if someone sells, or even posts copywrited stuff, that's the illegal part.

 

[Amaris]

^ I have both of those apps. I think the U.S., as usual, has overstepped it's bounds.

I mean, if someone sells, or even posts copywrited stuff, that's the illegal part.

Indeed, they have, and they need reigned in. Copyright law has long since started going too far, and interpreted too many ways by huge corporations who pay off committees, panels, and judges to see it their way.

In the end, those corporations, and their lobbyists, will snuff out the artists who depend on word of mouth, among other things, and even though they will be the cause of it, they'll just blame the average consumer who buys their music and movies legally, and slap more absurdities on them.