Backing up Legally Purchased CDs is Now Illegal in the UK
 

Remember back in 2005, when you used to buy CDs? Maybe you still do, say, when you go out to a show to support a band. Then, like most other human beings in the modern world, you come home, copy the music to your computer, and shelve the archaic optical disk forever.

But if you live in the UK, there’s a teensy problem: A high court in London has just ruled that when you back up your lawfully purchased CD, you’re potentially “harming” the rights holders, calling into question the legality of the nearly universal practice.

I think my brain just exploded a little reading that back.

Here’s how the drama started. Back in October of 2014, the UK’s intellectual property office rendered a long overdue update to its copyright law, allowing people, for the first time, to legally make MP3 copies of CDs they had purchased for their personal use. (We’ve got a similar law on the books in the US). The extremely narrow measure—it only applies to content acquired permanently, and only for private, exclusive use—was deemed to cause “zero or insignificant harm” to the music industry. Sound logic, as everybody had already backed up and binned their CD collections long ago and didn’t realize there was an issue.

Surprise! The music industry disagrees. In a challenge made last November, businesses including UK Music and the British Academy of Songwriters claimed the new measure would cost the rights owners tens of millions, and demanded that a compensation scheme be introduced. That’s right—they want more money for content you already bought, and that, if you give two ****s about, you’re going to backup before CD drives disappear forever.

On Friday, a high court judge ruled in their favor, stating that the government didn’t have enough evidence to conclude that copyright holders would suffer no financial losses.

Not everyone is sympathetic to the record industry’s plea. Pushpinder Saini, who represents the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said the industry case “boils down to an opportunistic attempt to obtain a financial benefit which, if the exception had never been introduced, they would never have received.”

But, one way or another, it’d seem that the end is nigh for the short-lived and draconian CD ripping measure. Great job, record biz. Now, if you guys could put some of that litigious energy into innovating new ways to stay relevant in the digital age, maybe you’d stop hemorrhaging customers.

[The Guardian]

http://gizmodo.com/music-industry-wi...ium=socialflow

What's a "CD"?

[begin rant]

Making copies of music has always been against copyright law, but it didn't stop anyone buying tape recorders to make a copy of their favourite record back in the day nor has it stopped anyone since. The same is true of copying films, downloading said media from youtube etc. These thiefs have been allowed to get away with it until now, but thankfully its all in the process of changing.

Piracy is copyright theft from the original content makers, it is literally putting thousands of people out of business every day, but people still do it and think its funny. It is the same as going in to a shop and helping yourself to goods and walking out, and the sooner its clamped down on, the better. [/end of rant]

How would anyone know you had kylies greatest hits or whatever backed up?

Well like Torrents or copying YouTube videos to your PC, no one knows you've done it. The same with this really, anyone who does rip CDs will most likely get away with it.

The only way these things will be clamped down on is when censorship and monitoring becomes more intense in the UK, and I think we're quite far away from that for now.

it is now law that internet service providers (isp's) store data related to people downloading habits. There was a recent case where isp's were forced to disclose those users who had downloaded a particularly fruity porn film. The isp's were then order by the courts to send letters to each of the individuals asking them to pay for said film or have a day in court.

Just because it can't be detected that something has been copied in all cases, doesn't make it morally acceptable to do it. I repeat again, people are going out of business because of it. I know people personally affected, its not funny and its not cool

Oh yes I agree it's not acceptable, funny or cool. Although we're still far from a policing system that puts a total stop to people doing these things. There are a few things like your example which show the start of these things being monitored. Although at the moment it's still very easy for people to get away with it.

So it seems that certain music industries can get the same rights to dig about as the police working on behalf of the artists signed to them?

the same as anyone else, they have to put the case to a court and let it decide

So the CPS aren't interested where crimes against a person have been committed but when there are multi million pound industries involved suddenly there are grounds for cases and court time is deemed necessary?

Torrents are traced, babe.

I'm not referring to multi million pound industries being affected by copyright theft. The majority affected are businesses with single digit numbers of employees, whose years of work is destroyed, the moment it gets uploaded to torrent sites. I can even quote companies that produce products where all the proceeds go to charity, and these are still uploaded to torrents.

Its an out of control mess that does need to be sorted out.

So you can't put a CD you've paid almost £11 for, which only has 10 tracks, onto your iPhone so you can listen to it and appreciate it further when you're not around a CD player? Pathetic.

It's silly to attack this because if you like a live performance from a singer, how are you suppose to buy that version?

Shrug. If you kept a cheap, permanently offline PC specifically for ripping your CDs to mp3s and storing them, there is literally no way that anyone could ever find out about it unless someone who knows about it decides to tell someone. Not that anyone would realistically care.

Anyway, yes, this is stupid. If you have paid for the music it should be yours to listen to as you please. So long as you're only ripping it to put it into your own mp3 collection, and ot passing it on to other people (duplicating the file rather than just taking it once from the CD) there really should be no issue.

cds?

i mean you may as well talk about pipe smoking

CDs, DVDs, both something from the dark ages.

I haven't used a RW DVD for 4 years. Haven't watched a movie DVD for 6 years.

I download all my movies. Store and play everything on USB sticks.

you buy an authorised live version if and when it appears. Simple.


To those that say, backing up something (a cd ) is just fine. You go in to a shop and buy a toaster and pay for it. At the same time, do you help yourself to another toaster without paying for it, just in case you lose or break the first one? No you don't, and exactly the same principles apply

True, my latest PC doesn't even have an optical drive of any kind :joker: