Legal change for personal CD ripping

[Maggy J]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14372698

Soon it will no longer be illegal to rip CDs or DVDs for personal use.
The government is poised to announce the change as it accepts some of the recommendations of the wide-ranging Hargreaves Review of UK copyright law.
The review was intended to identify legislation that has been outdated by technological change.
As well as legalising "format shifting", it also suggested relaxing rules on parody and creating an agency to licence copyrighted content.

Really?

Millions of people regularly convert movies on DVDs and music on CDs into a format that they can move around more easily, although most do not realise that it technically illegal.
"The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it's not really a very good law," said Simon Levine, head of the intellectual property and technology group at DLA Piper.

Well I personally knew that about films but thought that if the music was for my own use and owned by me that it was legal...

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14372698



Really?



Well I personally knew that about films but thought that if the music was for my own use and owned by me that it was legal...

Yes l am just listening to this on the news and it can be very confusing as they all seem to be saying different things that represent their own interests and they do not seem to be clarifying anything.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Well I personally knew that about films but thought that if the music was for my own use and owned by me that it was legal...

Nope, hence DRM...

It's always been illegal to rip copyrighted music and films even for your own usage but a blind eye was always turned for personal usage.. Now at least it's now legal.

Look at Sony's attempt years ago to stop you ripping CD's on a computer by installing a rootkit..

[Maggy J]

But on top of all that Sony were more than willing to sell hardware that could rip/copy CDs and media. Conflicting signals or what?

[Kymmy]

Nope as every single product has a legal usage..

It's like people assuming that because a member has bit-torrent installed that they're downloading illegal material when the member might just use it for linux builds..

Same argument with a car, it may be capable of 100+ but you can;t blame the manufacturer if you get caught speeding

[Gary L]

As if anyone really cares whether it was illegal anyway?

just look at it like if you have the DVD of a film it will only play in a DVD player. where are they selling a format to be able to play it on your personal player?
even if they did sell it in another format. you have to be a mug to buy various formats of the same film.

then you have a music CD. are you really expected to buy an mp3 version as well, and the same in reverse. are you expected to buy the CD version?

[Kymmy]

Actually I'm guilty of using the word "illegal" incorrectly.. mainly as it broke civil copyright and that's what this ruling is about to stop the MPAA and also law firms trying to use simple "copying for your own usage" in the fight against piracy..

Could you imagine how far the music industry would want to take it in the future (especially after the ACS fiasco) if a law/issue like this wasn't cleared up..

[Russ]

A common sense change only about 30 years late in coming.

[Rob]

A well overdue and practical change to the law.

[Chris]

The CDPA was passed into law in 1988 and it really should have been addressed then, but I suspect the reason it wasn't was because the record industry was pushing its 'home taping is killing music' agenda very hard around that time.

I remember using iTunes for the very first time around 2000 and thinking it novel that I was freely able to own software that was advertised in the UK with the strap line "rip, mix, burn" even though that was a civil offence in the UK. In fact, when MP3 players first hit the market in this country, there was no legal way of putting music onto them. AFAIK it wasn't until the itunes music store opened in the UK - quite some time after the ipod went on sale in the UK - that it was possible to play music on any MP3 player in this country without infringing someone's copyright.

The "fair use" defence in US copyright law is a very sensible thing and something that is long overdue here. I'm glad they're finally addressing it. Even so, I don't expect the studios are going to stop trying to make it as hard as possible to rip stuff. I've converted a couple of my DVDs for my iPad but it is such a major faff I really only do it for stuff I desperately want to be able to carry round with me.

[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Nope, hence DRM...

It's always been illegal to rip copyrighted music and films even for your own usage but a blind eye was always turned for personal usage.. Now at least it's now legal.

Look at Sony's attempt years ago to stop you ripping CD's on a computer by installing a rootkit..

And Microsoft are apparently in bed with record companies to stop copying, so this decision is not before bloody time!!!

To explain:

I have just discovered that my copy of The Incredibles soundtrack will not play in Windows Media Player 11. I should mention in passing that there is, so far as I can see, nothing wrong with the disc. On my CD player and my portable DVD player, it plays perfectly. But WMP11, I have found, will not allow me to make a decent copy of it - even if I accede to its bitching and tell it to put copy protection on the tracks. In fact, if I do that, it then won't let me rip tracks at all! Without copy protection, the tracks are unplayable...after taking nearly an hour to rip. This behaviour did not manifest with WMP9 and earlier - those allowed me to do it quite happily. FYI, the disc is copyright 2004.

Then I remembered the Sony furore and had a closer look at the disc. The jewel case lacks the embossed Philips label 'Compact Disc Digital Media'...in other words, by Philips' definition and by their copyright, it is NOT a CD. It is, instead, CD Media - any "Compact Disc" which has any form of copy protection is NOT a Compact Disc and should NOT be labelled as such. There's a suspicious-looking area around the edge of the disc which has a more silvered appearance than the rest of the surface. Hmm.

I have gone through my collection and discovered 3 other albums of which I am now suspicious, viz.:

Evanescence - Fallen (Sony, copyright 2003 & 2004)

P!nk - I'm Not Dead (Sony BMG, copyright 2006)

P!nk - Funhouse (Sony BMG, copyright 2008)

That last is an Enhanced CD (video for the track So What included), but I'm still suspicious. I'm going to try ripping a track from each and seeing what happens.

In the meantime, if any of you have any of these albums, do NOT play them if you're logged onto your PC as Administrator - there might be anything on them!


By the way, the idea of the rootkit was in fact to allow copying - but only 3x (for details, see here). However, the rootkit was extremely badly written and Sony didn't tell anyone what they were doing...taking advantage of the fact that most PC users running Windows 2000 and later are unaware that they're running their PCs in Administrator mode and are therefore leaving themselves open to anything that might quietly install itself in the background. The current virus problem would be nowhere near as bad as it is if only Microsoft had given its users a little credit for intelligence and explained this.

Running a User account stops most viruses and trojans dead in their tracks, because they can't install themselves. I really hope everyone on this board knows this by now; for our non-techy folks, the difference between a User and an Administrator account can best be likened to the difference between having a ticket to a concert and having a backstage pass. Administrator accounts should only be used when installing/uninstalling software, and, unless absolutely necessary, not for browsing the Internet. User accounts should be used for everything else. If you have only one account on your PC, this is an Administrator account and you're asking for trouble.

It's easily dealt with, though: you just need to:

a) create a new account, call it, say, Administrator, and give it Admin privileges (because you must have at least one account with administrator privileges);

b) log out, then log into the Administrator account;

c) bring up your original account and mark it as a User account;

d) log out of Administrator and log into your original account.

Nothing else will change, but your account will now be much more secure. Any subsequent accounts, say for other family members, should be created as User accounts. Ideally only the most tech-savvy member of the family should know the Administrator's password, because kids sometimes...well.

Update: Fallen is cleared of suspicion. WMP11 ripped a track without complaint and it plays perfectly.

[Russ]

I'm just waiting for Mr Angry to turn up and rip us all a new one (ha!)for even suggesting this might be a good idea...

[Anonymouse]

Further update: I'm Not Dead and Funhouse are also in the clear; I ripped a track from each and WMP11 didn't protest at all. Hmm.

Hopefully this new legislation will be the beginning of the end for DRM, at least in this country; it's always been way more trouble than it's worth. I wouldn't be surprised if its development costs exceeded the alleged lost revenue from pirates, actually.

[Chris]

I doubt very much that it will make a blind bit of difference to development of DRM. The single biggest consumer market in the world (USA) has had fair use clauses in its copyright law for years and it's never made a difference.

The content owners will continue to pursue the holy grail of a DRM solution that actually works because its the only way they can approach the issue without accepting that the prices they charge for their product might be part of the problem.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

Further update: I'm Not Dead and Funhouse are also in the clear; I ripped a track from each and WMP11 didn't protest at all.

God, and you had me all excited with steam coming out of my ears too!