Copying your CDs to MP3 is illegal again in Britain

[Syt]

http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2015-07-18/ripping-music-is-illegal-again

RIPPING MUSIC IS ILLEGAL AGAIN

UK High Court overturns law that allowed users to make private copies
Making private copies of music you've bought is illegal again, after the UK High Court overturned a law change that permitted the making of copies for personal use.

Legislation came into effect in October that allowed buyers to copy items they'd purchased into a personal library.

The Copyright And Rights In Performances (Personal Copies For Private Use) Regulations 2014 affected music, TV, film and ebook products. It became acceptable to buy a CD and make a copy for use elsewhere, such as outside the home or for backup purposes. It remained illegal to share the material with others, and also to keep copies if the original item was resold.

The Musicians' Union and industry body UK Music won their legal challenge in court yesterday. UK Music boss Jo Dipple said: "The High Court agreed with us that government acted unlawfully when it introduced an exception to copyright for private copying, without fair compensation. We welcome the court's decision to quash the existing regulations.

"It is vitally important that fairness for songwriters, comprised and performers is written into the law. It's only right that government gives us the standard of legislation kurt music deserves – we want to work so this can be achieved."

UK Music argued that allowing private copies to be made cost artists £58m a year.

See, Germany is more enlightened. You're entitled to make private copies, but it's illegal to circumvent effective copy protection.

[Valmy]

Wait people still have CDs? How quaint.

[celedhring]

In Spain is legal, with fair compensation - which I believe is the best way around it. The matter of what is fair compensation and how to implement and manage it has been quite contentious, though.

We used to have a tax on blank media (from cassette tapes to CDs and HDs), the proceeds went to right management agencies which distributed it among their membership accordingly. That was struck down by court since it unfairly targeted users that didn't use those media to store copyrighted files, and now the compensation is set by the government and funded by the state's budget. This is supposed to be a temporary solution until a new system is agreed, but I bet it's gonna remain that way for the foreseeable future.

[Syt]

I would like to see the reasoning behind the 58 million GBP number. I suppose it's argued that a certain percentage of CD owners would buy digital copies if they weren't allowed to make private copies? And does it count proliferation of private copies to third parties?

[Syt]

We used to have a tax on blank media (from cassette tapes to CDs and HDs), the proceeds went to right management agencies which distributed it among their membership accordingly.

We have that in Austria for copiers, printers, blank media, including hard disks (HDs have been addition this year). And indeed the proceeds go to the rights management agencies (i.e. authors' rights agencies), not copyright holders.

A common argument here is that while you have to pay the fee on purchase you often don't hold a legal right to make copies.

[celedhring]

We used to have a tax on blank media (from cassette tapes to CDs and HDs), the proceeds went to right management agencies which distributed it among their membership accordingly.

We have that in Austria for copiers, printers, blank media, including hard disks (HDs have been addition this year). And indeed the proceeds go to the rights management agencies (i.e. authors' rights agencies), not copyright holders.

That's weird. It was an EU court which struck down our blank media tax. Same reasoning would apply to Austria, I assume.

[garbon]

Well thankfully Amazon gives a free digital copy when you buy a physical CD.

[Syt]

We used to have a tax on blank media (from cassette tapes to CDs and HDs), the proceeds went to right management agencies which distributed it among their membership accordingly.

We have that in Austria for copiers, printers, blank media, including hard disks (HDs have been addition this year). And indeed the proceeds go to the rights management agencies (i.e. authors' rights agencies), not copyright holders.

That's weird. It was an EU court which struck down our blank media tax.

Well, there's a provision in the law that you can demand the money back after purchase if you can prove you're not using it for media storage.

[Josquius]

Well this is stupid. Of course MP3 players aren't illegal, the law was a common sense proving of this. But they've undone it? Pff

[Richard Hakluyt]

Well this is stupid. Of course MP3 players aren't illegal, the law was a common sense proving of this. But they've undone it? Pff

Yeah, what we have now is a gateway crime. People will break the law and listen to their paid for music how they want, some will then think "well why bother paying at all since I'm breaking the law anyway?".

[Monoriu]

This is stupid.  There is no way to stop people from ripping their own CDs.  People won't feel guilty about it, as they paid for the music.  It just breeds contempt for the law. 

[Martinus]

Yet another pathetic attempt to save a dying industry using a non-feasible business model.

[celedhring]

Yet another pathetic attempt to save a dying industry using a non-feasible business model.

It's the artists' union who's initiated this, it is very powerful in the UK (and very militant) and the industry has backed them because of that. But actually the industry has moved past this mindset for a while now.

The main issue here is that the industry can accept smaller margins and just move music in bulk via spotify and similar digital distribution mediums, but individual artists can't. That's why you see artists fighting stuff like this and spotify (who has strong industry backing), tooth and nail.

[Martinus]

But which artists are these? Are these really struggling artists or the likes of Madonna, who just fight tooth and nail for another million? I have an impression that artists who start to publish these days have already moved to an entirely different business model and offer "vanilla" music for free, and instead earn money from concerts, appearances, special editions and paraphernalia - it is the dinosaurs who cling to an outdated model.

[DontSayBanana]

But which artists are these? Are these really struggling artists or the likes of Madonna, who just fight tooth and nail for another million? I have an impression that artists who start to publish these days have already moved to an entirely different business model and offer "vanilla" music for free, and instead earn money from concerts, appearances, special editions and paraphernalia - it is the dinosaurs who cling to an outdated model.

It's the artists' union, who are fighting tooth and nail for another million in member dues.  They're trying hard to look effective because between their own tendency to value their own interests over those of the artists they're supposed to be representing coupled with their failure to effectively mitigate situations like Apple's notoriously cheap payments to iTunes artists is making quite a few artists rethink working for labels and unions (luckily for them, multi-album contracts aren't so much of a thing as they used to be anymore, so it's easier now to get out from under a label).