MSE News: DVD to computer copying to be made legal

Dave_C_2

IANAL, but last time I read about this, copying your own CD music for personal use is not a criminal offence but is a civil offence - breach of copyright.

In other words the police will not break down your door but the copyright owner (record companies) may try to sue for breach of copyright.

If you copy your own CDs the record companies obviously can't claim these as lost sales, so trying to sue you as an individual won't get them anywhere as they haven't lost any money.

Of course DRM is the spawn of the devil and anyone imposing DRM on anything should be burnt at the stake.

Dave

S0litaire

From all the information today they are only pushing the Music side of this.

In BBC / Sky news interviews today they were saying that copying Movies to another format is "Not an issue" because the Industry is already providing Multiple formats (e.g. 3play Blu-Rays with HD version a DVD version and a Digital Version).

For pure media/format shifting you need to bypass DRM, so that you can play them on things like Linux based media players and some mobile smart phones.

Kite2010

DCodd wrote: »

A lot of people knew it was illegal but the copyright owners did not want to enforce it, especially when MP3 players came as downloading the file to your computer from a CD or iTunes or such like was legal but copying it onto the MP3 player from yout PC was technically illegal.

Even copying the music from a CD to your computer to make a back-up was illegal under the ancient law.

At last the government is bringing the law into the 21st century to allow fair-use of format shifting.

poppy10_2

As Percy points out, although it will no longer be a breach of copyright to copy a DVD to your computer, it will still be illegal to break or bypass the DRM encryption which protects DVDs - and if you don't bypass the encryption then you can't rip the DVD to a playable format.

Don't expect iTunes or similar programs to start providing a simple DVD-ripper the way they currently offer the ability to rip CDs - you'll still have to resort to illegal software like anyDVD or dvdfab to get videos from your DVDs/Blu-rays to your portable media player or computer.

Dave_C_2

poppy10 wrote: »

... you'll still have to resort to illegal software like anyDVD or dvdfab to get videos from your DVDs/Blu-rays to your portable media player or computer.

Isn't this one of those legal quirks where it's OK to download the software but (at the moment) illegal to use it to copy a commercial DVD?

As always, IANAL. Dave

debitcardmayhem

My biggest bugbear is the BBC(and other free to air service broadcasters) I just paid £140+ to renew my TV licence, but I can't get BBC HD on my freeview, but I can on my freesat, but of course the anal retentives in the beeb say my satellite box must encrypt the HD broadcast if I record it. So I cannot watch in any other room in the house in HD (nor in SD if recorded in HD) unless I spend shedloads to extend my HDMI capabilities outside the room housing the PVR :mad:

corbyboy

Question: has anybody ever actually been prosecuted for ripping a CD to their computer?

If not, why are politicians messing about worrying about this? They seem to talk about a lot of things they are going to put into law, but they don't follow through with a lot of it.

stoneman

free4440273 wrote: »

excellent news . next: file-sharing ? :rotfl:

You are not telling me that is illegal are you?:eek:

S0litaire

stoneman wrote: »

You are not telling me that is illegal are you?:eek:

Depends on the file being shared... ^__^ :A

Robisere

I first began buying music in that ancient medium they now call 'vinyl', but which we called simply 'records'. I realised that these shiny black things soon became scratched, which affected the sound eventually. So I manged to acquire an old Open Reel (notice I did not say "Reel-to-Reel: that is nonsense) tape recorder, and recorded all my stuff. The cassette tape era gave me another recording format, which enabled me to listen to my OWN, purchased music in the cars I bought. CD's came along and I used them in the same manner.
And all through the 60's, 70's and 80's, until vinyl vanished, I bought records. Inside, on the paper sleeve, was usually a message to the effect that "Home copying is ILLEGAL".
When I bought my first PC, I began copying my OWN, purchased, CD's and vinyl records to my computer.
There are two conclusions here:
1. I have been committing illegal acts for more than FIVE decades. The Thought Police have not yet spoken to me.
2. I have a huge collection of vinyl which is in absolutely perfect condition, as most of it has only been played less than 5 times, on state of the art equipment. A great deal of it is rare, some of it was deleted years ago and the masters lost or destroyed. This is my pension.
RESULT: I may make a lot of money from all this illegal activity.
I do not think the recording industry fat cats will be happy about this, which is even more pleasing. They do not MAKE the music. They simply profit from the talent of others.
And I have always paid for the music I bought, in whatever form it was originally recorded and sold.