Copying CD's to MP3 for personal use

italiastar

Does anyone out there know if it is legal to copy CD's which I own to MP3 for my own personal use in my car or mp3 player.

I'd like to know as I've recently bought a CD which is copy protected and cannot be converted to MP3.

It would be useful to know the legal position before I take on the might of EMI.

slowen

italiastar wrote:

Does anyone out there know if it is legal to copy CD's which I own to MP3 for my own personal use in my car or mp3 player.

I'd like to know as I've recently bought a CD which is copy protected and cannot be converted to MP3.

It would be useful to know the legal position before I take on the might of EMI.

I think it is legal to make a "back up" of your music collection in case your originals get damaged but not 100% sure

As far as I know all new CD's have some sort of copy protection in them from refusing to copy or making tracks skip.

There is a good program on the internet for converting normal music files into MP3 and it is called CD-EX (CD extraction) just do a goole search and you should find it

coolagarry

I'm pretty sure that in this country you cannot make copies for any reason. The making backup's for personal use applies in the US

drlight_2

There's more on this here.

wolfman

coolagarry wrote:

I'm pretty sure that in this country you cannot make copies for any reason. The making backup's for personal use applies in the US

As far as I'm aware, due to the implementation of the EUCD, it's actually illegal to make backups of cd's/dvd's, this includes converting tracks to mp3's. It's also illegal to circumvent the protection if any. The EUCD basically took away most of the "fair use" rights that the consumer had.

drlight_2

The laws are copied and repeated and freely available so we can all enjoy & benefit from the info.

wolfman

boogiemaster wrote:

Telling you isn’t illegal, its doing it that is, once reocrded you exsport to wav or mp3.

Actually from what I've been reading, documenting, publishing and writing tools on breaking the protection is actually also illegal. A good example is what happened to Dvd Decrypter.

sra

sorry to be deleting posts again

I checked with abcon specifically about this last time this came up

Helping to get round Copy Protection is not allowed in any way - Even simple tips about changing settings in windows that would be normally be OK aren't allowed if you are suggesting them in the context of bypassing copy protection

sorry

blinky

wolfman wrote:

As far as I'm aware, due to the implementation of the EUCD, it's actually illegal to make backups of cd's/dvd's, this includes converting tracks to mp3's. It's also illegal to circumvent the protection if any. The EUCD basically took away most of the "fair use" rights that the consumer had.

I didn't think technically we ever had a fair use provision, possibly with the execption of video recorders.

I wonder how BBC / ITV etc would react if we all wrote in requesting permission before video taping a programme?

wolfman

I think prior to the EUCD (before 2003 or so) you were entitled to make one backup up things such as music cd's, dvd's etc... This is considered "fair use" and is still allowed in some countries, but not the UK.