BPI says copying CDs for personal use is okay

[DeadKenny]

It's always been a bit of a grey area as UK copyright law doesn't have a "fair use" clause, but not something that's ever been tested in court, but now the BPI have come out saying that copying your own CD for personal use is okay and they won't be chasing after anyone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5053658.stm

Though it doesn't really change much as no one has been prosecuted anyway, it does make things clearer in terms of what's legal and not. This should mean that they can't complain about software and hardware that makes it possible to make copies.

However on the back of this I'd like to see copy protection on CDs outlawed as they really can't justify it now. I buy CDs cheap from places like cd-wow (cheaper than online downloads and you get a physical product) but I struggle to get them onto my MP3 player because of the copy protection :oh-hum:. The BPI are saying I can do it, so let me do it! Failing that, if I own the CD, give me free downloads of the tracks and let me copy them infinitely to all the devices I own.

[yaffle]

I actually have real problems playing some of these CDs in normal CD players. My copy of Gorillaz's Demon Days refuses to play in my car cd-play and also in my portable. Ironically enough, it plays on my PC just fine. Copy protection just sucks.

[Mr Majestik]

Also today the BPI said they were going to crack down on 'that Russian website that sounds a bit like a Steve Martin film*' but not the people down loading from it.



*All of me.

[GregB]

and how precisely are they going to stop the site considering it's based in Russia.

According to an article in today's Independent the Russian copyright laws are changing in September and the site probably won't last long after that.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article702963.ece

[Mr Majestik]

Quick to the download mobile....

[DeadKenny]

I actually have real problems playing some of these CDs in normal CD players. My copy of Gorillaz's Demon Days refuses to play in my car cd-play and also in my portable. Ironically enough, it plays on my PC just fine. Copy protection just sucks.
Yeah, I have big problems with that one. Doesn't play in the car player or my laptop. Only one PC drive will read it and it takes hours to rip to MP3.

Also today the BPI said they were going to crack down on 'that Russian website that sounds a bit like a Steve Martin film*' but not the people down loading from it.
Yeah, the BPI have said it's an illegal site and illegal to download for it and are going to try and sue them in the UK courts. How can you sue a Russian site in a UK court? :shrug:

What gets me is the way the US are potentially sparking off a war by suggesting sanctions and denial of entry to the World Trade Organisation if that Russian site isn't shut down! :oh-hum:

Crazy thing is the site does probably pay royalties, just it goes via a route that doesn't involve the greedy middle men, and they are proposing charging more and doing more direct payments to artists. The industry claims that with the low prices they can't possibly be paying royalties but then they forget that the portion of royalties that actually goes to the artist is that low, if not lower! The vast majority goes to the music industry not the artist.

[nicknack]

So if its now "legal" for me to copy my CDs for personal use, is it "illegal" for record companies to put protection on their discs preventing me doing so :)

[Captain_Howdy666]

I refuse to buy CDs with copy protection and happily download them. Everything I like I will gladly purchase. So if this changes, I can now complete my Aerosmith collection. Great stuff.

[mullethead]

Yeah, the BPI have said it's an illegal site and illegal to download for it and are going to try and sue them in the UK courts. How can you sue a Russian site in a UK court? :shrug:

http://www.mullethead.btinternet.co.uk/images/other/mr_big_record_producer.jpg
I AM ABOVE THE LAW!!

[charles w]

Oh well if the BPI has deemed Russian sites illegal it must be true. Here's me thinking that a case would have to be heard in a Russian Court before it could be illegal, oh naive me.

[AndyWilson]

If it's copying artists' work, reselling it and not paying royalties then it's illegal. No-one other than the site in question seems to know anything about this "ROMS" organisation so I'd suggest if they want to be thought of as legitimate they do more to prove their legality. Surely it should be possible to find out if, for example, Coldplay have received any royalties from ROMS.

This argument keeps going round in circles. As far as I can see people are just using the quasi-legality of the site to be able to get hold of music as cheaply as possible whilst claiming they're not pirating it, and don't give a **** whether the artists get paid.

[DeadKenny]

Regardless of the legality of some Russian site, the point is the BPI are saying copying your own CDs is legal basically and that has implications on the use of copy protection on CDs.

[AndyWilson]

I don't see how - "fair usage" laws have made personal copying legal in the USA for a long time, yet copy protection is still used there.

By the way, am I alone in finding that despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the internet there are in practice very few CDs that have copy protection? I certainly can't remember the last time I couldn't rip a CD to my ipod.

[DeadKenny]

Buy any new CD from cd-wow and you'll find it's copy protected. At least that's my experience. The same CDs sold in the UK are not copy protected.

Not sure if copy protection is actually used much in the US except for the obvious Sony rootkit case. It's mostly applied to stuff sourced from asian markets (which is weird because cd-wow are supposed to only source from the EU now after the music industry put their heavy legal weight onto them to stop them parallel importing :oh-hum: ).

[Questor]

By definition the discs which have copy-protection aren't CDs, because they don't conform to the (I think) Red Book standard, and won't play on all CD players

The copy protection is usually easily bypassed anyway, EAC, usually works for me :)

[DeadKenny]

The copy protection is usually easily bypassed anyway, EAC, usually works for me :)
Works, but isn't always easy. The last Gorillaz album takes hours to rip I find as EAC has to spin down to well under 1x speed, repeatidly going over sections of the CD to ensure it's got an accurate rip because this kind of copy protection probably works by putting errors on the CD (hence probably why the thing doesn't even play on some players :oh-hum: ).

I'm only be able to rip it at all because I've got a particular modern cd-rom drive that has better error correction facilities. Other drives I've tried don't even recognise the CD even just to play it normally!

[smst]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5053658.stm

Though it doesn't really change much as no one has been prosecuted anyway, it does make things clearer in terms of what's legal and not. This should mean that they can't complain about software and hardware that makes it possible to make copies.Although it's good to hear the BPI say something that's actually good for the music fan, let's not forget that the BPI is not an arbiter of law (just a representative of multi-billion pound companies who often get to set the law). Just because the BPI says it's legal, doesn't mean it technically is.

Having said that, hopefully this statement will pave the way for UK law to ratify such a media-shifting fair-use clause. It's not good enough that the BPI say they'll look the other way; I don't want to be breaking the law for ripping my CD collection or putting a copy in the car, whether the people who would instigate the case against me will do so or not.

In fact, the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group recently released their report on DRM, and the results were encouraging. They were healthily sceptical about DRM (what happens when a vendor goes bust and the music becomes unplayable?) and wanted to see clear labels for crippled discs masquerading as Red Book CDs:

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2006/06/05/launch-of-the-apig-report-on-drm/

I've never liked copy-protection measures on so-called CDs. There are always optical drives that can get around them, so anyone intent on copying the disc (say, the counterfeiters who want to make many copies for sale) can do so with an acceptable investment in time and/or money. But to the average music fan, that's too much of a hurdle -- I'm not going to buy a new drive for every new disc on the market (and I'm lucky to already have three; the average punter has just one). This barrier, at just the right level to be a real problem for one group and inconsequential for another, would be ingenious if it wasn't backwards!

I listen to music through my PC when I'm at work -- that's for about 8 hours a day, and it's the most time I spend listening to music by far. The second longest time spent is in the living room, where I have a SqueezeBox to play the rips over the network. If I can't rip a CD, there's very little chance that I'll listen to it -- and my situation is far from unusual these days.

I remember buying Radiohead's "Hail To The Thief". It took me hours to rip it, after which I was so annoyed by the whole debacle that I really didn't fancy listening to it. To this day I haven't heard more than whatever the first single was; that attempt to "protect" their music from me left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've always found myself turning away from it. (A shame, as Radiohead are one of my favourite bands.) It felt as if the album title was directed at me, for wanting to listen to the music.

Anyway, (ironic) thanks to the BPI for realising that I'm not a thief and might like to actually listen to the music I buy.

[DeadKenny]

Although it's good to hear the BPI say something that's actually good for the music fan, let's not forget that the BPI is not an arbiter of law (just a representative of multi-billion pound companies who often get to set the law). Just because the BPI says it's legal, doesn't mean it technically is.
Apparently "technically" it's not illegal because there is no precedent for anyone being prosecuted for copying their own CDs (and records, tapes, videos, etc), and as copyright law isn't criminal law I believe (i.e. someone has to sue you for breach of copyright).

I remember buying Radiohead's "Hail To The Thief". It took me hours to rip it, after which I was so annoyed by the whole debacle that I really didn't fancy listening to it.
Tell me about it. That one annoyed me too :mad:. I've found it's mostly recent CDs I buy from the likes of CD-Wow.com (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.cd-wow.com/index.php?affid=15561) though. Get them from a UK high street shop and it's less likely to be copy protected, but of course you're paying £15 instead of £8 for a new release CD :oh-hum:. Maybe they argue you're paying more for the right to copy, but then how does that logic fit with the expensive online music services which don't allow you to make copies so you can't use it on multiple devices and transfer your music? :suspect:


Anyway, (ironic) thanks to the BPI for realising that I'm not a thief and might like to actually listen to the music I buy.
It's ironic that a title like "Hail to the Thief" is copy protected :nuts: (more so that it was an album leaked on the net prior to release :D).