UK Govt: DVD and CD Ripping Will Be Legalized This Summer

[Ernesto]

To most consumers it is common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this is currently illegal.

After a public consultation and a thorough inspection of local copyright legislation, the UK Government decided to change current laws in favor of consumers. The changes have been in the planning stage for a few years, but this summer they will finally be implemented.

Starting in July people are free to make copies of DVDs, CDs and other types of media, as long as it’s for personal use. To inform the public about these upcoming changes the Government has just released a consumer guide, summing up citizens’ new rights.

“Copyright law is being changed to allow you to make personal copies of media you have bought, for private purposes such as format shifting or backup,” the UK’s Intellectual Property Office writes.

“The changes will mean that you will be able to copy a book or film you have purchased for one device onto another without infringing copyright.”

The UK Government stresses that the changes will make current copyright law more reasonable, and doesn’t expect that copyright holders will suffer any significant harm. However, the changes could generate extra revenue for the technology sector, increasing revenue by £31 million per year.

“This measure will benefit technology firms by removing barriers and costs and improving entry to technology markets which rely on consumers being able to make private copies,” the government concluded previously.

Under the updated law people will also be able to legally store copies of their music and movies in the cloud. However, the Government stresses that giving others access to your files will remain illegal.

“You will be permitted to make personal copies to any device that you own, or a personal online storage medium, such as a private cloud. However, it will be illegal to give other people access to the copies you have made, including, for example, by allowing a friend to access your personal cloud storage,” the guide explains.

Similarly, people are free to sell any media they purchase, but all backup copies will have to be destroyed.

The mismatch between the law and public opinion became apparent through a Government-commissioned survey, which found that 85% of consumers already thought that DVD and CD ripping was legal. More than one-third of all consumers admitted that they’d already made copies of media they purchased.

Besides the new private copying rights, the upcoming amendments will also broaden people’s fair use rights. For example, people no longer have to ask permission to quote from or parody the work of others, such as a news report or a book, as long as it’s “fair dealing” and the source is recognized.

From a public point of view the amendments are certainly a welcome change to the restrictive copyright laws that are in place currently, but they are also fashionably late. For those who are interested, a full overview of the upcoming changes is available here.


Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.


Originally Published: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:36:12 +0000
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[kjf]

WTF? Something resembling progress from a government?

It's not April 1st yet...

[Q91]

Sweden has had that law for ages, but it gets stopped by a law that forbids bypassing the copy-protected on said disc, unless you dont have any other way of playbacking the material. Does this UK Law bypass copy-rpotected aswell?

[Mike]

As TorrentFreak is noting, the UK is finally modernizing basic user rights concerning copyright (what they call "fair dealing") to officially make it "legal" to make personal copies of legally acquired copies of digital content. In short, due to restrictive copyright law, it has always been technically infringement in the UK to rip a CD or DVD, but as of June that will change. This was one of the key suggestions in the Hargreaves report from three years ago, so it's good to see it finally being put into action.

That said, this is hardly perfect. It appears that the fair dealing rules still won't let you circumvent DRM in order to make those private copies. In the FAQ the UK government is distributing, we see the following:

As that notes, if the media includes DRM, you're basically out of luck:

Media such as DVDs are often protected by anti-copying technology to guard against copyright piracy, and this is protected by law. Copyright owners will still be able to apply this protection. However, if copy protection is too restrictive, you may raise a complaint with the Secretary of State.

Right, so in order to rip a personal copy of a movie so you might, for example, watch it on your tablet, rather than in a DVD player, you first have to "raise a complaint with the Secretary of State" and hope they do something about it? That basically eliminates this new effort entirely. And that's always been the problem with DRM and anti-circumvention rules. They basically give content middlemen the ability to put a veto on user rights, blocking them from doing things that are perfectly legal.


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[Devin]

About time.

[stormium]

WTF? Something resembling progress from a government?

instead of legalizing it immediately, it's still illegal until summer... so yeah, it's a governmental version of progress.

too bad they are going after the software that deals with dvd encryption to allow rips in the first place. so, the way i see it, it's great and all that cds and dvds can be ripped, but it would be far more effective if they forced publishers to stop using drm as it infringes on the consumer's right to fairly use the product.

[RobertX]

Well, time is finite here and infinite in the universe.

I'll settle with finite.

The copyright cartels are going to have a hard time controlling this one.

EDIT: Besides, stormium, there's still AnyDVD, libdvdcss, and Handbrake.

[stormium]

for now.

think of it this way... you see what their right hand is doing... where's their left at?