Back in June, the United Kingdom outlined new copyright rules that would allow citizens to make backups of their music, movies, and e-books. Previously, making copies of media was illegal.
New laws came into effect yesterday [PDF].
It is, however, still illegal to share those backups with friends or family, and making copies of rented media, or media that a person pays a subscription for (like Rdio or Netflix) likewise remains illegal.
Media consumers are allowed to change formats—burning MP3s on a CD, for instance—but media vendors are allowed to use all kinds of DRM to keep users from doing just that (like Amazon does with its e-books, for example). Also, consumers are not allowed to resell an original copy if they keep the duplicates of it.
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BBC reports:
Under current rules, there has been a risk of being sued for breach of copyright if clips of films, TV shows or songs were used without consent.
But the new European Copyright Directive will allow the use of the material so long as it is fair and does not compete with the original version.
The new law will come into effect on 1 October.
Owners of the copyrighted works will only be able to sue if the parody conveys a discriminatory message.
Comedy writer Graham Linehan, who was behind TV shows such as The IT Crowd, Father Ted and Black Books, agreed the rules had been "quite restrictive" in his experience.
"Artists need to be protected, but recently there's been an automated quality to some of the legal challenges. You might do something and you know full well the author of the original work will love the thing your doing and see it as a tribute or friendly nod, but the lawyers - they don't see any of that, they just see something they have to act on.
There seems to be a catch, but I don't know how this catch kicks in:
It would then be down to a judge to decide if the parody is funny.
While parody works by allusive or ironical imitation of other cultural manifestations, does it need to be always funny?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by monster on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:02PM
The obvious consequence of the new legislation should be a rise in CD, DVD and BlueRay originals, even if second hand, and lower digital-only sales.
- If you buy the physical disk, you are entitled to make as format-shifts and backups as you like, and they keep being legal as long as you keep the original and keep the backups private. In other words, you paid for it, is yours.
- If you buy the same songs/movies as a digital download, you can't do almost anything with it. Format-shift? None allowed. Burning a MP3 compilation for the car? No way. Even if you paid the same as if it was the first case. You paid for it, it's not yours.
Also, one interesting twist would be: If you buy a DRM'ed disc, are you allowed to use circumventing devices? If not, what moral justification would they have to punish you if you downloaded the FLAC equivalents of the tracks of that disc?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by keplr on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:24PM
I wouldn't expect it to have much effect at all on sales or purchasing patterns. Making archival backups of media, ripping media and converting to digital formats, is far beyond most people. The people who can do it are already doing it and didn't care about the law anyway, or they're letting other people do the work for them and just torrenting the resulting files. Why rip and encode massive Bluray movies when they're made available at whatever quality/size ratio you want on Bittorrent?
And, at least with iTunes digital music (by far the most popular online music marketplace in the West) there is no DRM. You can do whatever you want with the resulting m4a file.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:34PM
Currently it is only a bit challenging because the tools are not always easily available. E.g. for Calibre, plugins are available to remove Adobe Digital Edition DRM. But the tools.exe plugin (for Windows) has to be downloaded from dubious sources, no one gets officially behind it, and in forums it's often not discussed openly.
To rip DVDs you have to invest a little time to get the right libraries on Linux to break the DRM. It's rarely openly advertised. Assuming that with the new laws distribution of the tools will also be legalized, they can be made much more accessible for Joe Average and the likes.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:54PM
I wouldn't expect it to have much effect at all on sales or purchasing patterns. Making archival backups of media, ripping media and converting to digital formats, is far beyond most people.
Not true any more. Hasn't been true for years.
Music ripping been built into iTunes for over 5 years. Its been built into Winamp for at least 10 years, its even built into Microsoft Media Player for pete sake! And in all of those, you get to choose the output format.
You need only ask any random teenager.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by keplr on Thursday October 02 2014, @07:51PM
But are people using it? In the US, and probably UK too, CD sales are virtually dead. Digital downloads are even falling to streaming, so there's even less of a chance people will be backing up their files since the music industry is succeeding in convincing people to rent their music--and lose access to it when they stop paying the monthly fee.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @08:23PM
People who RENT music don't own it. They understand that, and have no basis for complaint.
People who BUY digital music don't need to pay a monthly fee. Their account remains on line a Google or Amazon, (don't know about apple) forever, and they can download when they wish at not cost.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by monster on Friday October 03 2014, @06:48AM
*For some values of forever, availability subject to changes in company status. When they wish, except if company decides otherwise. Prices may change if required.
</snark>
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:36PM
- If you buy the same songs/movies as a digital download, you can't do almost anything with it. Format-shift? None allowed. Burning a MP3 compilation for the car? No way. Even if you paid the same as if it was the first case. You paid for it, it's not yours.
Your statement is not in agreement with what has actually been decided in the UK. (Disclaimer, I can't tell if you meant your lament to apply to the UK law or the situation in the US).
You can read the ArsTechnica summary here [arstechnica.com] or you can follow the evidence all the way to the UK Government website [ipo.gov.uk].
You most certainly CAN format shift, and place shift ANY digital media that you purchased. (Read carefully the second link (pdf). It explains 3 or 4 options they evaluated. They chose option 1.)
• Option 1: Introduce a narrow private copying exception, allowing reproduction of a copy of a work (eg. a
CD or ebook) that is lawfully owned (bought or gifted) by an individual onto any medium or device owned
or controlled by that individual (eg. a tablet device or MP3 player), for their private and non-commercial
use
This option would permit an individual to copy any content that they own (eg. a CD, DVD, MP3, eBook,
etc.) from one medium or device to another (eg. onto a personal media player), for their own private and
non-commercial use. In particular, this option would permit someone to format-shift (shift content from one
format to another, for example from CD to WAV format, WAV format to MP3 format etc), space-shift (move
content to different personal devices or media) and back-up copies that they have bought. The option only
envisages copying by an individual of content they have lawfully acquired (have bought or been gifted) for
their own use. It would not permit other individuals – for example friends or family – to make or otherwise
acquire private copies. It would not permit the copying of rented, borrowed, streamed or broadcast content.
It would not permit the copying of illegally-acquired content (eg. obtained via illegal filesharing), and it would
not permit any distribution of copies. It would apply to storage by the owner on any device or media over
which they have control (eg a cloud locker)
And while DRM is not prohibited, if that DRM interferes with your rights under the new rules, you can file a complaint which could result in the UK government ordering the removal of the DRM.
Further, they did a pretty comprehensive analysis of the benefits and impacts of each of the options.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2014, @12:49AM
And while DRM is not prohibited, if that DRM interferes with your rights under the new rules, you can file a complaint which could result in the UK government ordering the removal of the DRM.
Comedy gold.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday October 03 2014, @06:53AM
It looks like they changed it from the draft I saw some time ago. Good. I withdraw my rant.
(Score: 1) by xorsyst on Friday October 03 2014, @10:13AM
One thing I'm not sure about with UK law - is DRM stripping legal? Is DVD copying now actually legal? I thought European law prevented it, which is why it's hard to get hold of software to do it.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 02 2014, @05:57PM
IS PEOPLE
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(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 02 2014, @09:14PM
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