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posted by janrinok on Thursday May 08 2014, @10:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the Refrain-"when-will-they-ever-learn?" dept.

Lobby groups are attempting to delay changes to a private copying exception and parody legislation. Despite the fact that copyright industry groups have always said they'd never sue anyone, they now claim that an exception would cause substantial damage that requires compensation.

Right now, both the private copying exception and parody [laws] appear to be delayed. The draft Statutory Instruments are now being discussed by a joint committee and the government in a rather opaque process.

The argument from publisher lobby groups is that European law requires compensation for economic harm arising from copyright exceptions. The UK government has so far, reasonably, argued that any harm would be minimal. Negligible might be more accurate. The change to the law would have little impact on people's behaviour. It would merely legalise what many people already do, copy the music they have legally bought from one device to another.

No politician is likely to agree to a levy for damage that barely exists, in return for a change in the law that merely reflects real behaviour that nobody is going to be prosecuted for. The real victim will be the legitimacy of copyright law: yet again, the copyright lobby groups are resisting change that could improve the perception of their industry and the laws that support it.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Open4D on Friday May 09 2014, @12:27AM

    by Open4D (371) on Friday May 09 2014, @12:27AM (#41107) Journal

    It would merely legalise what many people already do, copy the music they have legally bought from one device to another.

    Yes, this delay just stretches the credulity of the justice system even further. Stupid & unenforced laws make a mockery of everyone involved.

     
    Maybe we should come back with a counter-proposal. Not only should CD owners be allowed to rip those CDs themselves, but they should be allowed to register their CDs with the record companies, who then have to provide FLAC downloads - to save the hassle of ripping. (Disclaimer: I only buy music downloads these days, but I still haven't got round to ripping my old CD collection - so there may be an element of self-interest here!)

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 09 2014, @02:26AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Friday May 09 2014, @02:26AM (#41129) Homepage

      That's a good notion -- essentially, if they're going to prohibit us from having our way with what we bought, then they should be required to fill the resulting gap. Perhaps when the bandwidth bill comes due they'll see the wisdom of do-it-yourself.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 09 2014, @02:28AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 09 2014, @02:28AM (#41130) Journal

      Yes, this delay just stretches the credulity of the justice system even further. Stupid & unenforced laws make a mockery of everyone involved.

      While at it, I wonder why aren't politicians keen to repeal some of the existing laws?
      I don't know, like that pesky 2nd law of thermodynamics: don't they realize we can't have cheap energy, employment and economic growth because of it?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Friday May 09 2014, @06:34AM

      by Jaruzel (812) on Friday May 09 2014, @06:34AM (#41162) Homepage Journal

      I would love to only buy music downloads (in a lossless format of course) but the types of music I like (mainly Rock/Blues/Some Pop) just aren't available online in FLAC, so I have to resort to actually buying the CD and then wait for it to arrive, only to immediately rip it to WAV (my preferred format) and then place the CD in a box never to be used again. Of course I can't resell the CD as that would be illegal...

      The internet tubes are getting bigger, and peoples HDDs are also getting bigger - it's time the music people committed properly to downloads and provided all music in full lossless formats.

      But then, most people don't actually 'listen' to music anymore anyway - for most it's now just white noise being pumped into their ears via those nasty little white earbuds that Apple made so trendy :(

      -Jar

      --
      This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by NowhereMan on Friday May 09 2014, @12:33AM

    by NowhereMan (3980) on Friday May 09 2014, @12:33AM (#41109)

    This type of thuggery only goes to solidify the widely held belief that these people are greedy selfish bastards that want to suck every penny possible from the population regardless of how unfair those laws might be. You should not have to pay for a song again to copy it from one device to another for personal use when you have already paid for it.

    For years the recording industry went on and on about how you didn't buy the music, you only purchased the right to listen to it. So if I have already payed for the right to listen to it then it doesn't matter what format the music is in or if I have copies on more than one device so long as I am not giving the music away to other people.

    The recording industry has to be fair in how it allows the use of the music if they ever expect to change the minds of people who currently download the music without paying for it. And this is going in the wrong direction.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by wantkitteh on Friday May 09 2014, @07:46AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday May 09 2014, @07:46AM (#41168) Homepage Journal

    In a world where torrenting and ripping other people's CDs happens millions of times a day, they're worried about something I was doing as a teenager on a Windows 98 PC. Did this story fall through a time warp from another strand in the multiverse or something? 'Cos that's the only place this makes any sense.

  • (Score: 1) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday May 09 2014, @09:31AM

    by hoochiecoochieman (4158) on Friday May 09 2014, @09:31AM (#41177)

    What's this "CD" thing they keep talking about? Is it something to eat?