Finally: CD and DVD ripping to become legal in UK

Thanks to the Hargreaves report, which reviews UK copyright law, it appears that a few of the more archaic points of the laws will be revised for the digital age.

One such law makes it illegal for UK residents to rip DVDs, CDs and Blu-rays to your PC, even if you are simply trying to rip some MP3s from a CD to place it on your media player.

While there has been very little enforcement of the law in history, software for ripping discs is illegal in the UK. Hargreaves says this puts UK at an unfair economic position against other countries, including the US.

Says the report:

My recommendations set out how the intellectual property framework can promote innovation and economic growth in the UK economy.

They are designed to enhance the economic potential of the UK's creative industries and to ensure that the emergence of high technology businesses, especially smaller businesses, in other sectors are not impeded by our IP laws.

Additionally, the report wants the rules relaxed on parodies and reworkings of original content, which should help users who want to upload covers and other videos to YouTube.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 May 2011 14:15

Interestx

Now all we need is a proper 'fair use' agreement and sense of proportion when it comes to file-sharing.

A song that costs 79p or a DVD that costs �2 on Amazon does not suddenly become 'worth' several hundred �'s if I download it or share it back 1:1.

19.5.2011 15:34 #1

Jeffrey_P

Like you folks in the UK haven't been ripping DVD's and CD's for a long time.

Governments go at a snails pace unless they benefit monetarily.
Jeff

Cars, Guitars & Radiation.

19.5.2011 16:18 #2

elbald90

but will it only be cds that can be ripped or will they allow dvds and blu ray to also be backed up ? if so i cant wait to see the movie companies crying their little eyes out

19.5.2011 16:19 #3

elbald90

Originally posted by Jeffrey_P: Like you folks in the UK haven't been ripping DVD's and CD's for a long time.

Governments go at a snails pace unless they benefit monetarily.
Jeff of course people have the only difference being is that it will soon be legal hopefully

19.5.2011 16:21 #4

Interestx

For a long time we have also had law in the UK allowing us to copy films from the TV for ages when we had VHS video recording......we need a modern version made law.

This stupid nonsense from the film industry & their tame lawyers that tries to roll back that freedom is unworkable and being ignored in the wider world.
Even my Sky satellite HD TV box has a 'copy out' function.

If you pay the British TV license & a satellite TV sub for films you are not getting anything you would not otherwise get.
You have 'stolen' nothing.
It's a matter of mere convenience & simply being able to record as we always were able to.

19.5.2011 20:55 #5

Jeffrey_P

Originally posted by Interestx: For a long time we have also had law in the UK allowing us to copy films from the TV for ages when we had VHS video recording......we need a modern version made law.

This stupid nonsense from the film industry & their tame lawyers that tries to roll back that freedom is unworkable and being ignored in the wider world.
Even my Sky satellite HD TV box has a 'copy out' function.

If you pay the British TV license & a satellite TV sub for films you are not getting anything you would not otherwise get.
You have 'stolen' nothing.
It's a matter of mere convenience & simply being able to record as we always were able to.

Yes, good luck with that. It's like going into a Casino with major bucks but you will never win. The house has more money than you can dream of.

I hope these money grubbing fools at some point get what they deserve.

And... Scum bag lawyers will always try to find in roads to screw Joe Sixpack. It's how they make their $$$$.
Fookers
Jeff

19.5.2011 21:07 #6

Mez

Originally posted by Jeffrey:
And... Scum bag lawyers will always try to find in roads to screw Joe Sixpack. It's how they make their $$$$.
Fookers
Jeff

The latest blood sucking scam is to sue persons that use long dead personalities to sell things. If they make enough profit off the idenity the blood suckers discover a decendent of the idenity and make a deal with them for a cut of the proceeds. Then the suckers sue the person that used the name on the behalf of the decendent even though there is no legal basis.

20.5.2011 08:52 #7

Jeffrey_P

20.5.2011 08:59 #8

hearme0

Whaaaaaaaa???????? I never knew this.

And I thought the U.S. had head-up-your-ass rules but this one takes the cake!

But.......I guess it's similar to our lovely DMCA that Clinton enacted making it "illegal to circumvent copyright protection".

Phoooey!!

Much love and respect for Brits!

20.5.2011 12:23 #9

gbswales

Originally posted by taysider: It is a law that has always been more honoured in the breach than the observance,no one gives a flying f**k,if it is illegal or not and as for ripping progs ,the internet is full of freebie ones and never been blocked from downloading any of them.And incidently my tv also works fine without paying the BBC their legal extortion racket (licence fee)

http://www.tvlicenceresistance.info/forum/index.php the link nor the domain appears to work - I am hoping it will provide answers as to how we can continue to enjoy advertisement free broadcasting which is not totally corrupted by the need to be profitable by appealing to the mass audience?

20.5.2011 13:06 #10

Mez

Jeff that is too ballsey to make up. I saw it on 60 minutes. That was the article right after the article Bernie Madoff (ponzi scheme). The unspoken commentary might have been, who was the bigger crook? However, even 60 minutes needs to be careful with the likes of that blood sucker!

20.5.2011 14:52 #11

pmshah

Many decades ago we too had radio licenses here in India. There were no TVs in the country. But then it was purely bob-commercial broadcast service. No ads - 100 % programs. When it turned commercial and started broadcasting ads they also stopped charging license fees. When TV service started it was totally license free although there was no commercial broadcast service by Doordarshan - BBC equivalent in India.

I think UK should too go this route. BTW anything that is broadcast over the air is totally free and one can do whatever they want!

20.5.2011 19:45 #12

Interestx

pmshah

No f***ing way, thank you very much.

Anyone who has any experience with purely commercial TV - ad breaks so long you forget what you were watching - can see the sort of crap standards that would follow the removal of the BBC.

It's bad enough with ITV & Sky TV right now but without the BBC forcing standards to stay up it would quickly degenerate.
All over the world the BBC is recognised for high quality broadcasting and encouraging new talent.
It's not just TV either.
All the best comedy in recent years has come through BBC Radio 4.

In the UK the TV licence is about �145.
Sky TV with sports, movies & HD is �747....and if you want to add another TV to watch it on it's �120 for each TV set-top box on top.

Then there's the fact that Sky spend almost nothing (literally) on TV content production in the UK.

When you add it all up we get a hell of a lot for that licence and it offers much better quality & a damned sight better value than anything the purely commercial sector can offer.
It's a small price to pay.
I do have both and the BBC is enormously the better part of the picture.

20.5.2011 20:46 #13

gbswales

All significant subscription TV also carries advertising which clearly shows that as a model wholly subscription based TV simply does not work. The big factor is independence.

The license fee is not necessarily the most efficient way to fund independent broadcasting - taxation might be a better source, including maybe taxing commercial broadcasters who feed their diet of banal entertainment.

There is also something that I don't think anyone has picked up on here, which is this. When the license fee was introduced owning a radio or TV was considered an unnecessary luxury however owning a receiver of some description - TV, computer etc - is the norm. It is also a significant part of our children's education - there is no point in arguing about whether it should be - IT IS whether we like it or not. Even if your children have no direct access to a TV they are still indirectly influenced by it. I for one do not want the next generation to be wholly informed by Sky or to be fed a continual diet of non-challenging mass produced entertainment.

Taxation, as long as independence from government can be enshrined in law (do not mistake independence and accountability as these are different concepts), would be a much better way to fund independent broadcasting as the richer pay more and poorer people pay less or nothing at all.

Remember this - the BBC is still the most trusted news and information source around the WORLD, even in places not particularly friendly to the West and if it was not able to maintain independence. If something is trusted like this it is for a reason and that reason is why it is worth supporting.

People will no doubt argue that the BBC should therefore become just a news channel but the reality is that the entertainment is necessary to bring the audience in to experience the whole package.

I campaigned vigorously in the 60's to support commercial (pirate) radio and I welcomed the advent of commercial TV - however that did not mean that I ever wanted it to replace the BBC, rather to augment it.

Newbie with Panasonic NV-BS60B
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.
There is anothe

21.5.2011 04:08 #14

rbi149

Originally posted by Mez: Originally posted by Jeffrey:
And... Scum bag lawyers will always try to find in roads to screw Joe Sixpack. It's how they make their $$$$.
Fookers
Jeff

The latest blood sucking scam is to sue persons that use long dead personalities to sell things. If they make enough profit off the idenity the blood suckers discover a decendent of the idenity and make a deal with them for a cut of the proceeds. Then the suckers sue the person that used the name on the behalf of the decendent even though there is no legal basis.
This is not a scam. Why should you be able to make money off of the name of a deceased personality without benefiting their estate? Everyone wants something for nothing. If you want free access to the name and/or image of a dead person, just outlive their copyright restrictions (or choose a figure already in the public domain).

21.5.2011 10:22 #15

Mr-Movies

The problem with trademarks, registry, copy rights, and so on is they never seem to end as these days you can keep them alive forever if you wish. There should be a time limit like 7 years with NO renewal what so ever.

One thing I like about the UK�s proposal or change of rules is the �rules relaxed on parodies and reworkings of original content�. This opens up usage and leads to more improvement plus makes the market more competitive of course it does mean less profit for a given company possibly. As to Law Suits it may increase those as the marginal line is lessened.

Way to go UK! If only the US would wake up and get out of big businesses pockets we might get back to reasonable laws again, maybe? I won�t hold my breath on that one for sure!

21.5.2011 11:24 #16

Interestx

taysider

As gbswales points out, even commercial TV in the UK charges a (massive) fee.
Even at its cheapest it is way more expensive than the TV licence.

Besides all commercial TV in the UK is parasitic.
It leeches off the talent (the production side as well as the performing side) trained at public expense.

Private healthcare does exactly the same thing in the UK too.

You can complain about the requirement to have a TV licence if you like but on balance most in the UK like the BBC.

Even after decades of anti BBC/TV licence agitation from our right-wing press a huge majority prefer to keep the BBC as it is.
BBC1 is by far the most watched TV channel in the UK.

Quote:Across the UK population, 71 per cent of people say they're glad the BBC exists. Among readers of the Daily Mail, it's 74 per cent. The Telegraph, 82 per cent. The Times, 83 per cent. The Sunday Times, 85 per cent.
Mark Thompson BBC DG
James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture
Aug 2010

......and rather laughably even amongst those in receipt of Sky TV services it is BBC1 and BBC2 (along with ITV1 & Channel 4 - along with, but some way behind - Channel 5) which are - by far- the most watched TV channels.

But by all means, if you want really crap 2nd rate TV in the UK, keep pressing for the TV licence to be abandoned.
It'll be just another thing that was once done well in this country now turned to crap in pursuit of maximum profit at every moment.

The fact is this is not a simplistic choice.
Hiding behind a relative handful of single-mothers (which any magistrate worth their salt is going to go easy on) is merely to ignore the wider picture.

However you choose to do it good TV costs and ultimately we are far better served with the BBC much as it is than any credible alternative without it.
Even UK commercial TV is better off on so many levels.
Why would anyone choose to throw that away (excepting the politically motivated lunatic element)?

(and lets not even get into how Sky TV pay almost nothing, relatively speaking, to the British taxpayer on their profits thanks to tax dodges and avoidance they indulge in)

21.5.2011 13:09 #17

blueboy09

Of course they have been ripping CD/DVDs for a while. It takes a looooonnnnggg time for the government of any nation to take notice of something that makes sense and act on it. Come to think of it, most nations don't take too much notice unless money is waved right in front of them to do anything it seems nowadays, which is a pity, but reality.

Chance prepares the favored mind. Look up once in a while and you might learn something. - BLUEBOY

21.5.2011 23:13 #18

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