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Audio Format Shifting To Be OK'd In New Zealand
Bloodrage writes "The New Zealand government is about to define a small part of the rights assumed by the 'fair use' clause in the Copyright Act 1994. Essentially they are going to protect the consumers' rights to convert media from one format to another for personal use, making it clearly legal to transfer tracks from a commercial CD to a mix-CD, MP3 player, PDA, PC, 8-track, or tuned array of hummingbirds. NZ law already makes it clear that gifting or reselling items includes a transfer all of rights, including copyright, warantee, and licencing agreements, so providing your original is the genuine article you're not a criminal. An article in the The Dominion Post gives an outline of the responses from the recording industry and why the government is considering it. It boils down to; this is 'fair use' and don't argue, and that the government can't see how the alternative could be (affordably) enforced."
..now if the fricking Howard government across the tasman, I would be very grateful.
Legally I know why it is, but realistically, what's the problem?
I have a large CD collection, and like to keep digital versions of some CDs I listen to frequently on my hard drive (never shared), or burn CDs to carry around with me so I don't have to worry about theft/damage/loss to the original. Why could that even be a problem? Sure, people can pirate, but people are going to find a way to pirate regardless.
Maybe I'm missing the logic of recording execs, but how is pissing consumers off by limiting their rights going to encourage them to buy more CDs?
a government finally showing some sense in the matter. i recently purchased several cd's from a favorite band of mine, ripped them, and the cd's now are nestled safe in my cd case. since i don't have a cd player at all (besides in my pc) the last thing i want to see is a cd that is not rippable. go NZ! :P
I'm all for fair use - I bought it, I can transfer media, backup and so on.
But insistence that you should be able to freely distribute material is just ammunition for the RIAA, ARIA and other industry lobbiest bastards' weapons against fair use.
There is a lesson to be learned here. There's no economic loss to record companies when people copy their own CDs to MP3s or some other digital format. However, it will cost the government millions to enforce a law that prevents that.
Therefore, the sensible thing to do is, let the people copy their own music. As long as they don't pass it on illegitimately (which, actually happens even if you ban copying once own CDs), this should be a solution that makes both the companies, the people, and the the industry happy.
It's high time other countries followed soot.
Three cheers to the Kiwis!!!
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Shit, man! Main use for blank CDs is not music-and-video-piracy for many of us. I do backups, store my five-megapixel pictures and burn linux distros to give away to my friends! And I'm just avoid talking about hard disks...
I feel sick! Stop this madness!
Sony NZ managing director Michael Glading said he was totally opposed to the move, which he believed would "open the floodgates" to unrestricted piracy.
This would be the same Sony NZ who have been selling MP3 players in New Zealand for many years now. How on earth did they expect their clients to find anything to play on these devices without breaking the law? I'd like to hear them give an answer to that.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
NZ law already makes it clear that gifting or reselling items includes a transfer all of rights, including copyright, warantee, and licencing agreements, so providing your original is the genuine article you're not a criminal.
What if an actual criminal steals the genuine article? If my rights disappear because no longer own it, does it mean they get transferred to the criminal?
What if the original article is destroyed? Does it matter how it happened?
Oh my God, I never realised all the harm I was causing by copying tracks from my CDs onto my harddrive. Well, now that I realise, I'll never do it again.
In what other ways have I been undermining the recording industry? I wonder if it's ok to copy CD tracks onto physical sound waves?
One thing's for sure, I'm never going to sing along to my favourite songs again. I'm such a good singer, I'm bound to put the recording industry out of business.
--
James G.
Even if your original was copied from a mate, you'd still not be a criminal unless you were profiteering off the copying. Copyright infringement is a civil offense, not criminal in all but a handful of cases. As soon as people realise that copying music isn't a crime but an offense, they'll see that this whole thing has been pulled out of RIAA's ass and promptly blown out of all proportion to help their flagging bank balance.
"Where is it illegal? UK? They don't want to be a part of Europe anyway"
Then there's no argument against having it in a unified EU copyright!
As an Australian, I hate to admit it, but the Kiwis have their head screwed on right. The world followed them in granting women suffrage. Hopefully the world will come to it senses on this one as well. Hang in there NZ, we're counting on you!
Don't know about anyone else, but I find it a metric shit-load easier to bring my computer to university -complete with CDs ripped to .mp3 & .ogg on my hard drive- than 200+ CDs.
The execs are just little chicken littles, crying that the sky is falling in, just like they did when taping music off the radio was about to kill the record industry...remember?
Sony NZ sells Minidisc recorders with software to rip CDs. Also, the NZ Sony Style shop (corner of Lambton Quay and Willis Street for any interested Kiwis) last week (it may still be there this week, have not looked) had a *huge* window display exhibiting their new hard drive jukebox product. This included photos of all the stacks of CDs you could do away with by copying them to said jukebox.
Furthermore, given that the NZ recording industry association clearly opposes this, and considers it illegal and "theft" at present, will they explain why they don't: (1) expel Sony NZ (which is a member); and (2) seek criminal prosecution of Sony executives. After all, Sony is selling the tools that permit the "theft" from their members, and blatantly advertising this capability as the main reason to purchase
It is a bit rich for Sony to sell products and then lobby for it to be illegal for the hapless consumer to use the products Sony has sold them.
Now the obligatory:
1. Sell overpriced product to consumers
2. Profit
3. Lobby to keep using what you have just sold illegal
4. Prosecute your customers for buying from you
5. More profit
A business strategy to make the RIANZ and RIAA proud.
Making it for all media would mean that time-shifting TV programs would be ok, copying a DVD to as "media center" and watching it would be ok, copying a game to the hard disk and playing it would be ok etc. i.e., as long as only one copy is in use at once, you can have multiple physical copies.
For the producers of the media.
Look at the windfall that occured when CD came in, large amounts of profit made from people buying the same material again on the new format. Now that it is in digital format, how is the industry going to repeat that windfall now that everyone has bought pretty much every CD they are ever likely to need and the current music production is ghastly. I for one know that the 2.7K tracks I have on my iPod is quite frankly enough. If people are able to copy this material for their own use then you can have backups.
Strictly speaking when you buy a CD you are buying a license to the material, not he delivery media. By preventing people from being able to copy the material they have a license to onto a fresh media platform the record companies are trying to preserve the cash flow generated by selling people multiple licenses to the same thing which is frankly, money for old rope!
Incidentally, a similar thing has happened with TV, certainly in the UK anyway. Here if you get Sky (Murdoch's digital sat system) you get a single box and a single card. If you want to record one channel and watch another you need two boxes and two subscriptions, paying twice for the same thing. This also strikes me as quite unfair.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
The point being, if the record industry successfully produces 100% un-crackable (at least to normal consumers) copy protection which still plays on 100% of CD players, would such a CD be illegal in NZ?
Because unless it is, all this law will prevent is the record industry suing people who make copies for personal use. It won't make it physically possible to make such copies in the first place.
How could there ever be a law anywhere against unlocking your own DVD player? If it's your own property, you can do what the hell you like with it after you've bought and paid for it with money you earned by your own graft. Well ..... maybe in some kind of totalitarian state with no concept of private property, where the Government claims all ultimate rights on everything and merely deigns to falsely delegate them to its subjects ..... or if it was on hire purchase it might be reasonable to expect you not to mutilate it for the term of the loan, in case they need to repossess it and it should be fit to resell to someone else ..... but in the free world, a sale is a sale and the vendor waives all rights over the goods when payment is made in full.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"For the purposes of this Act, the author of a work is the person who creates it." Nobody can create information. You can only discover it.
-I am an elective eunuch.
There is no such right. If there were, I could do any old thing that I cared to define as "work" and demand that somebody pay me to do it.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The story says "allow one copy" of a recording you already own.
We already have this right in Canada. I think most Americans take it as a God given right.
Can someone compare the NZ recording industry gross proceeds vs Canada/USA (maybe normalize for population)?
Can someone compare the NZ-RIA "claims" of copyright violations per year vs the R/C-RIA "claims" of copyright violations per year (and normalize for population)?
Their claims are just idiotic. Reminds me of the kind of utter illogic and delusion you get from listening to Iraqi Tribesmen and Mullah's (no offense, but really!) If only we could get the XX-RIA orgs and Labels to listen to themselves:
"OMG OMG OMG OMG if people can listen to their CDs through non CD-players, THE FUCKING SKY WILL FALL AND ALL OUR BASE WILL BELONG TO THEM"
Hee hee, yeah, that's right, keep screwing around with "the laws" and focusing on "p2p" as the great evil enemy instead of focusing on delivering PRODUCTS that people CARE ABOUT or WANT (other than teeny boppers I mean).
According to our relentless pace of technological progress, in 10-15 years I'll be able to walk over to my friends place with something in the palm of my hand, and give him a copy of every single audio recording ever made - and it'll cost us next to NOTHING.
Right now if someone were to walk over to their neighbours place, you'd have to carry the device in a plastic bag and it could only contain 50,000 songs and would take a few days and $200 of receiving hardware to copy.
Notice something? I didn't use the Internet or p2p, not even ONCE! So when will "the hammer drop"? When all the *average* schmucks like my Mom and non-techie friends figure out that they can do this, and actually start asking their friends "can I come over with my portable storage device"?
"You have no chance, make your time"
One of the main reasons that gun control never succeeds in the U.S. is that there is a genuine question of predator control for livestock farmers. There are still cougars and coyotes out there, and many of the farmers grew up when these predators were much larger problems.
So there's always a base of people who really do have a use for guns other than shooting people. In the city, it's always shooting people... it might just be "bad guys."