Australians Allowed to Format Shift Media

An anonymous reader writes "Australian Federal law will now allow format shifting of media (ie:Ripping CDs to MP3s). Something long allowed under US copyright legislation, but only now coming to the Land Down Under." From the article: "Once the new laws are passed, 'format shifting' of music, newspapers and books from personal collections onto MP3 players will become legal. The new laws will also make it legal for people to tape television and radio programs for playback later, a practice currently prohibited although millions of people regularly do it. Under the current regime, millions of households a day are breaking the law when they tape a show and watch it at another time."

Comments

Re:Isn't is supposed to be legal?

[chrisjrn]

No... the law here previously stated that the only fair use for copying was for educational, etc. purposes... The law hadn't changed since the 1960's. The issue was that the law explicitly stated that you couldn't make copies. So, now the law has a fair use clause like the one in the States, and all is now good in the world of CD Ripping

Re:I'd gloat, but for the little voice back there.

[NoMaster]

On the other hand, the Australians may be lagging behind, but at least they're moving in the right direction.

You're missing something here. Admittedly it's not in the story, which is just a Sunday paper feel-good puff-piece, but it's there nonetheless.

This is all part of the Australian Government's responsibilities under the so-called "Free Trade Agreement" signed last year. The other part - which they inexplicably fail to mention in that story, or any other currently on-line - is the introduction of DMCA-like legislation to go with it. Over the past few weeks there's been the occasional story in the media about this, mostly mentioning the benefits to Australians, but occasionally stating how the US government has been pressuring the Australian government to "align" their copyright laws with those of the US.

Or in a few words: We're finally getting legislated "fair-use" rights - along with a DMCA.