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Australians Allowed to Format Shift Media

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yay-for-rights dept.

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."

3 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Isn't is supposed to be legal? by chrisjrn · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  2. Australia! by Inoshiro · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Under the current regime, millions of households a day are breaking the law when they tape a show and watch it at another time."

    Imagine that, an entire nation composed of criminals!

    I guess it's true; history repeats itself.

    --
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    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
  3. Re:A victory in the right direction. by thelamecamel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And we Aussies, courtesy of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, inherit the DMCA. No-one here has ever been prosecuted for ripping CDs or taping TV. If someone was, there would be public outcry and the laws would be changed drastically. I believe no-one here has yet been prosecuted for downloading MP3s either.

    This move makes legal what everyone's already doing in order to allow the clampdown on downloading MP3s and movies. This way, if the record companies overstep the line and try to prosecute someone for ripping a CD they own, then they'll lose the case and there won't be public pressure to change the laws drastically.

    Everyone ignored the old line in the sand, so they're drawing a new one that they can get tough with.