CD Ripper 'Incites Law Breaking,' Says British Regulator

Barence writes "A British firm has been banned from advertising a CD ripping device because it 'incites law breaking.' The Brennan JB7 is 'a CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs.' The adverts for the Brennan highlight the convenience of ripping your entire CD collection to the device – much like we've all been doing for years on our PCs, iPods and other MP3 players. The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ads after concluding 'that the ad misleadingly implied it was acceptable to copy CDs, vinyl and cassettes without the permission of the copyright owner.'"

Comments

Technically true

[TheRaven64]

Format shifting is illegal in the UK. Fixing this, and adding explicit fair use provisions, are both things that David Cameron has proposed. Whether they'll actually be done is another matter. It's quite ludicrous that, as it stands, we have a law that pretty much everyone in the UK has violated.

Re:Technically true

[paiute]

Isn't the Queen above the law technically?

RIAA Lawyer: Your Majesty, you are in violation of the law. I shall name you in a lawsuit forthwith.
Her Majesty: (Motions to large man wearing a hood and holding a huge broadaxe.) Kneel, good Solicitor, and you shall receive Her Majesty's response.

Re:Technically true

[Opportunist]

Because it's too obviously something everyone does. By making it something everyone does but not obviously so, you get a useful tool in your hands. Because it's not like anyone could credibly claim that everyone HAS to do it, simply to live.

Another example, similar but not as dangerous, is our "TV-Tax" hunters. They come to your door and simply claim if you didn't pay your "TV tax" (that you "only" have to pay if you actually have a TV) that you're breaking the law because it's implausible that you don't have one. They're not even weaseling about it, they simply flat out accuse you of having a TV "illegally" if you don't pay for having one. The idea that you might exist without a TV is deemed impossible.

It's not like people support such laws. It's simply that they either don't care, or that they think it won't hit them, mostly because everyone does it and they can't arrest ALL of us. No, 'they' won't. They'll single the ones out that are in some other way "unwanted".

Reminds me of the animal rights activists who're currently under trial in Austria for (allegedly) breaking a law that was created to battle international terrorism. (Un)fortunately the law enforcement is SO inapt and bumbling that the whole thing descends into a very embarrassing mess and is generally seen as a big joke by the media and population alike. Unfortunately, it pretty much ruins the lives of those accused, and all because they targeted a store that has good ties with one of the ruling parties...

That's what such "catch-all" laws are created for and what they're abused for: To silence dissenters.

Re:Technically true

[Opportunist]

This ain't PETA. We're talking about a bunch of treehuggers who staged protests and showed videos of animals being tortured for fur. The Austrian police sent covert investigators into the group, they tapped phones, they pretty much kept them under the microscope for at the very least a year (during which they were quite active), but they made painfully sure that they stay within the laws. Their only major crime was to go against a clothing chains with good ties to one of the ruling parties around here, nothing else warranted anything like the expense that's been spent to keep them under surveillance and examine them. Yet despite the insane efforts, the trial has been going on for months now with little if anything against them but hearsay and possible-maybes. Nobody saw them or heard them even support one of the more radical groups, actually the covert investigators had to admit that their "leader" often complained how they "tarnish" the efforts and how they're wrong in their choice of means.

Acceptable

[Ardaen]

implied it was acceptable to copy CDs, vinyl and cassettes without the permission of the copyright owner

That's because it is. Personal copies are very acceptable.

Wait wait, "format shifting" is illegal in the UK? That's messed up.

Assholes Stifling Advertising

[Blue Stone]

Strange, I remember those Apple ads that said "Rip. Mix. Burn."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ECN4ZE9-Mo

Shown on UK TV. The ASA said nothing.

If this Brennan JB7 device is illegal, so is iTunes. Is the ASA now banning any adverts from Apple that mention the software?

Re:Assholes Stifling Advertising

[gnasher719]

If this Brennan JB7 device is illegal, so is iTunes. Is the ASA now banning any adverts from Apple that mention the software?

The ASA acts if someone complains. Maybe nobody complained about Apple. Maybe someone complained, and Apple changed the adverts. Maybe Apple mentioned in their adverts that you mustn't copy music without permission of the copyright holder.

And the device isn't banned, the advertisement is (in it's current form). The company has been told what they need to do: Add a notice that you need permission before copying CDs.

Re:Its hardly surprising

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Yes we do. It is called "fair dealing".

It is perfectly legal to make a copy if you own the master copy.

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Or a quick factsheet http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

Acts that are allowed

Fair dealing is a term used to describe acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing the work, these acts are:

        Private and research study purposes.
        Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.
        Criticism and news reporting.
        Incidental inclusion.
        Copies and lending by librarians.
        Acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries, judicial proceedings and parliamentary purposes.
        Recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening to or viewing at a more convenient time, this is known as "time shifting".
        Producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer program.
        Playing sound recording for a non profit making organisation, club or society.

        (Profit making organisations and individuals should obtain a license from PRS for Music.)

Don't blame the ASA

[itsdapead]

The UK doesn't have the US's fair use rules, so technically ripping your CDs is illegal, although its never enforced (at least not against individuals) .

Record shops were always happy to sell blank cassettes, CD-Rs and MiniDiscs - you just don't shatter the illusion that an awful lot of customers are amateur musicians taping their own work by going up to the assistant and saying "Dear assistant, can you recommend a blank CD onto which I can copy this here album which I am about to purchase?"

Basically, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

In this case, some public-spirited person has submitted a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about this particular ad, so there's not much the ASA can do but say, yeah, the ad incites copyright violation.

Note that its the specific ad that's been banned - not the product. The ASA is an independent industry regulator, not a court of law - nobody has been prosecuted. The manufacturer will just have to stick in some small print.

Re:Doesn't any computer, then, "incite law breakin

[DaveGod]

The product hasn't been banned. The wording of an advertisement has. The ASA ruling specifically addressed your point, however concluded that "the overall impression of the ad was such that it encouraged consumers and businesses to copy CDs, vinyl and cassettes" (my emphasis).

Computers aren't advertised to do the things you mention.

Frankly I suspect the ASA wouldn't give a damn except that there was a complaint which was technically correct by their own rules.

Re:USB Turntables

[MoonBuggy]

They haven't banned the product, just the advertising. Not to imply this is a good decision, by any means, but a decision by the ASA is very different to an outright product ban.