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UK's Legalization of CD Ripping Is Unlawful, Court Rules
Last year the UK finally passed legislation to make the copying and ripping of CDs for personal use legal. After the legislation passed, several groups of rightsholders applied for a judicial review, arguing that the change would cause financial harm to them. (They suggested an alternative: taxing blank CDs and storage devices, sharing the resulting funds among rightsholders.) Now, the UK's High Court issued a ruling that agrees with them: "the decision to introduce section 28B [private copying] in the absence of a compensation mechanism is unlawful." The exceptions in place for private copying are now unlawful, and the UK government will need to amend the legislation if it is to have any meaningful effect.
Bunck of fucking arseholes are trying to get a levy on blank hard drives.
Well, I'm not paying for music twice. If I have to pay for music when I buy the hard drive, no bloody way I'm paying again.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
OK, make it a crime, with a 1 pence fine for each track copied.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Buy used CDs only, and cleanly sidestep the greedy bastards. Support your favorite musicians by going to live performances instead.
I've perfected a system for aquiring new music. First, keep a permanent list of artists/albums you are interested in. Any time you hear music that interests you, record it to the list. My current list has about 300 line items. I will probably never get to cross them all off the list in my lifetime, but the point is to have a ready list to guide your used CD purchases (never just go and browse). Next, every few months or whenever you feel like it, go to an online used CD store like secondspin.com. It has to be online because you need a vast selection to make this work. Then, simply go down your list and search for each one (or whatever catches your eye, as long as it comes from the list). Give yourself a threshold for price, for example $6 per CD, and stick to it. This is important because it needs to be cost-effective to get the most out of the plan. Narrow down your choices to about 10 CDs and make the purchase. When they arrive, archive each CD to your music collection in FLAC format, and put the original away in storage. The original CDs don't have to be in perfect shape. They only need to archive perfectly, because once they are archived, you have a perfect master from which you can derive MP3s or any other format, any time you please. Enjoy your new additions to the collection and repeat the process when you feel the need for some fresh material.
I have amassed a collection of hundreds of CDs this way, resulting in a very large FLAC archive. I started doing this over 10 years ago when storage wasn't cheap, but now it is. I create playlists using a homebrew tagging system and MPD with the Sonata frontend, and simply play the FLACs directly off the master archive. Tip: chown the entire archive to root:root to eliminate the chance of any rogue software messing with it.
Not being British, I am not familiar with the higher law the court referenced.
Can someone please explain which law guarantees the companies in question immunity from financial harm?
Because there is no such law in the US - if Congress passed a law saying it was legal to rip CD's, they would have to argue that said law violates one of the amendments of the Constitution. They could also claim they were entitled to compensation via certain treaties, but that would not invalidate the original law, just declare that they are owed compensation.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Before any of this, I listened to Dark Side of the Moon for weeks before it was available for sale. Taped it from WABB (now WABD) on a Sunday night, copiend from the Revox reel-to-reel to a cassette repeatedly as I wore that out.
Bought the album the second day it was on sale. Copied that to reel-to-reel and cassettes to play as much as I could.
Bought the CD the week it was released.
And ripped the CD to my computer, then to Google, and listen to it entirely too much.
I bought it twice. No, I do not intend to buy it again. I still have the CD, but new puters are coming out without CD drives. This alone may make the ripping debate die, as I have to re-rip my collection to new formats for 'permanent' retrieval.
Don't call it archiving. It's just alternative playback.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Everyone who imports, manufactures or sells storage media (harddrives, optical media, game consoles, phones, mp3 players etc.) are required to pay these fees. This only applies when sold to consumers; corporate customers are exempt. What is weird is that game consoles, which are typically unable to even be used for copying, are covered by this. Every year the organizations keeps expanding the scope of the laws. There have been talks about a generic 'broadband tax' for years. In the current example, I belive that is the end goal; start with something people think is unimportant, like optical media in today's world. Get the legal boilerplate in place, then scope creep with the argument that it 'has to keep up with the advancing technology'.
I hope this help you guys to understand the consequences of such a system. Sources:
I have a record with a sleeve that says "home taping is killing music" with an amazing cassette skull and cross bones:
http://nathanbeach.com/noteboo...