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UK's Legalization of CD Ripping Is Unlawful, Court Rules

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-that,-everyone-who-owns-music dept.

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.

2 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. Aresholes by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  2. Only for consumers by xarragon · · Score: 5, Interesting
    We have a system like this in place in Sweden already. I personally hate it. The royalties are collected and distributed by three separate organizations; Copyswede for video and STIM (songwriter's guild) and SAMI (musician's guild) which then distributes the money is some secret way, based on how often it has been played in television, radio and discos/nightclubs. There has been pretty large complaints about this, as it only favors the large artists. The organizations also ignores more detailed play feedback, like from Spotify, according to an report in the Swedish Radio.

    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:
    • https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svenska_artisters_och_musikers_intresseorganisation (Swedish)
    • https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svenska_Tons%C3%A4ttares_Internationella_Musikbyr%C3%A5 (Swedish)
    • https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyswede (Swedish)