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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.
Rightsholders keep pushing the fact that we're buying a personal use license to the media when we buy a CD/DVD/etc, so why is making a mere copy for personal use unlawful in any way?
You can't have it both ways, greedy bastards.
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wtf did the comments links go?
Please bring back a "Read more" or "View comments" link/button. It feels very unnatural to have to hunt for the # of comments or click the title.
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.
That means that with that license to use, in perpetuity, if the media becomes damaged, then the rights holder will ship out, for free, replacement media for said license.
If they don't want to do that, then allowing license holders to make private backup copies of their licensed products is the only way to go.
Perhaps a major class-action lawsuit against the RIAA/MPAA and every Recording and Movie studio should be made to get a final decision on whether it's the media we purchase or the license so that they can no longer flip-flop which it is based on how they want to limit our rights.
They suggested an alternative: taxing blank CDs and storage devices, sharing the resulting funds among rightsholders
My company buys thousands of hard drives used for data centre storage and DVDs for backups. Why the hell should I pay extra for them so that the money is sent to the entertainment industry when no data that goes on those drives will ever relate to them?
Can we please get lightbulbs banned already, or at least tax them so that the candlemaking industry is compensated? Maybe horsebreeder and wagon makers should get a cut of car sales? Since when was it the government's job to protect corporate profits? I mean, guys, at least pretend...
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I buy CDs. I rip them so I can get a DRM free copy on my hard drive. I store the CD on a shelf as a backup. I don't give away or sell copies to anyone. I only use one copy at a time so I'm not violating any reasonable interpretation of fair use. I don't have to pay a subscription fee to anyone to listen to the music I have purchased. I don't have to rely on any cloud service to maintain a copy. I don't have to worry about having access to the music I have purchased (which is an issue when I'm in my Jeep in the mountains and I have spotty cell phone coverage).
The artists and producers have made a reasonable profit in supplying the music to me. I am in control of how I access the music I paid for with no reliance on any 3rd party. Everybody wins.
Before piracy, we had Trent Reznors, Joe Satriani, and many other good artists promoted.
Uh, dude, you do realize that Nine Inch Nails have been uploading their new albums to torrent sites, right? Because they figured that exposure through those sites sold more copies of their music than trying to stop piracy?
And that piracy has been the norm since the invention of the cassette tape? What do you think those dual-tape cassette decks my generation grew up with were for?
If you look at how commercially successful musicians made a living for the past 800-1000 years, its *always* been sponsored in a round about way by the rich & powerful of the time to serve their interests. Whether it was the church, aristocrats, or CEOs.
There was always folk/"pop" music you would have heard in taverns, schools, family gatherings, etc, but it wasn't until the invention of the phonograph that large portions of that were capable of being preserved and nobody every "made it big" hammering out drinking songs in the corner pub.
The explosion of recorded pop music that started in the 1910s - 1920s with jazz, ragtime, & similar only occurred because a special combination of technology, companies out to make a buck, and a relatively high level of disposable income. As time went on, the culturally uniting effects of music as well as increased available of technology with the radio, then record, and CD (with magnetic media scattered throughout) made it possible for companies to make ever increasing profit. They promoted artists to make more money. Period. You have to realize that very, very few of the total musicians for any given genre that has ever hugely taken off make any real money. How many jazz musicians do you think were working other jobs for every Miles Davis? How many singer song writers for every Jimmy Buffet out there are just smoking pot in their mom's basement and working at walmart? How many people are shredding on a Les Paul at corner bars for every Joe Satriani out there?
Point being, making pop music never has, and never will be a viable way to make a living for all but a very, very small portion of everyone who has an interest in making music.
What the internet has done for music that is I see as good on a whole, is made it possible for literally anyone on the planet to create a song that is heard by millions if only enough people actually like it. Sure, commercial entities can play a role, but the entire concept of a viral video is that it tugs at some common thread that runs prevalent enough through humanity as a whole to be of *interest* to millions in a day in age where attention spans are shorter than ever and there is more music at your finger tips that you could ever listen to in a hundred life times.
Sure, youtube sensations like "what does the fox say" and "gangam style" lack a certain degree of complexity and craftsmanship compared to, say for example the work of Led Zeppelin. But does that doesn't make them any less "good" in their own way.
The music industry that you seem to describe as knowing & loving from what I would say is the mid-to-late 1990s was just a brief "blip" in the much bigger history of music, that I agree is in inevitable decline, but such is the way of the universe.
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:
> Thank you, pirates. You got your freebies, but you destroyed everything in the process and killed the music industry as a whole.
Gee, let's conveniently ignore the facts:
* http://www.bbc.com/news/techno... or http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...
* https://torrentfreak.com/bitto...
* http://business.time.com/2013/...
All the numbers relating piracy to lost sales are complete imaginary and bullshit. There has never been a financial statement listing the dollar amount of piracy.