The irony with this article is that the very laws (Copyright, Designs & Patents Act) that the BPI et al are using to "sue" individuals also implicates the industry themselves in the wider hipocracy of fair use.
In the UK there is no provision for fair use of copyright protected works. period. In essence you walk into virgin records and buy the latest U2 album and all you actually get for your 9 quid is a 12cm shiny plastic disc. If you read the small print on either the sleeve notes or the outer edge of the disc it usually says that "All rights reserved" etc...essentally you are not even explicitly granted Home Use rights.
Now here is the irony, many music labels are eager to get legit content onto the music stores and endorse the iTunes/Napster/WMP apps etc. These apps usually have a rip from
CD to HD option with track listings retrieved from CDDB. In the US this is ok as an individual is excercising their "fair use"rights. However, in the UK no such provision exists(a similar phrase in UK legislation "fair dealing" is not quite the same) so the mere act of ripping your purchased CD's to your PC hard drive using an BPI endorsed software application is illegal.
I'm all for recompense for artists work...but the industry should get it's own house in order first and decide what it wants...happy customers or hypocracy!
Slashdot Mirror
The irony with this article is that the very laws (Copyright, Designs & Patents Act) that the BPI et al are using to "sue" individuals also implicates the industry themselves in the wider hipocracy of fair use. In the UK there is no provision for fair use of copyright protected works. period. In essence you walk into virgin records and buy the latest U2 album and all you actually get for your 9 quid is a 12cm shiny plastic disc. If you read the small print on either the sleeve notes or the outer edge of the disc it usually says that "All rights reserved" etc...essentally you are not even explicitly granted Home Use rights. Now here is the irony, many music labels are eager to get legit content onto the music stores and endorse the iTunes/Napster/WMP apps etc. These apps usually have a rip from CD to HD option with track listings retrieved from CDDB. In the US this is ok as an individual is excercising their "fair use"rights. However, in the UK no such provision exists(a similar phrase in UK legislation "fair dealing" is not quite the same) so the mere act of ripping your purchased CD's to your PC hard drive using an BPI endorsed software application is illegal. I'm all for recompense for artists work...but the industry should get it's own house in order first and decide what it wants...happy customers or hypocracy!