If you haven’t been paying attention to the various goings-on in UK copyright legislation lately, you’ve been missing out on a lot. For one thing, the UK government recently decided that ripping a purchased CD should be illegal.
As Consequence of Sound reports, late last year the government enacted legislation making copying for personal use legal. Before you ask: yes, it was actually illegal before.
However, following objections from multiple music groups, a High Court has overturned the new law, making copying legally purchased material for personal use a criminal act once again. The repercussions are pretty staggering.
As a result, iTunes’ CD ripping feature (that prompt that comes up whenever you slide a CD into your Mac) is essentially promoting an illegal practice. Thanks to the High Court’s decision, the very existence of this feature is illegal and using it is punishable by law.
Amazingly, since iTunes could now technically be seen as promoting an illegal activity, Apple could theoretically face damage claims from music groups, though we can’t imagine it would do wonders for their business so sue the world’s biggest music retailer.
“It is now unlawful to make private copies of copyright works you own, without permission from the copyright holder – this includes format shifting from one medium to another,” a spokesperson for the UK Intellectual Property Office told Torrent Freak.
While only CD-to-MP3 conversion is specifically mentioned, the law covers all types of conversion. This means transferring your old VHS tapes to DVD is now against the law in the UK and so are those newfangled vinyl-to-MP3 turntables.
“It includes creating back-ups without permission from the copyright holder as this necessarily involves an act of copying,” the government spokesperson added. This means if you legally purchase digital media online, you are not allowed to back it up on an external hard drive.
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In other words, if your computer were to crash or get stolen, the only legally sound course of action is now to re-purchase all of your music and movies. You can see why this law is copping some flak in the media.
“As this is a complex area of law, the Government is carefully considering the implications of the ruling and the available options, before deciding any future course of action,” the spokesperson said.
“The Government is not aware of any cases of copyright holders having prosecuted individuals for format shifting music solely for their own personal use,” they added. However, they theoretically could, which is a worrying thought.
