Copying CDs to be made legal in UK under new copyright laws?
By Dave Parrack
Ripping music from a CD to a PC is something millions of us do, even though it’s technically illegal to do so, breaking copyright laws. Now the British government is proposing changes to the laws to “keep up with the times.”
The man behind the proposals is Lord Triesman, the Minister for Intellectual Property, who has now launched a consultation in to the proposals which will run until April 8th.
Any hopes that this could mean a diverse change in policy over people who share files over the Internet are unfounded, as the proposals will only apply to people copying music for personal use. However, it will mean that moving files from CDs to PCs, and then on to mobile devices such as phones and mp3 players would be completely legitimate.
These proposals are part of a package of measures designed to better serve the law in light of the new technologies which have emerged since the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
According to The Independent, Lord Triesman said:
“In an increasingly digital world, we need to be sure that our copyright system keeps up with the times and works effectively. This consultation is part of a package of measures which is designed to do just that. It explores where the boundaries lie between strong protection for right holders and appropriate levels of access for users.”
As well as copied music files, the consultation is looking at the possibility of increasing exceptions for educational materials, allowing extracts from books and plays to be distributed digitally over the Internet.
There also may be new exceptions introduced in to the copyright laws for parodies, allowing the use of copyrighted materials in video mash-ups on video sharing sites such as YouTube.
It’s unusual for a government to take pre-emptive action such as this, so I have to applaud the fact that ministers have realised the emergence of new technologies requires copyright laws to also be updated.
Maybe in the long term, these sort of public consultations could lead to a weakening of the laws pertaining to file sharing over the Internet. It may be a long way off but you have to start somewhere.
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