June 21, 2015 at 12:27UK court repeals law allowing copies of its CD / DVDs
In October last year, Great Britain finally passed a law under which it is possible to make digital copies (rips) of their CDs for personal use with impunity. After that, the group of copyright holders coordinated and filed a joint application for judicial review of the law in November, arguing that it would cause them financial damage (for example, the user will no longer buy a second copy of the CD to listen in the car, but will make a copy on his own, that is, selling CD and corporate earnings are declining).
They proposed an alternative, if the law is upheld: to introduce a tax on clean media and storage devices with the sharing of income between copyright holders.
The Supreme Court of Great Britain has now approved their proposal. The adoption of a new normative act “in the absence of compensatory mechanisms” was recognized as illegal .
Existing exceptions for copying CD / DVD for personal use are canceled, and now it again becomes a violation of the law.
Thus, the law is repealed, and the government will have to amend it so that it enters into force again. Legalization of rippers is possible with the introduction of "compensation mechanisms", for example, which were indicated above. Such a mechanism - the tax on CDs, flash drives, hard drives and other clean media - is already in effect in many countries of the European Union.
The law adopted in October was drafted and considered for five years, against the backdrop of lobbying by record companies against it. It is not known how many years it will take now to make edits, but up to this point, copying your CDs will remain an illegal action.
The Supreme Court scheduled another hearing next month to decide what action should be taken in relation to its decision. For example, should I now remove from the law the text on exceptions for copying CD / DVD for personal use.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in an ironic manner calledthe court’s decision is “excellent”: “It is excellent because it is so reckless, so divorced from the reality and real needs and expectations of ordinary people, that is an exemplary illustration of the urgent need to reform the outdated and unbalanced European Copyright Directive (European Copyright Directive, 2001/29 ) ".
Earlier in the laws on the protection of copyright and related rights of Great Britain and other countries for centuries there were exceptions that limited the monopoly of copyright in certain situations. This is a natural consequence of the very nature of copyright, writes EFF, because copyright represents the exclusive rights of copyright holders, this is a form of monopoly, which means there should be exceptions to it.
But the European Copyright Directive, adopted in 2001, set a new condition that contradicts the centuries-old practice of copyright: it requires compulsory compensation to copyright holders if any exceptions to the law on the protection of copyright and related rights are infringed upon. The exception for copying discs for personal use just falls under this requirement of the European Copyright Directive.
The Electronic Frontier Fund calls for an immediate review of the European Copyright Directive and has launched a public campaign for this.
The EFF lists the various shortcomings of the current system. For example, 85% of e-books are not available to public libraries; 73% of citizens do not understand what is legal and what is illegal to do under current law; there are wild restrictions on the date from which the digitization of newspapers for public libraries is prohibited due to the difficulty of tracking copyright on numerous papers published in newspapers (Portugal leads with a cut-off date of 1860, in the Czech Republic - 1890, the rest have a 70-year term) etc.
They proposed an alternative, if the law is upheld: to introduce a tax on clean media and storage devices with the sharing of income between copyright holders.
The Supreme Court of Great Britain has now approved their proposal. The adoption of a new normative act “in the absence of compensatory mechanisms” was recognized as illegal .
Existing exceptions for copying CD / DVD for personal use are canceled, and now it again becomes a violation of the law.
Thus, the law is repealed, and the government will have to amend it so that it enters into force again. Legalization of rippers is possible with the introduction of "compensation mechanisms", for example, which were indicated above. Such a mechanism - the tax on CDs, flash drives, hard drives and other clean media - is already in effect in many countries of the European Union.
The law adopted in October was drafted and considered for five years, against the backdrop of lobbying by record companies against it. It is not known how many years it will take now to make edits, but up to this point, copying your CDs will remain an illegal action.
The Supreme Court scheduled another hearing next month to decide what action should be taken in relation to its decision. For example, should I now remove from the law the text on exceptions for copying CD / DVD for personal use.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in an ironic manner calledthe court’s decision is “excellent”: “It is excellent because it is so reckless, so divorced from the reality and real needs and expectations of ordinary people, that is an exemplary illustration of the urgent need to reform the outdated and unbalanced European Copyright Directive (European Copyright Directive, 2001/29 ) ".
Earlier in the laws on the protection of copyright and related rights of Great Britain and other countries for centuries there were exceptions that limited the monopoly of copyright in certain situations. This is a natural consequence of the very nature of copyright, writes EFF, because copyright represents the exclusive rights of copyright holders, this is a form of monopoly, which means there should be exceptions to it.
But the European Copyright Directive, adopted in 2001, set a new condition that contradicts the centuries-old practice of copyright: it requires compulsory compensation to copyright holders if any exceptions to the law on the protection of copyright and related rights are infringed upon. The exception for copying discs for personal use just falls under this requirement of the European Copyright Directive.
The Electronic Frontier Fund calls for an immediate review of the European Copyright Directive and has launched a public campaign for this.
The EFF lists the various shortcomings of the current system. For example, 85% of e-books are not available to public libraries; 73% of citizens do not understand what is legal and what is illegal to do under current law; there are wild restrictions on the date from which the digitization of newspapers for public libraries is prohibited due to the difficulty of tracking copyright on numerous papers published in newspapers (Portugal leads with a cut-off date of 1860, in the Czech Republic - 1890, the rest have a 70-year term) etc.