Australia are about to change their copyright laws to allow people to rip music to their iPods and MP3 players by introducing new fair use exemptions, including an exemption for private use (see Rip it up (and start again?)). Are we about to do the same in the UK?
Under current UK law consumers who rip music they have bought from CDs to their iPods or MP3 players would infringe copyright. However, Peter Jamieson, Chairman of the UK record companies' trade association, the British Phonographic Industry, told the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media Sport Inquiry into New Media and the Creative Industries on 6 June:
"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties and make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format we will not pursue them."
The question now is whether or not there will be an explicit change in the law to reflect this or whether there will simply be a change in the nature of the licence on the CD. Instead of the wording "all rights reserved" perhaps we will start to see on the CD inlay a limited licence to copy to other formats for personal use.
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