CD 'ripping' to be legalised in UK
LEIGH PHILLIPS
09.01.2008 @ 09:46 CET
New proposals by the UK government will decriminalise copying songs from a CD and copying it onto a computer.
Millions of people do this regularly but are unaware that under current British law they are digital scofflaws.
Intellectual property minister Lord Triesman said the law covering the copying of digital tracks should "keep up with the times", the BBC reports.
Consumers will not be able to re-sell or give away the original CD once they have copied it
(Photo: Wikipedia.org)
Under the proposals, consumers would be able to transfer tracks from a CD to a computer and mp3 player for their own personal use.
However, to protect copyright owners, consumers will not be able to re-sell or give away the original CD once they have copied it.
The BPI, the UK's music industry association, has said that although it supports changes to allow music lovers to move tracks they have bought from one format to another, it will be working with the government during the consultation process to ensure that any new law is not perceived by consumers as a green light for file-sharing.
The consultation is to begin on 7 March.
Elsewhere in Europe, some countries already permit private copying. In Germany, for example, ripping is legal but the manufacturers of recordable media, such as blank CDs, cassettes and hard drives, pay a fee to music publishers who then distribute the monies onto songwriters.
However, the British government review of intellectual property laws that led to the current proposals rejected such fees as unworkable in the UK market
