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  2. from the Consequence of Sound article:

    ‘In other words, if you legally purchase digital media online, you are now not legally allowed to back up that information on an external hard drive of any sort. In the long run, that means if your computer were to crash or get stolen, your only allowable course of action would be to re-purchase all your music and movies.’

    Does that mean that if we have our computers stolen we can claim on insurance for the cost of the contents as well as the hardware, then?

    • That’s always been the case. I’ve had several computers stolen over the years (some when my business was broken into) and, if the software wasn’t recoverable, it was paid for as part of the settlement. In event of a fire, it’s not out of the question that backups will be destroyed as well.

  3. What genius at the music company thinks that criminalising their customers is a good idea? And which one of them expects to ever sell a cd again as a result?
    Self defeating Idiocy.
    What happens when people within an organisation or industry get tied up in internal thinking without considering the real world.
    And of course the natural consequence is that streaming becomes the only sensible, legal option – which the music companies are not so pleased about.

  4. Does it make iTunes Match a bit iffy, too? iTunes are, after all, storing a copy of your ripped CDs in the cloud so that you can access the music. Amazon Auto-Rip, too – when I buy something on vinyl, they provide me with the MP3 for nowt. Presumably that’s a copy for personal use?

    The whole thing’s ridiculous – and you wonder who the “music groups” in the article are, who had the legislation overturned. Why does it benefit them to outlaw format transfers and backups? Do they really imagine anyone is going to buy separately for each separate format?

  5. The issue is that unlike every other European country, the UK decided not to introduce any form of compensation payment.

    The government’s position was based upon research from Prof. Ian Hargreaves for the Intellectual Property Office, who in turn had mainly relied on two sources; one from a Google economist and one from the quango Consumer Focus (shortly thereafter abolished). These two sources determined that there was no economic harm to the producers in legalising format shifting, or that if there was, it was minimal and in any case incorporated into the pricing at the initial point of sale. Hargreaves’ conclusions was based on assumptions including the fact that that CDs were uncopyable due to copy protection.

    It was ropey evidence base and a failure to provide any means of recompense to address the grievances of the industry that lead to a request for a judicial review by composers society BASCA, the Musicians Union, and umbrella group UK Music. None of these bodies was against the legalisation of format shifting and simply sought harmonisation with the rest of the EU.

    It is the IPO and the government that are at fault here.

    • Why would the UK want to harmonise with an incorrect law in Europe?

      The tax on copying is a double-dipping cost on content that has little to no benefit to most creators of the content. The distribution of funds is disproportionately skewed towards high volume acts and publishers leaving nothing for most smaller creators.

      Forgetting the unfairness of the distribution of the funds, the music industry is in a classic having their cake and eating it mode.

      On one hand they are adamant that when we purchase music, movies or software, we are not buying it outright and owning it, we are simply purchasing a license to use it. So when I bring a CD home from a store, I have bought permission to listen to the music on that disc. All that I own is the plastic disc, not the content on it.
      OK, I don’t like that model, but I purchase music understanding that that is the case and I have a choice.
      What really pisses me off is that they then turn round and say you *didn’t* licence the content to listen to. If I had bought a licence to listen/watch/use then the delivery mechanism should be irrelevant, I should, having legitimately paid the creator for the content, be able to consume that in any way I please. The only agreement I entered into was not to share – which I wholeheartedly agree with. Not allowing me to backup or format shift is simply greed on the part of a music industry who sees repeat purchase on different formats as a nice cash cow.

      No wonder they hate streaming so much.

      • That’s all very well but that wasn’t the basis of the rejection of the compensation; it was conclusions drawn from seriously flawed data that apparently even senior IPO people admitted in court had raised eyebrows.

        • Also worth adding that the ruling simply returns us to the position we were in prior to October 2014.

          Whatever the flaws in the logic, this isn’t going to cause people to be dragged from their homes for backing up a CD they own – no one is going to close down iTunes or curtail its functionality.

          • Does it make it OK that there is a law you can break because you won’t get caught or prosecuted? Why have the law in the first place? What are we saying, it’s OK to break some laws but not others? We can ignore any laws that don’t make sense to us personally?

            The law is not supposed to be an ass.

        • Yeah, I get that. My frustration is that we even need to have the conversation at all.

          I’m am becoming more and more upset that our laws and moral guidance are being hijacked by corporations whose only goal is to make more money at our expense without benefiting content creators or consumers in anyway.

              • I honestly don’t think it’s worth getting that worked up about.

                I do think it’s valid for rightsholders to protect their rights (and not all industries treat talent as poorly as music). I don’t anticipate that this judgement will lead to any material change in the consumer behaviours being discussed above, nor lead to any meaningful legal claims against said consumers. No judge in this country would uphold a case against a consumer for ripping a CD to iTunes – it would offend the “legal floodgates” principle.

                I also think you need to view the private copy exception in its broader context: it isn’t just about music, it impacts various other creative industries as well. There’s a balance between protecting fair consumer usage and allowing for the protection of value in rights. I think the High Court has attempted to weigh that balance, and that this output – a legal position which produces some absurdities, but absurdities unlikely to be actioned by domestic courts, is a reasonable compromise. I also think the esteemed Baldyslaphead makes a very good point about levies.

            • Although thinking about it, if content purchasing appears to be fair and it’s easy to consume in whatever way makes sense to the consumer, then that will encourage more legitimate music consumption. Which benefits content creators.

  7. Sony were/are quite clear that making a personal copy is theft (at least in the USA) http://gizmodo.com/306835/sony-bmg-making-one-copy-of-a-song-you-own-for-yourself-is-stealing

    Of course not knowing how to approach this tore Sony apart internally (I suppose owning a Walkman is being equipped to handle stolen property).

    If the music companies were not complete arses and idiots concerned with preserving this quarter’s bonus at the cost of destroying their entire industry, then they would say that a CD includes a license to make one (count it one) copy for personal use and backup. But their attitude is that we must buy a CD AND a download. And a copy for each ipad/ipod/iphone etc. And repeat purchase if we have a computer crash, or change computer/phone/ipad at any time in the future.

    Or alternatively we could just stream, which seems to be legally fine and of course makes them less money.

    Insane. Hunter S Thompson was right – “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

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