European Copyright Madness: Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

www.eff.org...

Today the High Court of the United Kingdom handed down an excellent decision—excellent because the result is so unreasonable, so out of touch with reality, and so divorced from the needs and expectations of ordinary users, that it provides a textbook illustration of the need for urgent reform of the outdated and unbalanced European Copyright Directive.

In a nutshell, the court struck down the UK government's decision to allow users to lawfully make copies of content that they have purchased for personal use, given the absence of a compulsory levy to compensate copyright owners for the “harm” that they suffer from such copying. The government's choices are now to remove the private copying exception—making personal copying illegal again, or to supply additional evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal “harm” from personal copying, or else to begin imposing a new tax on users to compensate the industry for that “harm”.

The notion that every use of copyright works by users (which for digital works, generally involves a technical act of copying) is a use that rightsholders must be compensated for, is not a notion with any historical foundation in copyright law. Copyright law is a limited monopoly right that is bestowed by statute, and therefore it can be limited or taken away by statute just as easily. Thus, the limitations and exceptions to copyright law are as much an integral part of it as the exclusive rights of copyright owners are.

Just found this and have yet to form a opinion. Sorry, folks. I'd go out on a limb and say this isn't good for us peons down here. I've already got outstanding threads here that need attention and I can't seem to get to but this caught my eye and figured it would be ATS worthy.

It's idiotic, no doubt, but it's not like it's going to stop anyone. Besides, a lot of people don't even use CDs anymore.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

I have not used disks for ages. There is very little I even keep on my hard drive apart from the most scared music of the generations. All the other stuff is there at a click anyhow and I'm no hoarder.

Does the new law account for other external devices like USB hard drives, memory cards and sticks? Lol it is like they are making laws for the days of yore (bygone eras).

I don't think they really give a flying hoot. Media is just stuff to keep the masses smiling. There are just enough left to buy Miley's latest track and a ticket to Justin's next gig to keep the show rollin' while the corporate robbers continue their great works of charity ripping the people of the world off with 1000 percent plus apr personal loans of $100 because they are so desperate they would pay $1000 back just to have $100 now. The music and film industry are the sacrificial lambs for the corporate century...may be. Pirates unite then at least there will not be any Justins or Mileys torturing me in the future. Yes the future looks bright better wear shades!

$$$$$£££££ ker ching!

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

European Copyright Madness?

Definitely not,. This is the perfectly predictable action of a predatory government intent on enslaving the masses.

originally posted by: Azureblue
a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

European Copyright Madness?

Definitely not,. This is the perfectly predictable action of a predatory government intent on enslaving the masses.

What utter paranoid BS. It was the music industry that brought the case to court. This is about corporate greed seeing a small chink in the law that allows them to extract every last penny from the consumer. It was the UK government that was on our side.

As far as an EU law is concerned, the intent of the law is reasonable in trying to harminsie copyright across the EU. It would dumb indeed to be able to buy a CD in Dublin, Copy it in Belfast (legally) then go back to Dublin and get arrested ! seriously dumb.

We are then left with the final problem, personal use. Do not be suprised, I haven't checked, to find that a UK government representative never went to the meeting that drew up that EU directive. This often happens when rules/laws seem to go against UK interest. The UK was SO INTERESTED it could not be ar.ed going to the meetings but bitches and complains about an over bearing EU after the fact. Have a look at UKIP's attendance record on these matters ......astonishingly bad.

The actual clause Article 5 section 2(b) is clearly open to interpretation and needs clarifying. The UK government should seek redress and clarification via a European court, however, I suspect a barrage of anti EU bitching instead of a thoughtful clever use of EU courts.

Here's how this came about if anyone is interested. It's just another load of horse hockey.

Here’s how the drama started. Back in October of 2014, the UK’s intellectual property office rendered a long overdue update to its copyright law, allowing people, for the first time, to legally make MP3 copies of CDs they had purchased for their personal use. (We’ve got a similar law on the books in the US). The extremely narrow measure—it only applies to content acquired permanently, and only for private, exclusive use—was deemed to cause “zero or insignificant harm” to the music industry. Sound logic, as everybody had already backed up and binned their CD collections long ago and didn’t realize there was an issue.

Anyway, there's a bit more at the link. It's record companies going way overboard as their business model has failed and they need to squeeze every last dollar that can out of us.

gizmodo.com...

As if copyright BS wasn't already out of control with that, I also found this. medium.com...@owenblacker/freedom-of-panorama-is-under-attack-6cc5353b4f65

Back in the Parliament, however, the Legal Affairs committee (JURI), has just adopted French centrist MEP Jean-Marie Cavada’s amendment to the report, removing Freedom of Panorama rights across the EU (and EFTA) member-states by adding the unitalicised text to the following paragraph from Reda’s report:

16. Considers that the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy acting for them;

This is all UK/EU stuff. I'm sure we have screwed up laws over here also but I'm unsure if it's gotten this bad yet. You guys should try and stop the madness but I really don't know what you could actually do, not unlike how it is over here.

Rather than allowing everyone to take and publish photographs of buildings and monuments in public places — as celebrated in Wiki Loves Monuments every year, as well as many, many books with author-supplied photographs — full permissions, clearances and royalties would need to be negotiated for videos, photos, paintings or drawings with any potential commercial use, or only authorised images could be used, again with royalties to be paid.

Maybe there is some sense in there but I couldn't find it. TPTB certainly seem to be working hard to keep us under their collective thumbs. Most of what I've read on this today is nonsense, total and utter ridiculousness.