UK's Legalization of CD Ripping Is Unlawful, Court Rules 301
Last year the UK finally passed legislation to make the copying and ripping of CDs for personal use legal. After the legislation passed, several groups of rightsholders applied for a judicial review, arguing that the change would cause financial harm to them. (They suggested an alternative: taxing blank CDs and storage devices, sharing the resulting funds among rightsholders.) Now, the UK's High Court issued a ruling that agrees with them: "the decision to introduce section 28B [private copying] in the absence of a compensation mechanism is unlawful." The exceptions in place for private copying are now unlawful, and the UK government will need to amend the legislation if it is to have any meaningful effect.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rightsholders keep pushing the fact that we're buying a personal use license to the media when we buy a CD/DVD/etc, so why is making a mere copy for personal use unlawful in any way?
You can't have it both ways, greedy bastards.
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Because they are quite literally dumb as hell
This is an industry that tried to push media that self-destructed after a few uses:
http://news.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Fuck 'em
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the fuck would I want to have something like that?
Ok, have is not so bad, but pay for it? Clearly not. If that means I can't have it, so be it.
Dear content industry,
I survive without your content.
Do you survive without my money?
How long can you continue buying laws to further your failed existence?
How long do you think you can you keep bullshitting people into thinking you're in any way relevant?
Artists don't need you.
Music lovers don't need you.
Actually, nobody needs you.
You're self serving.
In a working capitalist world, you'd be doomed to cease to exist.
Keep praying we never become a market driven economy.
Major label music in grocery stores (Score:2)
Dear content industry,
I survive without your content.
Not very easily, at least if you live in a city. You need food to survive. If you buy this food at the grocery store, a percentage of what you pay goes toward royalties for playing music over the speaker system. If you instead grow all your own food in a victory garden, you may be committing a zoning infraction, as in the case of Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan [go.com].
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Knowing our local stores, they already found a way to avoid paying those fees. I'd be very surprised if they paid a penny if they can at all avoid it.
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Informative)
> This attitude of piracy hasn't helped anything whatsoever. Before piracy, we had Trent Reznors, Joe Satriani, and many other good artists promoted.
If you think that "piracy" and "freeloading" are anything new then you're an idiot. Perhaps you're just some cluless tweener that's simply too young to have experienced the world "pre internet".
Entire sub-genres of music only got a foothold through rampant piracy before relevant gatekeepers decided to relent.
The idea of new bands being put through the meat grinder paying their dues is also nothing new. I guess they just whined about it less and just stuck it out.
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Metalica, ironically enough, comes to mind. They had a following before they even had an official album, thanks to bootlegs of local gigs that started making rounds.
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet somehow we're the leeches. Gotcha.
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Informative)
Before piracy, we had Trent Reznors, Joe Satriani, and many other good artists promoted.
Uh, dude, you do realize that Nine Inch Nails have been uploading their new albums to torrent sites, right? Because they figured that exposure through those sites sold more copies of their music than trying to stop piracy?
And that piracy has been the norm since the invention of the cassette tape? What do you think those dual-tape cassette decks my generation grew up with were for?
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Funny)
Quadraphonic audio?
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That was the 8 track wasn't it?
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a record with a sleeve that says "home taping is killing music" with an amazing cassette skull and cross bones:
http://nathanbeach.com/noteboo... [nathanbeach.com]
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The dream of "making it big" has been dead a long while before the internet facilitated copying music. Music that's "big" today is something that's made to be a "hit", crafted and trimmed, with tons of marketing behind it to bullshit people into thinking that it's something great. Add a music video, pay some radio stations to put it on heavy rotation and presto, instant chart breaker.
Music is a business. Manufactured, marketed and sold. If you think it's something where you little "artist" could play any si
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at how commercially successful musicians made a living for the past 800-1000 years, its *always* been sponsored in a round about way by the rich & powerful of the time to serve their interests. Whether it was the church, aristocrats, or CEOs.
There was always folk/"pop" music you would have heard in taverns, schools, family gatherings, etc, but it wasn't until the invention of the phonograph that large portions of that were capable of being preserved and nobody every "made it big" hammering out drinking songs in the corner pub.
The explosion of recorded pop music that started in the 1910s - 1920s with jazz, ragtime, & similar only occurred because a special combination of technology, companies out to make a buck, and a relatively high level of disposable income. As time went on, the culturally uniting effects of music as well as increased available of technology with the radio, then record, and CD (with magnetic media scattered throughout) made it possible for companies to make ever increasing profit. They promoted artists to make more money. Period. You have to realize that very, very few of the total musicians for any given genre that has ever hugely taken off make any real money. How many jazz musicians do you think were working other jobs for every Miles Davis? How many singer song writers for every Jimmy Buffet out there are just smoking pot in their mom's basement and working at walmart? How many people are shredding on a Les Paul at corner bars for every Joe Satriani out there?
Point being, making pop music never has, and never will be a viable way to make a living for all but a very, very small portion of everyone who has an interest in making music.
What the internet has done for music that is I see as good on a whole, is made it possible for literally anyone on the planet to create a song that is heard by millions if only enough people actually like it. Sure, commercial entities can play a role, but the entire concept of a viral video is that it tugs at some common thread that runs prevalent enough through humanity as a whole to be of *interest* to millions in a day in age where attention spans are shorter than ever and there is more music at your finger tips that you could ever listen to in a hundred life times.
Sure, youtube sensations like "what does the fox say" and "gangam style" lack a certain degree of complexity and craftsmanship compared to, say for example the work of Led Zeppelin. But does that doesn't make them any less "good" in their own way.
The music industry that you seem to describe as knowing & loving from what I would say is the mid-to-late 1990s was just a brief "blip" in the much bigger history of music, that I agree is in inevitable decline, but such is the way of the universe.
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I personally know a musician that makes a living selling CDs, gigging in people's living rooms and tiny venues, and even selling futures for new work.
It's possible, but you need to create, maintain, and promote your own brand.n Kinda like what the labels did years ago.
Of course, live music isn't what it used to be. People have always wanted productions, but most new 'concert musicians' seem to rely on the theater, less on the music, with notable exceptions.
'Killed the music industry'? I see more music tha
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Try listening to some independent music.
http://rogerclyneandthepeacema... [rogerclyne...makers.com]
Live concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Informative)
> Thank you, pirates. You got your freebies, but you destroyed everything in the process and killed the music industry as a whole.
Gee, let's conveniently ignore the facts:
* http://www.bbc.com/news/techno... [bbc.com] or http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar... [wired.co.uk]
* https://torrentfreak.com/bitto... [torrentfreak.com]
* http://business.time.com/2013/... [time.com]
All the numbers relating piracy to lost sales are complete imaginary and bullshit. There has never been a financial statement listing the dollar amount of piracy.
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Fair point about the Biebers, Brittneys, Iggys, Kanyes, and Taylors of music these days.
But just to be a bit pedantic... You can't really properly call Nine Inch Nails a band. NiN is basically just Trent Reznor in his studio producing. When he feels like making a bit of extra cash touring he hires whatever guitarists and keyboardists are available, has them learn his songs, dresses them in black for a a few months, and still uses a drum machine to keep the beat.
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So by that logic, only adults are copying music like crazy while teenagers are too honest to engage in such illegal activity and, considering the possibly crippling consequences, rather buy music.
And here I was, thinking it was the exact opposite. What a fool I am.
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Well I'm a fully grown adult and I'm discovering more brilliant music than I can keep up with by listening to indie and unsigned podcasts, Internet Radio stations and Bandcamp. My thing is electronic music and love bands like www.ixband.co.uk or soundcloud.com/plike-1
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Interesting)
Before any of this, I listened to Dark Side of the Moon for weeks before it was available for sale. Taped it from WABB (now WABD) on a Sunday night, copiend from the Revox reel-to-reel to a cassette repeatedly as I wore that out.
Bought the album the second day it was on sale. Copied that to reel-to-reel and cassettes to play as much as I could.
Bought the CD the week it was released.
And ripped the CD to my computer, then to Google, and listen to it entirely too much.
I bought it twice. No, I do not intend to buy it again. I still have the CD, but new puters are coming out without CD drives. This alone may make the ripping debate die, as I have to re-rip my collection to new formats for 'permanent' retrieval.
Don't call it archiving. It's just alternative playback.
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Excellent rant. There's just one problem with it: piracy actually increases music sales.
I'm sure that some people have bought music after listening to a pirated version. I'm sure hundreds of times more people have not bought music because they already had the pirated copy. If you have some documentation that shows that there are more people that buy the music after pirating it than don't, I would love to see it and I'm sure that lots of other people do as well.
But that being said, there is no reason why the record industry has to give any kudos to people who pirated and then came back and bo
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How about all the pirates that wouldn't have bought the album in the first place? I think both of you can be right. Pirating increases the total "market" (people experiencing the music) and potentially the total market (people buying the music, or going to your concerts). There is an opportunity cost associated with finding/trying new music. Especially if you are into stuff a bit off mainstream (progressive death metal anyone?) you often have to special order albums. Special ordering an album for $25 and th
Re:And we wonder why music is such crap these days (Score:5, Informative)
CBCNews [www.cbc.ca]
Case for Promoting Online Sharing [lse.ac.uk]
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Optical media has a shelf life after which the decomposition of the material prevents readability.
Oh please - "Shelf life" means how long something will last even if it's undisturbed, not how long it will last if eaten by mold.
Pressed CDs won't last forever, but with proper care, they should last hundreds of years. Maybe even thousands.
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Pressed CDs won't last forever, but with proper care, they should last hundreds of years. Maybe even thousands.
That's only if they were sealed correctly and stored right. There was an article a few years ago about how a lot of discs were coming up unusable after only 6-12.
Bacteria were getting in and eating the film or something.
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That's only if they were sealed correctly and stored right.
Sure, and they also have to not be burned in a fire, microwaved, dropped overboard at sea, or run over by a truck.
I know dozens of people with hundreds of CDs, none of them have ever said "my CD of [band x] doesn't play anymore".
Thousands of CDs, zero failures, for decades.
None.
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Sure, and they also have to not be burned in a fire, microwaved, dropped overboard at sea, or run over by a truck.
That's what I meant by 'stored right'. 'Sealed correctly' was the factory's job, and there's been reports of lots of failures.
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there's been reports of lots of failures.
What's that in probability of failure? 1 in ten? in a thousand? in a million?
They've pressed hundreds of billions of CDs.
Even if there are hundreds of thousands of failures, the odds of a particular one failing is still less than 1 in a million.
There's been lots of reports of CDs destroyed in house fires, that doesn't mean your CDs are likely to be destroyed in a house fire.
But being destroyed in a fire is far more likely than being destroyed by mold/bacteria/fungus/scare of the day.
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My oldest CDs are somewhere on the other side of 20 years old now, and not one of them has gone bad. I reripped them all a few months ago as part of a transition from AAC to FLAC. They've spent most of their time on a shelf indoors, though they've been in a box in the garage (dry, but subject to the temperature fluctuations typical for Las Vegas
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course in reality they're squabbling over nothing at all, becuase nothing they do is going to stop people from ripping CDs anwyay. They may as well try to put a tax on people's ears, for all the good it'll do them.
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Now: Go back to your containment unit (aka 4CHAN) and stay there, or we'll have to use The Hose on you again.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as your streaming service is working. And your internet service. And any number of other steps in between. And the streaming service doesn't get in to a dispute with a studio, and drop (or be forced to drop) their entire product line. And as long as they don't change the price from ten bucks a month to 20, or 50, or 500. Or you lose your job and can't even afford ten.
I'll stop listening to music before I pay for something as insubstantial as radio (and that's what streaming is. And don't think for a second you won't have ads within a few years, even on premium accounts.)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
"You can't have it both ways, greedy bastards."
You can if you have enough money to buy the legal process.
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You can if you have enough money to buy the legal process.
The entire point of those "processes" is to privitize gains and subsidize losses (sorry. privitise and subsidise for this story). Yeah, the people who run those rackets will tell you otherwise - that's why reason and evidence are the arms of a successful .*man.
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Privatize & privatise.
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You can if you have enough money to buy the legal process.
Yes, but no matter how much money the music industry throws at the issue, they can't compel my cooperation. And that's the beauty of it.
I started boycotting the music industry in the early 80's when music CDs started coming out. You could buy the same music, only for a much higher price than the vinyl alternative. I decided I was not going to participate in that racket, and haven't spent a penny on music since. How much money lobbying money was spent since that time is completely irrelevant (to me).
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rightsholders keep pushing the fact that we're buying a personal use license to the media when we buy a CD/DVD/etc, so why is making a mere copy for personal use unlawful in any way?
You can't have it both ways, greedy bastards.
I'm more struggling with the fact that in the day and age of streaming music and humans walking around with devices that hold thousands of songs that physical media is still seen as this much of a issue.
Shit, the industry itself will likely abandon the pressing of physical media within the next decade. What does it fucking matter?
There's a simple solution. Artists, prepare to give away your music for free, or ask for a nominal DRM-free fee (ala Louis C.K. model) You and your promoters can and will still make plenty of money off other promotions and tours, and we can eliminate this bullshit argument of loss of revenue due to ripping.
If they don't like this idea, then fuck 'em. They're not going to eliminate what they deem as illegal music distribution. Hell, they practically support it today with YouTube, which is where I go to listen to a song and download it for free. The posting of entire albums there makes me think they really don't care all that much, so have fun arguing over a tax on media that won't generate shit in return.
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You're forgetting the countless incredible pieces of music which is instrumental/synthesized only.
Live instrumental music (Score:2)
You're forgetting the countless incredible pieces of music which is instrumental/synthesized only.
Which orchestras perform to live paying audiences.
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at it this way:
I can use Google Play for $9.99/month. If this price stays, I would spend as much on streaming as I did for my current CD collection in about 40 years.
But will I be able to get the music I own now from Google Play, if I rely on their stream, in 40 years? Or even 10? 5?
Because Google Play can only stream to me from their library the music they have rights to. The music THEY have rights to. Not mine. So it is not entirely impossible that the music you love won;t be available to you if you rely on streaming, because, gasp, it was never yours at all. Yes, they want to deliver what you want to listen to and be competitive. I'm pretty sure iTunes users wanted to play Beatles tunes for a very long time. How did that work out back then?
I still buy music, much less than ever for lack of interest, but I see streaming in the long term as a potential loser.
Criminalize it! (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is straight up Corporatism right here.
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Fascists are not socialists.
Unless they're the National Socialist German Labor Party.
So let me rephrase: Fascists, like all other authoritarians, want something for nothing, and are willing to pick everyone else's pockets to get it.
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Do not buy new CDs (Score:3, Interesting)
Buy used CDs only, and cleanly sidestep the greedy bastards. Support your favorite musicians by going to live performances instead.
I've perfected a system for aquiring new music. First, keep a permanent list of artists/albums you are interested in. Any time you hear music that interests you, record it to the list. My current list has about 300 line items. I will probably never get to cross them all off the list in my lifetime, but the point is to have a ready list to guide your used CD purchases (never just
Go away, you're not 21 (Score:2)
Support your favorite musicians by going to live performances instead.
That might work in some countries. But in a large part of the industrialized English-speaking world, the drinking age is 21, and people who aren't old enough to drink are barred from even entering drinking establishments. What is a high school student or college underclassman supposed to do if his or her favorite musician plays only an age-restricted show within reasonable travel distance?
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Support your favorite musicians by going to live performances instead.
Musicians who are signed with a label rarely make much money off of a performance either. They get a small piece of ticket sales and maybe a small piece or no piece of merchandising. They usually don't get any part of concessions, although the promoter that places them there often gets a share of the concessions.
If you go to see local bands, they will get a more reasonable percent of entry fees or tickets, and pretty much 100% of merchandise, minus costs for creating the merchandise.
If you like record
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rightsholders keep pushing the fact that we're buying a personal use license to the media when we buy a CD/DVD/etc, so why is making a mere copy for personal use unlawful in any way?
You can't have it both ways, greedy bastards.
Oh, yes we can, you little person you. We missed the boat completely when it came to digital media and lack totally the vision to come up with a business model that works in this new age, so we've paid good money, a buttload of it, to have the rules tilt things in our favor. So shut up and take what we so generously offer you. Regards, Your Friends at RIAA
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As long as you can get a court to agree with you you can ...
The paradox IMO is that rights-holders opposed things like streaming for so long, now all of a sudden they notice that instead of just selling a media once (as with DVDs and CDs), they can sell it to you over and over again, making more money in the long run, with far less production and distribution cost, plus - judging from reports - even lower compensation for the actual artists ... so, for companies like Sony and the likes, it's a win-win situa
Re:WTF! (Score:2)
To hell with it! The Mafia cannot be made illegal - it would be a crime!
Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
wtf did the comments links go?
Re:Comments (Score:5, Informative)
Are you talking about the "Read 151 replies" link where an immensely pointless and stupid "Share" button is now?
How could you fail to miss that digit in the upper right corner of every front page article summary that rudely obscures part of the headline of the article? Yes, that is where it went. Or you could just click on the headline itself, which has worked since around the time that ENIAC was young.
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Where the fuck did the comments go? It shows me FIVE fucking comments on an article, even if it says it has hundreds. Why the fuck do I need to click Load All Comments to get them to show up? A week ago, they simply loaded the first 150...
But how many didn't? (Score:3)
... apparently you managed to find your way here in order to post this so it cannot have been much of a problem for you.
But how many people didn't figure it out. And how many valuable comments were lost as a result?
1998 called (Score:4, Funny)
It wants its controversy back.
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That appears to be exactly what happened. It just took a long, long time for the legal process to run.
CDs? (Score:3, Insightful)
CDs? Like people used to use in the latter part of the 1900s?
Next they'll say I can't make my own buggy whips.
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I still buy CDs. They're (currently) the best way that I know of, to get music. Better ways are possible but aren't yet widespread.
Tell ya what: go to some live music bars tonight, and if you're lucky, you might find a band you never heard of that you really like. Tell me how you listen to their music the next day. Assuming you succeed (it's reasonably likely but far from guaranteed) I bet you will come up with an inferior approach to buying their CD from them. But maybe not: go on, teach me about a be
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What's wrong with Bandcamp?
If the problem is that you want to get cash for your album, just print out business cards with QRCodes for one-time links to your album.
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I usually download it from their web site. Sometimes I even download it *while they're playing* so I can listen on the way home.
Re:CDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I buy CDs. I rip them so I can get a DRM free copy on my hard drive. I store the CD on a shelf as a backup. I don't give away or sell copies to anyone. I only use one copy at a time so I'm not violating any reasonable interpretation of fair use. I don't have to pay a subscription fee to anyone to listen to the music I have purchased. I don't have to rely on any cloud service to maintain a copy. I don't have to worry about having access to the music I have purchased (which is an issue when I'm in my Jeep in the mountains and I have spotty cell phone coverage).
The artists and producers have made a reasonable profit in supplying the music to me. I am in control of how I access the music I paid for with no reliance on any 3rd party. Everybody wins.
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I do the same, but buy them 2nd hand on eBay. I haven't sold the physical media after ripping the tracks to MP3, but really if I did it would be undetectable. What's the point of adding complexity to laws that are unenforceable?
Aresholes (Score:5, Interesting)
Bunck of fucking arseholes are trying to get a levy on blank hard drives.
Well, I'm not paying for music twice. If I have to pay for music when I buy the hard drive, no bloody way I'm paying again.
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And this is even more ridiculous because most blank media, especially hard drives will never be used to store music...
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And even in America, the "music CD-R" tax paid on CDs that work in "consumer electronics" devices is only 3 percent.
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The "storage devices" include hard disks and other media.
So apparently when I buy a nice shiny new disk for running Linux, the parasites at the music publishers want to get a cut.
Free replacements for scratched media.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means that with that license to use, in perpetuity, if the media becomes damaged, then the rights holder will ship out, for free, replacement media for said license.
If they don't want to do that, then allowing license holders to make private backup copies of their licensed products is the only way to go.
Perhaps a major class-action lawsuit against the RIAA/MPAA and every Recording and Movie studio should be made to get a final decision on whether it's the media we purchase or the license so that they can no longer flip-flop which it is based on how they want to limit our rights.
New law not legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Isn't by definition a new law legal (assuming it isn't against a constitution or any higher law)? Is the only threshold that it would not cause financial harm if that is the case most laws should be illegal as they all cause financial harm to someone.
Because it violates the Treaty on the Functioning of Europe. Treaties take precedence over parliamentary laws. That's why they're so dangerous and shouldn't be negotiated in secret.
Financial harm to innocent storage users (Score:5, Insightful)
They suggested an alternative: taxing blank CDs and storage devices, sharing the resulting funds among rightsholders
My company buys thousands of hard drives used for data centre storage and DVDs for backups. Why the hell should I pay extra for them so that the money is sent to the entertainment industry when no data that goes on those drives will ever relate to them?
Re:Financial harm to innocent storage users (Score:5, Insightful)
Only for consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone who imports, manufactures or sells storage media (harddrives, optical media, game consoles, phones, mp3 players etc.) are required to pay these fees. This only applies when sold to consumers; corporate customers are exempt. What is weird is that game consoles, which are typically unable to even be used for copying, are covered by this. Every year the organizations keeps expanding the scope of the laws. There have been talks about a generic 'broadband tax' for years. In the current example, I belive that is the end goal; start with something people think is unimportant, like optical media in today's world. Get the legal boilerplate in place, then scope creep with the argument that it 'has to keep up with the advancing technology'.
I hope this help you guys to understand the consequences of such a system. Sources:
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You're asking the wrong question. The right question isn't:
"Why should I pay.. will [never] relate to them?"
or even "How do we fight this stupid decision?"
The *right* question is: How do I get a business model where everybody is taxed to pay me?
Note: this post assumes you aren't already a politician and that you don't have ethics.
God save the queen... (Score:4, Funny)
Lightbulbs! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Royalty tax on ALL blank hard drives?! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Instead of keeping copies free, they suggested that a tax should be applied to blank media including blank CDs, hard drives, memory sticks and other blank media. This money would then be shared among rightsholders, a mechanism already operating in other European countries."
So in some European countries you already pay a royalty to music companies on all blank media regardless of the intended use? Does the Red Cross pay music company royalties on the blank SSDs in their new laptops? Do researchers at the large hadron collider pay a music royalty on the blank USB drives used to store their data? Do individuals pay music company royalties for the blank SD card used in their personal cameras?
You guys still haven't figured out this taxation without representation thing.
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Who buys blank CDs anyway? (Score:3)
Explain the court's reasoning please. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not being British, I am not familiar with the higher law the court referenced.
Can someone please explain which law guarantees the companies in question immunity from financial harm?
Because there is no such law in the US - if Congress passed a law saying it was legal to rip CD's, they would have to argue that said law violates one of the amendments of the Constitution. They could also claim they were entitled to compensation via certain treaties, but that would not invalidate the original law, just declare that they are owed compensation.
Re:Explain the court's reasoning please. (Score:4, Informative)
The stronger law in this case is other national law which codifies our commitment to following our EU treaty obligations.
And in these cases, determining that a new law is "unlawful" - ie inconsistent with EU law - does not immediately remove said law or render it ineffective (although prosecutors may be wary of prosecuting based on it), but does oblige the government to modify the law *or otherwise* bring it in line with EU law within a reasonable timeframe.
In this particular case the judge agreed with the government on most of the substantive points raised. Where they fell down is that during the legislative process they accepted in principle that any changes must be justified by empirical evidence of their likely effect to be consistent with the tests and conditions mandated by the EU law which allowed for those changes to be made in the first place (in particular, a condition that any exception either do no significant harm to copyright holders, *or* that a levy be introduced to compensate for that harm). The judge found that said evidence (of lack of harm) was lacking, and therefore it could not be said that the new law was consistent with treaty obligations. It could not be said that it was *inconsistent* either, but the EU law required a positive assurance.
All that is now required is that the government make the new law consistent, and the judge suggested various options: they could repeal the law; they could introduce a levy; or they could find and supply new evidence that does convincingly show a lack of harm. That third option would render the law valid and require no additional changes to it.
Appeal process? (Score:2)
I've made content (Score:2)
And a UK citizen could put that content on a CD.
So I'd like a piece of that black CD tax you collect.
thank you, please mail the check to the US Federal Reserve, I'll use it as a tax write off.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't make Canada's mistake (Score:2)
(They suggested an alternative: taxing blank CDs and storage devices, sharing the resulting funds among rightsholders.)
Canada tried this, and naturally, it didn't satiate the rightsholders' infinite greed for long. Don't do this, it's pointless.
They want it both ways, and get free money (Score:2)
So apparently they want a special tax just for them, to pay for the cost of "piracy." At the same time they want it to be completely illegal to format shift any of your personal music, or rip in any way. How they think this is logical I'll never know.
How nice they think they can get the government to collect free money for them also. I'm not opposed to a blank media tax, but the money should stay in government coffers and never go to the pockets of a special interest group.
But if indeed a blank media tax
Tapes in the 80s (Score:2)
Before any of this internet nonsense, I found an unlabeled cassette tape in a desk in my chem class in maybe 1985. It turned out to be a comp, that after playing it for friends, turned out to be mostly Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Suicidal Tendencies. I proceeded to buy every album I could find, not only from those bands, but bands like them, like Hüsker Dü. Relevant to piracy in general, but not the the OP.
Relevant to the OP, I own this album. I bought it. I am going to put it on my hard drive,
It doesn't even matter (Score:2)
I'd be surprised if even one person had ever been prosecuted for ripping a CD for personal use. Commercial use/bootlegging/counterfeiting - of course. But I have never even heard or read of anyone suffering any penalty for ripping a CD for themselves. How would it be detected? Who would care? It's a civil matter so there is no involvement of the police or the state. How would the rights holder(s) ever detect the event of a copy being made, or be able to prove the provenance or a copy "discovered"?
In s
Re: (Score:2)
Sad part: nobody cares (Score:2)
The real reason is that nobody (present company excluded) cares about these things. They just do what they want to do. And if they can't: all you get is *shrugs*. But then the "blokes" will have their ales and discuss "footy".
It's about time politicians, at a sufficiently high level, start feeling that it'd be more to their advantage to listen to consumers, than it is to keep collecting from their "campaign-donating", "wining-and-dining", "meeting-and-greeting" corporate media-industry lobbyists.
Re:FUCKING DISAPPEEARING BUTTONS (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, at least we have something that's not just pulled from the nether regions of whatever judge happens to be deciding a case. In a forum full of IT geeks, it should really not be controversial that there should be well documented policies and procedures and that you should actualy follow them.
Re: (Score:2)
"This is a violation of EU regulations, where, if such copying is allowed, there must be compensation from government."
Not from government. There should be compensation, full stop. Neither who pays for it nor up to what amount are pre-set.
But, hey, would you think EU legislators would rise to the obvious conclusion of charging a levvy on sold copies which are, by definition, the 'conditio sine qua non' to have anything to apply the private copy right to start with? Oh, no, of course not: they either pay