Why is ripping DVDs for your own use against the law?

[Jay]

I have a media PC that is now really just a waste of time due to the fact that I can not use ripped DVDs. I hate scratching my DVDs so I would love to be able to convert them to video and just hold them on my hard disk it saves messing around and my girlfriend can watch DVDs and when she baby sits I don't have to come back to DVDs with jam on them etc.

If its for my own use why is it still against the law?

[format]

There is no sensible answer to this question.

[tom18230]

... just do it anyway?

I doubt you'll be the first, or last person to break this law

[matty-hodgson]

just do it anyway!
they'll never find out
why would they be bothered if you're not selling them or anything?
there's plenty of people out there that sell pirate DVDs
find 1 in your area.. and if they come knocking do the old 'it was him' on them and point them in his direction and then that's the heat off you and onto him

[SiM]

Fight the powah...

[TAKTAK]

It's not against the law... but it is...
It's the same as DVR's, or burning a CD for your car. You can make as many copies of something you own as long as you never give or sell the copies to anyone. You can sell the original copy of anything, but never a copied version of the original, otherwise the 'rozzas will come n git you (after theve found a way to track people that do it, other than potluck).

Even if it is illegal (which i really don't think it is).... DO IT ANYWAYS! you paid for it... do what you want with it!

same as you can (in theory) download avi files off tinternet legally, if you own the original that is, but in practise, its still a legal gray area

copying DVDs is and always will be a legal gray area, logic dictates that it should be legal, but some coppers would insist that it is copyright theft, and therefore breach of contract.

as SiM says

Originally Posted by SiM

Fight the powah...

[dave87]

It is illegal under UK Copyright law.

There's not even the single backup clause as exists in the US to use to justify ripping the contents of a protected DVD. I think the illegality relates to the circumvention of copy protection methods which makes it illegal, but I'm sure Saracen would be able to clarify.

In a word, don't do it.

They are, however, considering changes to the law, as in the current legal system, using an MP3 player with a commercially released album stored upon it (i.e. not bought from iTunes etc) is illegal. Obviously common sense prevails, and everyone who buys an iPod doesn't get prosecuted, but in theory, it is still illegal.

[SiM]

Originally Posted by dave87

It is illegal under UK Copyright law.

There's not even the single backup clause as exists in the US to use to justify ripping the contents of a protected DVD. I think the illegality relates to the circumvention of copy protection methods which makes it illegal, but I'm sure Saracen would be able to clarify.

In a word, don't do it.

They are, however, considering changes to the law, as in the current legal system, using an MP3 player with a commercially released album stored upon it (i.e. not bought from iTunes etc) is illegal. Obviously common sense prevails, and everyone who buys an iPod doesn't get prosecuted, but in theory, it is still illegal.

If common sense prevails, then surely it will prevail if you are ever caught ripping your own DVDs... not sure how you would ever get caught though!

[Saracen]

Originally Posted by TAKTAK

It's not against the law.
It's the same as DVR's, or burning a CD for your car. You can make as many copies of something you own as long as you never give or sell the copies to anyone. You can sell the original copy of anything, but never a copied version of the original, otherwise the 'rozzas will come n git you (after theve found a way to track people that do it, other than potluck).

Even if it is illegal (which i really don't think it is).... DO IT ANYWAYS! you paid for it... do what you want with it!

same as you can download avi files off tinternet legally, if you own the original

copying DVDs is and always will be a legal gray area, logically it must be legal, but some coppers would insist that it is copyright theft, and therefore breach of contract.

as SiM says

That's legal twaddle.

It isn't copyright theft, because theft is a very specific offence and created by the Theft Act which has nothing to do with IP law. It's infringement, which is a civil issue. And it isn't breach of contract because no contract covering that exists. And even if it were, the police wouldn't be interested because contract breach is a civil matter not a criminal offence.

And assuming we're talking about commercial CDs and DVDs and not something you've produced yourself and own copyright to, then copying (music or video) CDs or DVDs, in the UK and at present, is not a grey area at all. It is absolutely and categorically illegal. I'll give you chapter and verse if you want, but it IS illegal.

And as the law currently stands, even if you own the original, it's illegal to download it from the internet because that act still involves creating an unauthorised copy. If the copy is unauthorised, it doesn't matter how you created it or what media you created it onto, or the source of the copy - the matter is the same whether you rip the CD or download it.


Quite how illegal it is depends on the circumstances. In the circumstances Jay is talking about, it's copyright infringement, which is a civil breach under the Copyright legislation, and "the coppers" have no say in the matter. It might also be a criminal one if it's done, for instance, in the course of a business, and then the police may get involved. It could also be a separate offence if you need to breach or break some form of copy protection system to do it.

But, currently, it's illegal in the UK. That isn't the case in some other countries, though.

What is not illegal is making necessary backups of computer software on CD or DVD as a legitimate user. That, specifically, is okay. But it doesn't apply to music or videos.



Jay, the logic is that the owner of the copyright is entitled to control (for the duration of copyright) the extent of any distribution of copyright works, and under what circumstances copies are permitted. In very broad terms, it's to protect the ability of the owner to benefit from his work (or investment if he bought the rights).

Any creative work, be it poem, novel, musical score, musical recording, painting, photograph etc is protected by copyright, and for as long as the copyright lasts, copies can only legally be made if it is either with permission of the copyright owner, or if the copy falls into one of the statutory "fair use" exemptions. Those exemptions include some uses for news reporting, academic research, court reporting, Crown use (courts, etc), Parliamentary purposes and, the one that's best know, "time-shifting" of broadcast material.

But what is not, in the UK, one of those exemptions yet is personal use. Essentially, it's because the law hasn't caught up with technology.

In many countries, a levy is charged on blank media. If you buy a blank audio tape or a recordable CD, etc, you pay a small levy. Those levies go the the organisations that represent the copyright owners, and it gets dished out. The result is that copyright owners get paid and you get to make personal copies.

But even that has two main problems. Firstly, it means that people that buy blank media and aren't using it to copy copyright material are still paying the levy. Hardly fair on them, is it? Secondly, even that levy is a model that may have worked even five years ago, but in this say and age of solid state devices, hard disk MP3 players, etc, it would still miss out on a lot.

At the behest of Government, a committee looked at this issue a year or so back, and many broader issues around intellectual property, and their reported advocated what was mainly a considerable tightening up of IP law. But .... it also advocated making the law reflect what everybody knows is both common practice and virtually impossible to stop, which is that people copy their own music collection.

It also recognised that the availability of technologies like MP3 players makes the current legal framework outdated, and that it's very difficult to argue that once someone has bought the music in one form (say, CD), that there is anything ethically wrong with them being able to rip it to their MP3 player for their own use. It is also hard to argue that, having bought the DVD, I can't rip it to a home video library media PC. After all, I've bought it.

So back to your original question, Jay, the answer, in my opinion, is because the world has moved on a lot faster than the law has. When the basic model on which current copyright is based was devised, many of the techniques and technologies we now use didn't exist, and the world was a very different place.

Personally, I rather expect to see the type of personal copying you refer to become legalised, but the wheels of that particular activity grind exceedingly slowly. In the meantime, providing you are copying for personal use and not doing it in a business or distributing the copies, it's something which is technically illegal, but very unlikely to land you in court. Aside from the perfectly correct point TAKTAK made about how it may happen that you get caught, what can actually happen to you if you do?

Provided it's the type of personal copying you mention, it's a civil matter not a criminal one, and the only remedies open to the rights owner are :-

- order to seize infringing copies (whoop-de-do).
- injunction to prevent further copying (hardly worth the cost and effort)
- damages to compensate them for their loss.

Realistically, it's only damages that's an issue. Now IF you'd been uploading copies and thousands of people had downloaded it, those damages could be very substantial. But if you've copied a CD you bought onto your PC or MP3 player, just how is the rights owner supposed to evaluate their loss? What loss have they actually suffered? A pound? Five pounds? And those damages are about compensation for loss. There's no punitive element in it.

So except in the rather unlikely event that a rights owner actually got the evidence they needed to prove the case against you, and decided to take court action to set an example to deter others, the costs of taking such an action would far exceed any return they're likely to make from it. And that, in my opinion, is why you don't see such court cases. It is simply far from economic to do it, even if they could prove it.

[SiM]

OMG, Saracen, is that a record!?!? We all knew his reply was coming lol...

Say you made the backup on US territory (you visited the embassy or did it while you were on holiday) is it legal to hold here?

[TAKTAK]

wow hyawge post. took me like 5 mins to read it, hyawge and very very detailed. i do believe thanks are in order .
i had a feeling i might of got the wrong end of the stick


Hehe... twaddle

[daza]

At the end of the day I look at it like this and most likely so will a judge or jury if it ever went that far.

I bought the DVD I still have the DVD even though Ive ripped it I now have two copies.

Im not giving the DVD away and I haven't uploaded the ripped version to anyone both copies are in my possession and always will if I sell a DVD I delete the ripped version simple, yes im aware the DVD licence is for the actual DVD and theres no grounds to the ripped version.

But Id be more than happy to step into a court room with my DVD collection and ripped collection and say look there both the same and then show the receipts and broadband history showing I haven't uploaded anything then we'll see what happens.

Now same goes for a copyrighted book what if I photocopy it for safe keeping


At the end of the day rip it Im sure the law system has far more important things to do but keep the dvds aswell just to be nice.

[Saracen]

Originally Posted by SiM

OMG, Saracen, is that a record!?!?

If it was, assume it's copyright protected like most records.

[Saracen]

Originally Posted by TAKTAK

wow hyawge post. took me like 5 mins to read it, ..... [/COLOR]

Imagine how long it took to write. And then double it 'cos my typing is carp.

[dave87]

Originally Posted by Saracen

Imagine how long it took to write. And then double it 'cos my typing is carp.

I still prefer the sentiment exuded by the quote in your signature.

[TAKTAK]

you wrote 1130 words.... WOW, take me like an hour.
you crazy, crazy, person :-P