News - UK government to legalise CD ripping

[crossy]

Changes to UK copyright laws will allow consumers to legally copy their CDs and DVDs on to devices such as the iPod.

And, no doubt, the movie industry will still complain and protest and insist that any software designed to convert a DVD to another format is horribly illegal.

Good news.. Soon(ish) I will be able to get a piece of software an put all my DVDs onto my NAS box and stream to my TV without having to hash it all....

Don't know whether anyone else saw the interview on the Beeb this morning, but the "industry" spokeswoman made it very plain that they'd be fighting hard against any transfer permission granted to music also being granted to films. Their response was that they were already offering "triple-play" disks (DVD, Blu and iPod) so there was no need for any permission-to-transfer being granted.

I've got issues with this:

• Triple-play sets are very expensive, and if you don't have a BD player then effectively you're spending a whole chunk o' change for a useless disk;
• The one time I tried a triple-play, the digital copy worked fine on an iPod, but failed pretty badly on anything else;
• What about older films/shows that don't exist in the triple-play format? For example, I've got the Big Bang Theory that'd be nice to have on my NAS for viewing on tablet, Bravia TV, etc - but no such luck because those seem to be DVD only;
• (Kind of following on from the last point) Triple-play seems to be reserved for the big budget feature films. So it's not much of a solution if you want to - for example - watch a series of Doctor Who on the train into work.

I just can't see the film industry being willing to drop their love for elaborate DRM, and their insistence that the customers indulge in endless rebuying of content to get "the latest format".

Don't get the champagne and party hats out yet - Vince Cable only said that they'd be looking at the law changes, not actually doing them. So I guess we've got another 6-12 months of "consultations" and "debate" before anything concrete happens. That said, if the "consultations" result in an additional permission-to-transfer for tv/films then I for one will raise a glass to Mr C's (and Prof Hargeaves of course). Apart from anything else, it'd give me an excuse to get the old JVC out of the loft and transfer some of those dusty old VHSes to MP4...

[Agent]

Next they will giving power to Ofcom to actually be useful

[GaryRW]

Their response was that they were already offering "triple-play" disks (DVD, Blu and iPod) so there was no need for any permission-to-transfer being granted.

I can understand the argument behind wanting to charge again for blu-ray. I think it's easy to see as cynical exploitation, but they are at least providing a supposedly higher quality product. To suggest that someone who bought the DVD should be allowed to rip a blu-ray would imho be clearly wrong. You would be getting more than you originally paid for.

However, to suggest that someone who bought a dvd or blu-ray cannot themselves transfer it to computer, either in the same quality or by transcoding to lower quality or to a more efficient codec is just plain profiteering (again, imho). Why on earth, outdated copyright rules aside, should you have to pay to get the same information that you have already paid a license for? It's no doubt a bad analogy, but can you imagine if e.g. food manufacturers tried to argue you have to keep food in the same packaging as you bought it in, & if you want to transfer it to a tupperware box for convenience or to keep it fresh you have to pay extra??

I could even accept that if you want to get the convenience of a mobile friendly format, then you should have to transcode it yourself rather than e.g. downloading from p2p or simply copying from someone who had paid specifically for the mobile format. I can, just about, see the argument that by providing a mobile friendly format, they are providing added value or added service. But if you are willing and able to do that for yourself, why shouldn't you be allowed to?

I do understand the legal point, i.e. that you didn't buy the information/data, you just licensed it. I just don't think the vast majority of people would consider restriction of format shifting downwards or at the same level of quality to be a reasonable restriction. The industry continually moans about the evil pirates, but they must realise that they will not beat them by enforcement alone given the technological problems. Treating paying customers like this can't be a good idea in the long run can it?

[Defiant]

I find pirating and the whole subject to be a waste of time for the simple fact that majority of these people wont pay money for these products even if you did manage to shore up all the issues and made legal means of purchase the only way. Sure you might get a few more sales, but pirating has effect of spreading products and promoting such products due to a greater spread. Sales do come from this, it has been expressed by previous P2P users and such in the past.

I can sort of understand that they need to be seen to be pursuing these people, but its a big joke as I recon they spend more in legal and subject costs doing this than possible revenue gain from the limited number of possible new customers they might gain.

These companies need to get with the age and start sinking money into digital services, fair enough you got the likes of iTunes and Lovefilm. But each have their issues and the content providers are so stuck in the dark ages that it makes it so difficult.

The old wont move with the new, but it seems to be common theme in life

[watercooled]

So what you're basically saying, is the media industry should instead sink its money into producing content the allow users to legally give away free, getting zero return on their investment and bankrupting themselves? You should go on Dragon's Den, I'm sure they'd love it!

Seriously, who in their right mind would spend money on something when it's freely available? Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like complete nonsense to me. It's all very well saying P2P promotes media but it doesn't account to much when the people who find out about it that way won't be giving any money to the companies. And of course pirate groups would say that, they're quite happy stealing and wouldn't want the law to be any harder on them.

[crossy]

I can understand the argument behind wanting to charge again for blu-ray. I think it's easy to see as cynical exploitation, but they are at least providing a supposedly higher quality product. To suggest that someone who bought the DVD should be allowed to rip a blu-ray would imho be clearly wrong. You would be getting more than you originally paid for.

I wasn't arguing that buying a DVD gives you the right to borrow someone else's BD copy that rip that. What was sticking in my craw was the attitude that "You want digital copies? Buy the triple-play, so you don't need anything else".

As you rightly point out - at best a format transfer will deliver the same quality (yes, I know upscaling can deliver something that looks better). I also take the simple-minded approach that if the companies aren't losing revenue then where's the harm? I've already bought the disk(s), so all I'm asking for is the ability to effectively put them aside as "backups". E.g. I've got the Family Guy big boxed set (please don't mock me for that), and it'd be really good to be able to legally recode that content to my NAS box so if I feel like a quick "fix" I can do, without having to hoik the box out of the cupboard, find the disk, load it, try and skip past all the adverts, wait for the FAST/FACT message to finish, find the episode I want, and then have to pack it all away again afterwards.

Although it's probably an unpopular view-point, I'd also be amenable to the idea of a small price hike in return for the permission-to-transcode. Say £1-2 on every pre-recorded DVD and double that for a BD. I'd also be understanding if the p-t-t was not applied to BD for a period of time. After all, as you point out, the film/tv companies have BD extra costs to recover, and they've got to turn a profit at the end of the day.

I find pirating and the whole subject to be a waste of time for the simple fact that majority of these people wont pay money for these products even if you did manage to shore up all the issues and made legal means of purchase the only way. Sure you might get a few more sales, but pirating has effect of spreading products and promoting such products due to a greater spread. Sales do come from this, it has been expressed by previous P2P users and such in the past.

Agree with the first part of that, (that there's some folks who will always go for the "free" filesharing route), not so convinced that there's a heck of a lot of "promotional" ability in P2P. After all, if you've got a Jolly Roger version of a film, why would you then run out and spend £15 on the BD, unless there was some special feature on that disk that you particularly wanted?
Some of the folks I know who "do" P2P for films seem to take a perverse delight in the fact that they're getting it for free and quickly, whereas the rest of us suckers have to wait for the official release and then fork over an arm and a leg for the privilege.
But, of course, I'll acknowledge that ymmv.

[Saracen]

....

Agree with the first part of that, (that there's some folks who will always go for the "free" filesharing route), not so convinced that there's a heck of a lot of "promotional" ability in P2P. After all, if you've got a Jolly Roger version of a film, why would you then run out and spend £15 on the BD, unless there was some special feature on that disk that you particularly wanted? ....

I'd suggest that there's something in the promotional effect of piracy for high-end software, and perhaps to some extent for audio CDs, but I'd reject that there's much of an effect for films.

On audio CDs, I've been known to borrow a disk from a friend and if I like it, buy it. I could have just copied the disk, and I may have done that on occasion too, but most of the time, if I like, I buy. And on those odd occasions where I may have ended up with a copied disk, it's because I don't like it enough to buy it. So while the copy may give me a marginal benefit, it hasn't cost the copyright holder anything as I would not have bought anyway.

But for high-end software, there is certainly an argument that it's benefited the market dominance of, to name two leading candidates, Photoshop and MS Office. I certainly know a few enthusiastic photo amateurs that use Photoshop, and I've got my doubts about the veracity of their software. Me, on the other hand, I've used Photoshop since, oh, v3 I think, and I've got the boxed versions to prove it.

And as for office, I wonder how many of those using a pirated copy would pay several hundred pounds for a full-featured version, and how many would switch to OpenOffice if their only choices were pay for MS Office or use something else?

But for films, while no doubt some people want high quality, and to watch a film again and again, I'd bet the majority will watch it once and probably never again, for most films. And I'd bet that most people won't watch a pirated film, and then think "I liked that, so I'll go buy it". So on films, I don't swallow the "P2P promotion" line. And further, I'd bet that P2P availability has dented film rentals seriously, and so has dented studio sales to the rental sector.

[superscaper]

I find pirating and the whole subject to be a waste of time for the simple fact that majority of these people wont pay money for these products even if you did manage to shore up all the issues and made legal means of purchase the only way. Sure you might get a few more sales, but pirating has effect of spreading products and promoting such products due to a greater spread. Sales do come from this, it has been expressed by previous P2P users and such in the past.

I think we need to make a clear distinction that this isn't about "piracy", in the sense of copying AND distributing. This is only about copying for yourself without distributing, after you've already bought a product.

[watercooled]

As you rightly point out - at best a format transfer will deliver the same quality (yes, I know upscaling can deliver something that looks better). I also take the simple-minded approach that if the companies aren't losing revenue then where's the harm? I've already bought the disk(s), so all I'm asking for is the ability to effectively put them aside as "backups". E.g. I've got the Family Guy big boxed set (please don't mock me for that), and it'd be really good to be able to legally recode that content to my NAS box so if I feel like a quick "fix" I can do, without having to hoik the box out of the cupboard, find the disk, load it, try and skip past all the adverts, wait for the FAST/FACT message to finish, find the episode I want, and then have to pack it all away again afterwards.

I see nothing wrong with that at all, and IIRC when DVDs were first being promoted they were saying how we'd do away with all the waiting around you got with VHS...

Although it's probably an unpopular view-point, I'd also be amenable to the idea of a small price hike in return for the permission-to-transcode. Say £1-2 on every pre-recorded DVD and double that for a BD. I'd also be understanding if the p-t-t was not applied to BD for a period of time. After all, as you point out, the film/tv companies have BD extra costs to recover, and they've got to turn a profit at the end of the day.

Again, I don't see much of a problem with that - for the extra few quid you could get a DRM-free version which, especially for BD, would make the task of backing them up somewhat easier. I'd happily do the same with games - DRM software ruins games (provided the cost wasn't too high, another option would be to release said version a week or so later, by which time the DRM will have been cracked anyway).

Snip...

Pirating falls into two categories as you describe, when the product would be bought if it wasn't available through other means and when it simply wouldn't be bought either way. I know a few people who simply couldn't afford what they pirate in which case the industry isn't really losing anything but you could argue these people are still gaining unfairly. Then there are the type who have money to burn but selfishly pirate regardless. I completely refuse to accept the argument that some pirates give about never buying anything they download if they couldn't download it. Maybe for some stuff (expensive software as you say) that would be true but I couldn't see them living in a world with no media/software - complete rubbish and a terrible argument.

I think we need to make a clear distinction that this isn't about "piracy", in the sense of copying AND distributing. This is only about copying for yourself without distributing, after you've already bought a product.

Yeah and I see a very clear division between the two, I am strongly against pirating (sharing), more so than most people - it's a completely unfair and selfish act. But backing up and transcoding I'm all for - restricting it is just plain stupid, especially now with HTPCs/media streaming etc. All these companies offering streaming hardware and such - do they really think people spend their time watching thousands of hours of home videos?

[AGTDenton]

The government is today expected to abolish laws preventing UK consumers from making digital copies of their own CDs and DVDs for personal use.

So does anyone know the outcome now its the 8th.

All I can find is articles related to the 2nd/3rd august. I cant find anywhere which mentions the official outcome.

[Saracen]

So does anyone know the outcome now its the 8th.

All I can find is articles related to the 2nd/3rd august. I cant find anywhere which mentions the official outcome.

Post 10 in this thread tells you.