Quote:
Originally posted by Austin
:) The UK laws are sketchy at best, as usual many of them are derived from several hundred years ago and have a few extra updates bolted on ... if you're lucky. Essentially you break the law (by breaching copyright) by taping Coronation Street or Eastenders but it's accepted that so long as you do so for your own use and do not distribute or copy for others that it is accepted practice. The same goes for taping your music CDs to audio cassette for use in your car ... or making copies to MP3 for your portable player. You don't own the copyright nor have you specificly sought the permission of the copyright holder, but so long as you bought and retain the original media it is again accepted practice to copy it in different media forms (or the same for backup) for your own use so long as you do not distribute any of it. So you can make copies of DVDs whether on re-encoded to blank CDs or blank DVDs (or VHS for that matter) again so long as you retain the original recording and do not distribute, it must be for your own use. AFAIK the use of these programs is just like multi-regioning or breaking copy-protection, it is not in itself illegal. Don't hold me to that though LOL!
No dude, its illegal. Taping anything off the tv is timeshifting and you have 2 weeks to watch it after which time you need to remove it from your VHS. DVD backups ARE illegal in the UK as they sell you the lisence to watch it, not the movie itself. The lisence is non transferable to any other media. Same with MP3 players and CDs too - that way you have no leg to stand on when you go back to the shop and request for a CD that copys to MP3 unfortunatly. I think the mp3 companies should go sue the RIAA for this, however, noone cares about the UK market. Doesnt matter who its for or whatever. The only reason they can get away with selling DVD backup software in the UK is that you could use it for a home movie you made from DV.