News - IP law review recommends legalising format shifting

[HEXUS]

A government-commissioned report into UK IP law concludes it hasn’t kept up with the times.

Read more.

[shaithis]

I bet any work done on format shifting will not put extra pressure on film studios to offer upgrade programs.

Still narks me that we are supposedly paying for a license to view material but when we want to upgrade (DVD>BD, normal to special edition etc) we have to pay a price that implies the entire movie had to be shot from scratch again!

All the government will be concerned about is ripping, something everyone (including police and lawyers alike) are doing anyway without batting an eyelid, because it doesn't really need a law change, it's common sense you should be able to put your CDs on your MP3 player......or that DVD onto your iPod to watch on the train....

Looks like a lot of money wasted again. Perhaps they should spend some more money and go back and change/remove the plethora of other laws that have been superseded by commonsense as well (i.e. you must practice archery for 30 mins every sunday!)

[Biscuit]

I disagree, whilst it is common sense that you can do such things with your MP3 player and people will do it anyway i think its quite important that our laws reflect this. Its about time this was all clarified.

[Jay]

The issue will be will it still be illegal to remove drm from DVDs etc? If so this will only really cover CDs

[jim]

About time.

[Tpyo]

I bet any work done on format shifting will not put extra pressure on film studios to offer upgrade programs.

Still narks me that we are supposedly paying for a license to view material but when we want to upgrade (DVD>BD, normal to special edition etc) we have to pay a price that implies the entire movie had to be shot from scratch again!

When you buy in 'hard copy' (a physical DVD) - paying again for the new version is fair enough - they might hate it but you could sell your DVD and the whiole supply chain (distributors/wholesalers/shop keepers etc.) were involved again.

However, as things move to digital, surely cheaper 'upgrades' make sense. Think a system like Valve's steam where you buy a DVD on release, pay a little extra later to get the extended edition/director's cut and then maybe chose to ugrade to high def at a later date. Additionally, the "higher" grade versions should include the right to the lesser ones. If you own the Blu-ray version, why not let you watch the standard def version (e.g. for on a laptop/low bandwidth connection). At least there have been steps towards this in the last few years with DigiPacks that have the blu-ray, DVD and digital copy included.

[Noxvayl]

I don't think too many music companies(or film companies) would be happy with this because it doesn't benefit them. The majority of the improvement these changes will bring are for the consumer. I don't expect to see any proposed changes made, and if they do get made it will be a battle the industry will fight until the bitter end.

We need to work out a way to make vested interests favour progress rather than hinder it. It's annoying that over a decade after digital content distribution was plausible it is still being resisted.