‘Change UK copyright laws’
p2pnet.net News:- It’s not up to the Big Four Organized Music cartel to decide what rights consumers have: "That is the job of Government."
So says Institute for Public Policy Research deputy director Ian Kearns.
UK copyright law should now include a ‘private right to copy’ to protect users of MP3 players, says the IPPR, because as things stand, "millions of Brits break the law each year when they copy their CDs onto their computers".
The forthcoming review of Intellectual Property, set up by chancellor Gordon Brown and chaired by Andrew Gowers, "should update the 300-year-old copyright laws to take account of the changes in the way people want to listen to music, watch films and read books," says the institute, recommending a legal ‘private right to copy’ to allow people to make copies of CDs, or DVDs for personal us.
The new right, "would legalise the actions of millions of Britons without any significant harm to the copyright holders," says the IPPR.
"British copyright law is out of date with consumer practices and technological progress," says Kearns. "Giving people a legal private right to copy would allow them to copy their own CDs and DVDs onto their home computers, laptops or phones without breaking the law."
The IPPR’s Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age, also recommends:
The Government should reject calls from the UK music industry to extend copyright term for sound recordings beyond the current 50 years. The report argues that there is no evidence to suggest that current protections provided in law are insufficient.
The Government should act to ensure that Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology does not continue to affect the preservation of electronic content by libraries. The British Library should be given a DRM-free copy of any new digital work and libraries should be able to take more than one copy of digital work.
And circumvention of DRM technology should stop being illegal once copyright has expired, says the report.
Meanwhile, more than half of British consumers are infringing copyright law by copying CDs onto other players they own, according to the National Consumer Council (NCC), quoted by the IPPR.
Also See:
Institute for Public Policy Research – Chancellor urged to decriminalise ipod users, October 29, 2006
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October 30th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
If Great Britain is anything like the United States when it comes to copyright reform it will NEVER HAPPEN.
In the United Congress congress critters are too busy sucking dicks in taking kickbacks and bribes from the entertainment cartels so a person can’t LEGALLY back up a movie dvd.
The MPAA cash cow…………………..
IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN……………….
October 30th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Hmm.
There are significant happenings in UK politics which give this a slim window of opportunity. Blair is on the rocks, and a bill like this would certainly garner a favourable response from the UK public, while not actually preventing the government/BPI from responding harshly to “piracy” (ie sharing). In fact such a move would be quite compatible with the kind of underhand tricks they’ve playedto date: appearing liberal as a cloak to robbing people of their rights.
Sadly(ish) there will not be a Brown government for any length of time, as the UK public seems to be swinging back towards Conservatism. Where’s the swing towards anarcho-militancy when we need it?