All we want at Dixons is for our customers to love us - Senior man at DSG
|
|
|
Copyright laws are too confusing
THE GREAT UNWASHED are clueless when it comes to the ins and outs of copyright law, a watchdog has barked.
Consumers are confused by copyright laws that mean it is still illegal to copy a CD onto their computer, according to a watchdog group. Consumer Focus said that current copyright law was outdated and millions of people were breaking the law while remaining unaware of the problem.
Jill Johnstone of Consumer Focus said that the current state of British law makes it an offence to copy a CD or DVD onto a computer or an Ipod for one's own use. She pointed to a poll of 2,026 people, in which some 73 per cent said that they did not know what they could copy or record.
IT lawyer Nick Lockett, of DL Legal, told the BBC that nobody was being prosecuted for the technical breach in the law. A similar problem arose when video recorders allowed people to record a television show and watch it later in the day, which at the time was illegal.
Amendments to the law only came after video recorders had been on the market for some time, but of course that was fought like crazy by the film industry.
He said that if anyone was going to fall foul of the current law it would be companies that set up commercial operations to copy content, however the great unwashed are probably safe.
We guess this means that people are safe to copy their own legally purchased CDs and DVDs onto their own computers unless the music and film industries want to start prosecuting them. µ
Share this:
Share
Copyright statute USED TO BE basis for authors to civilly sue those profiting commercially from material that author had produced -- but only for a limited time. Intent was to make it possible for authors to earn enough, by way of monopoly, to be able to survive and produce.
But moneyed interests bought politicians to re-write statutes so that they infringe on fundamental rights of others, such as due process. -- And they're now trying to pass these ex post facto statutes (and secret treaties) off as criminal law, meaning enforced by the gov't at gunpoint.
So I don't exactly endorse commercial profit at *any* point now, and I'm sure as heck not going to help the greedy interests implement their solely *self-serving* measures by pretending that it's "law".
Like much else, need to turn the clock back.
Record labels have done nothing but bitch (and lie) about ever decreasing sales of CDs while at the same time refusing to provide electronic content for download.
So not only do they not provide you with legal downloads, but they then criminalise anyone who legally BUYS the CD and then rips it to their player.
Record companies simply want to control all music supply so that you are limited in what you can access (which increases the chances of you buying music that they happen own the copyright to).
Variety and freedom of choice in music are the enemy of the record industry.
They want to protect the author then you need to call it Shareright law or something similar!
The name Copyright was correct in the old days when copying was only done to share/sell it.
Now everyone has multiple play devices that can do the same thing.
Anyone out there that can put music on a music player without copying it?
Or they could also just give the right to have 10 copies for your own use.