European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/european-copyright-madness-court-strikes-down-law-allowing-users-rip-their-own-cds

by panarky • 11 years ago

119 70 11 years ago

eff.org

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

Seizing on the opportunity to use this supranational directive to overturn a democratically-enacted law

The directive exists pursuant to action of the European Parliament* which is also a democratic institution, as someone with Jeremy Malcolm's outstanding education is surely aware.

* http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

I'm not expressing an opinion on the merits of European copyright law; I'm not familiar with this case or the details of EU regulations, and I'm not suggesting the EFF is wrong to oppose this provision of EU law. I just get irritated as a citizen of the EU when people dismiss anything that comes out of Brussels as 'undemocractic'. Why does the EFF keep pandering to lowest common denominator like this? If I want xenophobic arguments I'll buy a tabloid newspaper.

beedogs3• 11 years ago

"xenophobic"? Is that really the word you're going to use here? Bit ridiculous.

sago2• 11 years ago

Is it not accurate? Portraying the democratically elected EU as 'undemocratic' because it is in contrast to a national government suggest to me that the source of the misrepresentation is due to them not being English (in this case).

That, and a very long track record of such sentiments being aired by those who are more transparently xenophobic. I don't see how it is ridiculous.

comboy• 11 years ago

Well, I'm from Europe and I don't like most of the things that come out of Brussels. In fact, when polls are made it would seem majority share my view. Maybe then 'undemocratic' is not such a bad name for it?

It's tons of bureaucracy with very little democracy.

tonyedgecombe• 11 years ago

I think the majority don't have a clue what laws come out of the EU versus their own parliament.

The EU has about 33 thousand employees, this is hardly tons of bureaucracy, just UK local government has 2.3 million employees.

Atropos2• 11 years ago

You are misinformed, according to the regularly performed Eurobarometer polls (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb82/eb82_en....), there is not a single poll since 2006 where more people had a negative view than a positive view of the EU.

fauigerzigerk• 11 years ago

Do you even know most things that come out of Brussels? Your sentiment is shared by many people all over the world with regard to their own national governments as well. That doesn't make all these countries undemocratic.

A recent poll in the US shows that 65% of likely U.S voters think that their country is going in the wrong direction (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood...). And that doesn't even speak of the almost 50% of people who don't vote.

What is special about the EU is that national politicians and tabloid media love to use it as a scapegoat for everything that is wrong with our modern globalised world. That is especially true for the UK.

simias• 11 years ago

Don't forget that politicians of every country tend to take the credit when the EU does something popular while they're quick to blame Brussels when poorly-received reforms are made.

Not to say that everything's great in europe's current state of affair but be careful not to be too influenced by political propaganda. Remember that the political direction of the union is set by the council which comprises the various head of states of the union. It's not like the parliament is this rogue extranational body that unilaterally dictates its will to the members of the EU.

makeitsuckless2• 11 years ago

The European Parliament is pretty f-ing far from a democratic institution.

Just because it has an election attached to it (for which the turn out is so ridiculously low they might as well not bother) doesn't make it a democratic institution.

Any power the EP has or doesn't have (mostly the latter) didn't come about through democratic process.

Imposing a faux parliament on people, especially one that operates without the context of a democratic government, doesn't make it a democratic institution. Never mind the fact that so many of these parliament members are the deeply corrupt representatives of corrupt countries.

And the people know this, hence the fact that the majority of the people of Europe now boycots these elections. Especially in countries that have a decently functioning democracy themselves.

Everything that comes out of Brussels is undemocratic, unless it pertains to the sovereign nation of Belgium.

Also, can we keep it civilized? If you don't call all opponents to your EU dreams "xenophobic", I won't call you a "eurofascist", agreed?

_0ffh4• 11 years ago

The facts of the given case notwithstanding, a lot of what happens on the EU level is quite undemocratic, IMHO. The reason being, that most of the power in EU institutions still lies with the Commission, not with Parliament. Commissioners are appointed by the national Governments, and not elected, and so twice-removed from all democratic processes.

beedogs3• 11 years ago

This idiotic decision will not stop one single CD from being ripped in Europe.

JadeNB2• 11 years ago

I don't think that any but the most naïve lawmaker believes that these laws will stop the behaviour they criminalise. Rather, they simply further the "3 felonies a day" state of being (http://www.harveysilverglate.com/Books/ThreeFeloniesaDay.asp... I will set aside (because I honestly don't know what I believe) whether that is an intended or unintended effect.

spiritplumber• 11 years ago

I'm in favor of anything that degrades the respect for the rule of law qua law.

We'll have direct democracy on this stuff yet! Look at the Swiss.

istvan__4• 11 years ago

Good old greed. The speed CDs and the music industry is disappearing probably will solve this issue going forward. Music is getting more and more fragmented and smaller and smaller styles show up that are very specific to a particular location. This will help to dismantle the music industry lobby probably.

bhrgunatha2• 11 years ago

I hear this argument very often but I don't see any strong evidence that it is happening in the majority case, nor will happen. The music/entertainment industries have been relatively slow to react to digitisation, the internet and technological advances, but their lobbying prowess is frightening. Just look at their power and handywork at the national level instigating ridiculous and oppressive laws and at the international level at the trade agreements being instigated. Just like in the linked article.

I do agree that small scale/localised success - the long tail as it used to be referred to - is a positive force too. It looks like we all just have to learn to live with both camps (and many more besides) being given scope to thrive. Hopefully that's the best outcome, but this type of out of touch and obtuse legislation is not helping.

istvan__4• 11 years ago

"In early 2015, Bandcamp released an announcement that artists using the website had officially gotten $100 million in total from music sale"

Total music industry is 15B (afaik). It is 1/150th of the entire music industry and that is just one site. I think the artist make more on Bandcamp and other music distribution platforms than on big labels, that might be the reason why Bandcamp is greatly successful.

meddlepal• 11 years ago

I agree primarily because the music industries target demographic appears to be 12 to 26... A group that usually heavily consumes what their peers listen to. Niche music appreciation mostly occurs later in life. My point is that fragmentation doesn't matter to the existing powers because the target of those groups doesn't fragment until they are much older and when they do they have a new set of fresh blood.

_0ffh4• 11 years ago

While I share much of your sentiment, I cannot share your optimism. Never underestimate the power of corporate rent-seeking lobbyism. Where I live, we do not only pay surcharges for blank CDs and DVDs, but printers, mobile phones, CD- and DVD burners, hard disk drives, etc. Practically, for any and all ways of storing data, both the drives and the media.

And it all vanishes in the huge, bottomless maw of corporate greed, with little ever reaching any actual artist. It largely divides into shareholder value, outrageous manager payoffs, and.... errr... "investments" (meaning, money for more lobbying and bribes).

alextgordon• 11 years ago

    > THE QUEEN on the application of
    > (1) BRITISH ACADEMY OF SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS AND AUTHORS
    > (2) MUSICIANS’ UNION
    > (3) UK MUSIC 2009 LIMITED

Perhaps, as a token of defiance, we should compile a list of the people at the top of these organisations, and forbid them from using our software.

There's a time and a place for spite, and this is it.

npongratz• 11 years ago

The BipCot NoGov license [0] might provide a template, replacing "government" with "[leaders of] media organizations" (or whatever), as applicable.

But if you're looking for something with teeth, this probably won't meet your needs -- as they say, "It is not copyright-based, it is entirely shame-based."

[0] http://bipcot.org

jkot• 11 years ago

This is just UK. I dont think it will fly in Spain, Czech rep or other parts of EU.

For start there is author tax to compensate authors for fair use, it is collected as VAT on empty mediums and printers. With this law many powerful people would loose money. I would welcome it, since it means cheaper hardware.

And secondly: YES! More stupid laws like this, more DRM and people will turn to free music under Creative-Commons like license.

pjmlp• 11 years ago

People will just pirate more.

serge2k• 11 years ago

uh sure okay.

People will continue to obey copyright laws as closely as ever. right.

Oletros• 11 years ago

From the linked text.

The government's choices are now to remove the private copying exception—making personal copying illegal again, or to supply additional evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal “harm” from personal copying, or else to begin imposing a new tax on users to compensate the indust

This is exactly the situation we have in Spain, a tax was created to compensate private copy.

Sure it would fly in Spain

psykovsky3• 11 years ago

Minor correction, the authors tax charged on printers and copy mediums is in addition to VAT, not the same as VAT.

hrbrtglm• 11 years ago

Minor correction, depends on the eu countries, but in France, the authors tax charged on copy mediums is in addition to the product price without VAT, and then VAT is applied to the whole. So you pay VAT on the authors tax. To be clear you pay tax on tax, a french speciality.

rsto2• 11 years ago

European Copyright legislative is an inconsistent mess.

Right now, in Austria, the government is up to demand 6% of the price of any digital storage device, to compensate copyright holders when the legit consumers of their work execute their right to make a private copy.

So the European Court apparently just has settled that in one country of the EU, consumers do not have the right to make private copies, while in others consumers just got a new tax to do so. AFAIK the Austrian model follows German legislative.

What a mess.

pparkkin• 11 years ago

From the linked text.

The government's choices are now to remove the private copying exception—making personal copying illegal again, or to supply additional evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal “harm” from personal copying, or else to begin imposing a new tax on users to compensate the industry for that “harm”.

Which sounds to me like UK has the option to start collecting a similar surcharge to compensate for the right to make private copies of works. They are not required to ban private copying completely.

rsto2• 11 years ago

Thanks, I read the article but this sentence must have slipped my attention. I really would like to see them to supply evidence that copyright owners suffer no or minimal harm from personal copying but guess they won't even bother attempting.

raverbashing• 11 years ago

Well, the levy is the least of their problems

In Germany there's the issue of GEMA and the draconian policies. Also users of bittorrent are fined liberally

Atropos2• 11 years ago

The article is about a decision of the UK High Court, not the European Court of Justice, so it only applies to the UK.

_0ffh4• 11 years ago

Yeah, I am also not happy with the choice of words here. The reason for it seems to be that, while the court in question is national, the legislation which it cites as the base for its decision is European.

realusername2• 11 years ago

Same in France, except that it is so high that CDs are ~10x the price of the ones in Germany (literally) so everyone is buying their CDs in Germany instead (or any other country, even the UK has cheaper CDs). Copy related taxes per country in europe: http://static.pcinpact.com/images/bd/news/120599.png (In French but easily understandable)

colomon2• 11 years ago

Is that blank recordable CDs or actual music CDs?

dethos• 11 years ago

In Portugal a similar law will start to be applied from July on. Most storage devices will see an increase in the price so that "copyright holders" can be paid, when what you just want is to store your own photos. ridiculous.

makeitsuckless2• 11 years ago

In other news: not single person who rips their own CDs in all of Europe will give a crap.

Also, the only people still buying CDs don't rip them, and the rest of us have ripped their last CD over a decade ago.

The actual impact of this decision is close to zero, and therefor not a strong argument for copyright reform. Many countries still have outdated laws on the books nobody bothers with, making noise about this just gives the impression copyright reform isn't urgent.

dmoo• 11 years ago

Exactly, I'm old enough to have many hundreds of CDs, cassettes and vinyl, it's quicker to download an album that I own than to go and look for it around the house let alone including the time to rip it.

batou2• 11 years ago

Lets be realistic here.

So I'm going to go and delete 90% of my mp3s and go and purchase a CD player this afternoon.

Actually nope, I'm going to continue to steal all my music out of a combination of apathy and disdain for the system.

Oh and continue to go to the odd gig.

guard-of-terra• 11 years ago

You and some other commenters miss the point completely.

Now the "rights holders" will have right to tax every storage medium you buy. n% of what you pay for your HDD goes to them. (And I don't know who is that, since everybody I lisen to won't get a cent)

batou2• 11 years ago

I'll have to steal more then to get my money's worth...

jwildeboer• 11 years ago

The teaser is wrong. It's a UK court, deciding for the UK. Not on the European level.

calibwam• 11 years ago

While not wrong, as the UK is in Europe, it is a misleading title.

Trombone12• 11 years ago

The same story as reported by Ars technica[1] paints the EU law as the hero that produced some slight advances in copyright regulations based on essentially a completely reversed causuality than reported by the eff.

"The UK's music industry has successfully landed a significant judgement from the UK's High Court, countering a copyright exception that was brought in by the UK government last year. Since last October, there was a law that allowed you to make private copies of your own music; now the future of that law is uncertain."

"The UK government brought in the new copyright exception under a European Union directive that gives national governments that power, but which requires compensation to be paid to artists unless the harm caused to them by the change in copyright law is minimal."

It is also fun to contrast the position on the rights holders between the eff:

"Neither can we fully absolve the rightsholders from blame;"

and Arstechnica:

"The refusal to accept gracefully legislative changes is not new for the copyright industry. Perhaps the most egregious example of its dog-in-the-manger attitude [snip]"

[1] http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/06/music-industry-...

colomon2• 11 years ago

I'm curious. This is phrased as a ruling on CDs. But doesn't the logic used suggest that if I buy an album on MP3, I cannot copy those files to my server and phone? It would be really weird if (US prices here, maybe UK is different?) I spend $15 on a CD I can only listen to the music using the original CD in a CD player, but if I spend $9 on an MP3 album, I can copy it to all my devices.

pmontra• 11 years ago

"UK court". Reading "European court" made me think it was a ruling by an EU level court. That would have a different fallout.

MatthewWilkes• 11 years ago

I think the EFF needs to send its people on a copywriting course, this article is so poorly written it's almost unreadable.

European Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Users to Rip Their Own CDs

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