Techdirt is off today for Memorial Day. We'll be back with our regular posting schedule tomorrow!
RSS
Australia Decides It's Okay For You To Copy Your CDs To Your iPod
from the how-nice-of-them dept
Just a week after the recording industry in the UK decided to tell the government it was ok with letting people copy legally purchased CDs to iPods, it appears the Australian government is getting ready to do the same for citizens down under. We first discussed this last year, but the government is preparing to change copyright laws to make certain exceptions, including those covering time shifting and format shifting. The law also allows exceptions for parody and satire, which is a nice addition. Of course, at the same time, the government felt the need to make certain concessions to the industry -- including stronger enforcement mechanisms and larger fines for those caught file sharing. The police will even be able to issue on-the-spot fines, like speeding tickets. Of course, what's odd is that this makes it sound like a give-and-take change: consumers get a few more rights in exchange for the recording industry getting more power to punish. However, that's a bad way of looking at it. Before this change, millions of people were probably "breaking the law" simply by listening to CDs they had legally purchased on their portable music players. The problem wasn't that consumers needed to be granted more rights, balanced by stronger protections for the industry, but that the original law was clearly no good -- turning millions of people into criminals for no good reason. It's great that they're fixing some problems in the law that no one was paying attention to anyway -- but it's not clear why those needed to come with stronger enforcement at the other end as well.
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
You know something funny?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Don't get too excited
See http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//004567.html
To quote from the Attorney-General's site...
How long can I keep the recording?
The recording must be deleted after one use. It will not be possible to use the recording over and over again.
Can I make a collection of copied television and radio programs?
No. You will not be able to burn a collection (or library) of your favourite programs on DVD or CD to keep. (It will be permitted to record a program on DVD or CD but only temporarily until you watch or listen to it for the first time.)
... and so on. Yeah, I can see this is REALLY gonna work.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Important point
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
typo
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: typo
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Stop the
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Stop the
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Rights? What Rights?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Screw The Goverment
Even if the media wasn't purchased legally, how would anybody know other than you.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Illegal Recordings!!!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
I refuse to buy Cd's anymore, it's just a damn rip-off, I'm sick of paying over inflated prices for music when there's technology out to bring music to consumers for a lot less cash. It's simply the recording companies still milking cash out of the consumers. So *up theirs* I simply won't buy them.
I won't buy an IPOD either - too much DRM BS on them. If I'm not in control of what and how I listen to it, I'm not going to pay for it at all.
I've got my share of MP3's - most of which I ripped off of CD's I already owned from a while back. Most of teh garbage from the recording industy simply isn't worth it - $15.00 for one good song on a CD? Yeah, whatever...
Keep you music, Keep your IPODS, I have better places to spend my cash, and I can live just fine with the music I already own.
The music industry can keep worrying about their bottom line - I won't contribute to it anymore.
And yeah - after I buy something - it's MY RIGHT to do with it whatever I want to - afterall they ***SOLD*** it to me - they didn't RENT it to me - don't like it??? Don't sell it on the public market. What part of "selling" an item doesn't the music industry comprehend.
So they are trying to "SELL" it to me and then *tell me what to do with it* - no way. I simply won't buy it - since it's obivous the CD's I "buy" really aren't mine anyway. It's more like a music Tax than a music sale now - and that's exactly what they want.
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
CDs - still worth buying . . . used that is
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
on the spot fines?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
copying music
We are blessed with the ability to do more than any other creature on the planet and we end up arguing and fighting about the most ridiculous things....
Quite frankly, the end of the world can't come soon enough!!!!
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Add Your Comment