Comments on: The private copying of CDs

By: Nathan Jones

Nathan Jones — Thu, 11 May 2006 05:07:23 +0000

I like your first point, that BPI wants to avoid looking too out of touch. I’m not in the music industry, but if I was, I’d want to start by making allowances for that which is reasonable and widespread (eg. private copying), so as to push the point that other infrigements are not to be tolerated.

Why does ARIA hold onto rights that go unheeded? No idea.

But I do object to the logic in points 5 and 6, which is essentially “it has to remain illegal, but don’t worry – you’re not likely to be sued”. That’s not a good excuse for questionable laws; you have to think about what -could- happen in the future, not what is intended now.

In another realm, people complained about anti-sedition laws, saying that the government could use them for policitcal purposes. Others complained that protesters were being unreasonable, since the Howard government had no intention of misusing the laws. But what happens when a new government comes in? Laws should be about what is deemed right, not about agenda, and not based on the trust that overly broad laws will not be misused.

[IANAL and I drank wine at lunch, so this may not make sense... :-) ]

By: kim

kim — Tue, 09 May 2006 05:20:10 +0000

I agree with your analysis, of course Andrew. But what I don’t understand is why the same reasoning doesn’t apply in the United Kingdom. In the UK, such copying is illegal, right? And yet BPI seem to be favouring some kind of exception in the space. Why? What’s different over there as compared to here? There’s a couple of possible explanations:

1. The Gower review actually seems to be prepared to do something more radical than our government is prepared to do in the context of its recent review of copyright exceptions, and for BPI this is the ‘position taken in order to avoid looking too out of touch/trenchant/greedy’

2. The UK is closer to Europe, where private levy schemes operate in many countries allowing some private copying. The force of close contrast is forcing some accommodation – again, something we don’t have here.

Thoughts?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 09 May 2006 03:55:47 +0000

The RIAA, in recent court cases against P2P users, has been known to state that private copying isn’t illegal, going against their own official opinion.

I suspect that the RIAA does not agree with the allowance in US law for private copying, and only states it’s acceptance because of the law.

In Australia, the real opinion of the record companies is supported by law. That is, that all copying of any kind is illegal.

Allowing private copying reduces the record companies ability to exploit new digital technology to further prevent consumer control of their music as they would have to allow for copying. And if copying is allowed it is always there as a back-end to any digital control.

The Australian record companies would be nuts to not fight for that control, and so they are.