It looks like iTunes is illegal in the UK as it's highly advertised CD-rip feature is no longer permitted in law for copyright reasons.
Last year the British government legalized the copying of digital media for private use, a practice which has been common for UK citizens for many years. The UK High court has now been overturned this decision, a decision which was praised as being "in the best interest" of consumers, after several music groups have complained about lost income.
Here is a statement from a spokesperson from the UK's Intellectual Property Office, stating that format shifting and the backing up of copyrighted content is now illegal.
“It is now unlawful to make private copies of copyright works you own, without permission from the copyright holder – this includes format shifting from one medium to another,”
This now means that Apple's popular CD-ripping feature in iTunes in now unlawful, as it not only facilitates the copyright infringement but actively promotes it. This also means that iTunes could also face significant damage claims from artists or other rights holders.
This action from the UK Government is an undoubted step backwards, restricting the populace from using their own purchased media as they like. For example if you want an MP3 copy of a CD that you own you will need to buy it again and if you want an extra copy of a CD for your car you again need to buy a new one, instead of simply burning a second copy. This action only serves to make record labels more money and extract more money for delivering no additional service.
Hopefully this will be looked at again in the future, but right now the copying or backing up of copyrighted media is now unlawful.
I'm a little shocked by this event, I'm not from the UK so I can't understand the mindset there but I would see it as a con and bad business practices on the part of the music industry in the UK.
Likewise , I'm in Ireland and it is quite shocking to think that ripping a cd is legal in the republic but a criminal offence in Northern Ireland and the rest of the uk
what? This seems a bit crazy. What if you purchase music from iTunes would this also apply then to copying music onto your phone or ipod? I'm guessing it wouldn't apply to those cases but it sounds more like a grey area.
This copyright shit is getting out of hand, I mean really you pay for a song but you can't move itto another medium thats bull shit. I'd be so fucked if i lived in the uk, i copy shit all the time. If this keeps going the way it is, simply going to a web page will be illegal because your computer auto downloads the images to a temp file.
I'm not sure that the change in law makes the tools to duplicate copy-righted material illegal - if that was the case where would it end? There are lots of things that have perfectly legitimate uses but can also be used to commit a crime,
I suspect that this 'clarification' in law will get amended to something more sensible in future; it's completely unenforceable and I very much doubt the Crown Prosecution Service would actually take a case to court for just creating a CD for your car etc.
Not to mention if you have any network caching on your network, you would have multiple copies of each site you visit . Governments love to make laws that pertain to things they don't understand
Its not possible to enforce so, as bad as it is, its not really an issue. Police in the UK are even publicly stating that they won't arrest people carrying/smoking weed as long as it isn't blatant because they don't have the resource. I have a family member in the Police that tells me that there are 4 of them to cover every case in their area at one time...4! If they won't bother with something that they can prove, why would they bother with something they can't.
Anyway, this had been illegal in the UK until last year like you said and nobody got done for it then either. It's just one of those stupid laws.
What their government could do is focus on regulating commercial intellectual property contract law, specifically limit what license terms businesses can place on their products, rather than only how the consumer is using it.
It's crazy that we allow businesses to effectively enter you into an implicit contract "that by purchasing this product (strictly digital music or on CD) you agree to our licensing terms, which include not being allowed to move the data you just purchased (or "licensed") to other media storage forms, even for non-commercial use."
It logically make sense, however, it shouldn't be legal. They're overstepping when they try to restrict non-commercial use.
Instead of only promoting the interest of huge entertainment enterprises, they may want to represent their people and restrict businesses from making these asinine licensing terms.
BTW I love the "tech buzz words" bureaucrats (both gov't and big business) use - 'format shift' ... I'm going to puke!
All of that might happen, one day, when we stop allowing politicians to accept "political donations" and instead create public formats for people to run for office, so that money doesn't factor into winning an election. (not sure if that's how it works in the UK, but in the US only the rich win elections)
"Your country runs an outdated version of Politician, please update now to prevent inconvenience." Don´t get me wrong, I really would like the "ban encryption"-thing. Just imagine the UK as a source of money and drones for everyone (at least for 1 day). But this is the start of bad events leading to riots. Good luck!
Apples iTunes is now illegal. UK government now has grounds to sue them if this continues. Apples has 193~ billion dollars in profit to throw behind some thing like fighting this. They if they want to go that route could tie up and potentially bankrupt a nation.
I hope some crazy lawsuit comes out of this and just makes such a joke of them that this will ruin the current government.
