UK Finally 'Legalizes' CD & DVD Ripping... But You're Still Not Allowed To Circumvent DRM
from the so-that's-kind-of-meaningless dept
As TorrentFreak is noting, the UK is finally modernizing basic user rights concerning copyright (what they call "fair dealing") to officially make it "legal" to make personal copies of legally acquired copies of digital content. In short, due to restrictive copyright law, it has always been technically infringement in the UK to rip a CD or DVD, but as of June that will change. This was one of the key suggestions in the Hargreaves report from three years ago, so it's good to see it finally being put into action.That said, this is hardly perfect. It appears that the fair dealing rules still won't let you circumvent DRM in order to make those private copies. In the FAQ the UK government is distributing, we see the following:
Media such as DVDs are often protected by anti-copying technology to guard against copyright piracy, and this is protected by law. Copyright owners will still be able to apply this protection. However, if copy protection is too restrictive, you may raise a complaint with the Secretary of State.Right, so in order to rip a personal copy of a movie so you might, for example, watch it on your tablet, rather than in a DVD player, you first have to "raise a complaint with the Secretary of State" and hope they do something about it? That basically eliminates this new effort entirely. And that's always been the problem with DRM and anti-circumvention rules. They basically give content middlemen the ability to put a veto on user rights, blocking them from doing things that are perfectly legal.
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Filed Under: anti-circumvention, cd ripping, circumvention, drm, dvd ripping, fair dealing, uk, user rights
Reader Comments
The First Word
“DMCA
Remember this is the UK, folks. The DMCA isn't relevant here.I'm not aware of any UK law that prohibits breaking DRM, so now that they have permitted personal use copying, I don't see why there's anything to stop you breaking DRM for lawful purposes (ie: format shifting) in the UK.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
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And that's why a lot of people are giving them a huge middle finger and doing it anyway. Because these people know that the MAFIAA are just a bunch of douchebags.
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DRM as anti-piracy?
DRM is not, and never has been, about piracy, as situations like this make perfectly clear it's always been about control, making it so that even when someone buys something they never actually own it.
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nobody gives a fuck about it anymore.
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Even if the Secretary were to do something, what counts as "too restrictive"? I tried to watch a Blu-ray on my PC the other day, and I had to physically disconnect one of my monitors before it would play (having one monitor turned off wasn't enough, I had to take the actual cable out). Would this count as too restrictive? I know taking a cable out is easy, but it's still a piece of software demanding what I do with my hardware before it'll play back a disc that I've bought.
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Re:
In my view, the legal problem isn't the existence of DRM. It's the existence of laws that make it illegal to bypass DRM. Get rid of those laws, or at the very minimum make it so they apply only if you're breaking the DRM in order to facilitate a crime, and the problem is solved.
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Re: Re:
In any other context, that's known as hacking, and it's illegal. Why should it be any different for this specific context? (And before anyone embarrasses themselves by claiming that it's not "against your will" because you bought the product of your own free will, even though it contains DRM, please look up the term "Leonine Contract" and understand its implications.)
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I am the Law!
The DMCA and laws like it gives the force of law to wishful thinking of artistic megalomaniacs. That's the real problem.
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Re: I am the Law!
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Re: I am the Law!
I am confused. How does the DMCA prevent UK residents from buying and distributing cracking tools? Sure, if they are trying to buy them from US companies or distribute them to US citizens, they might have problems with US law enforcement agencies trying to enforce their laws on foreign countries, but the DMCA should have no barring on UK citizens.
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Unless it damages your hardware or violates some other law (privacy, fraud, etc) they should be allowed to distribute whatever software they want, including DRM. And I should be allowed to run whatever software I want on my hardware, including software that removes DRM. DRM should be neither banned nor enforced by law, rather let the market sort it out.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, when my fundamental right to have my computer do what I tell it to comes into conflict with a software company's right to distribute whatever they want to, by them attempting to distribute something that makes my computer disobey me and actively work against my interests, their right ends, right there.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
But you also have the right to not install their software. To go back to the swinging and punching metaphor, isn't installing software and then complaining that it violates your rights a bit like entering a boxing match and then objecting to getting punched? If you don't like what the software does, then don't use it. Why should the government dictate what someone is allowed to sell*? This assumes that you know what you're installing and that it isn't done by any sneaky or fraudulent means.
* outside of areas such as product safety, fraud, etc
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Re: Re: Re:
Most DRM merely prevents you from doing something, it does not "take control' of anything, so your hacking comparison is not applicable in most cases.
Trying to ban DRM would be extremely problematic and no doubt result in unintended consequences and all sorts of abuse, as history demonstrates clearly. If instead the laws preventing the bypassing of DRM were repealed, DRM itself would become largely irrelevant, used only by companies blind to the will of their customers and not long for this world.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not only that, banning DRM would be a violation of the property rights of the producer of the film, CD, etc.
Just as people should have the right to make personal copies for themselves, I should have the right to publish my work in any format I damn well please without the government telling me how I'm allowed to do it.
If I write a book and want to encrypt it so that only people I know who have the decryption key can read it, it's my right to do that. If I want to put DRM on my DVDs, then that's also my right. What I don't have the right to do is demand the government criminalize any circumvention of that DRM even in pursuit of other statutorily guaranteed consumer rights.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
What I said is not "take control of," but "take control ... away from you." It turns my computer against me by causing it to declare something that I deliberately chose to put on there to be invalid and refuse to run it.
What history demonstrates clearly is that allowing DRM is extremely problematic, resulting in unintended consequences and all sorts of abuse. The Sony Rootkit comes to mind immediately, as does Apple's iOS "walled garden," Sony's removal of useful functionality from the PS3, and dozens of other examples. These are real things, not hypotheticals. What real examples of abuse of prohibitions on abusive software do you have, if history is so full of them?
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Re: Re: Re:
Umm, no. That's not hacking nor, (and this is what I think you intended to say, since there's nothing remotely illegal about hacking) cracking.
Although I oppose DRM, it seems wrong to me to say that companies should not be allowed to use it. It's their product, and if they want to cripple it, that's their decision.
My problem is that once it's in my hands, I should be allowed to bypass the DRM should I so choose. It's legal for me to reverse engineer the software, it's legal for me to modify any software I legally have, it's legal for me to modify my own machine in any way I see fit. Having a this one specific act (bypassing DRM) illegal is a clear infringement of my property rights, in my view.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, I intended to say "hacking." That particular battle was lost waaaaay back in the 1990s, and everyone today except Richard Stallman understands that.
Which would be true, if it was true. But it's not; it isn't their product they're crippling; it's my computer. (See: the Sony rootkit, StarForce, SecuROM, iOS, etc.)
Your real problem is that once it's loaded onto your system, it could be (and often is) already doing damage to your interests before you get around to reverse-engineering it.
Let's put it nice and simple. I assume you agree that writing and distributing a virus or similar malware is illegal, and rightfully so, because of the harm it causes to its victims' property. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) So aside from the fact that viruses infect your system by sleazy code that causes it to copy itself over networks and DRM infects your system by sleazy leonine contracts, what's the difference between DRM and a virus?
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Re:
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Re: Re:
There are numerous Secretaries of State in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_%28United_Kingdom%29
However, the document on gov.uk no longer contains that section of the FAQ:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/375949/Guidance_for_co nsumers.pdf
Don't know why.
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Also, who's to judge whether the protection is too restrictive?
If Grandma can't copy her Lonesome Dove DVDs' to her iPad without the help of her 12/yo Grandson is that too restrictive?
If you have to resort to scouring the interwebs for software that has now been scrubbed from said interwebs because it was a tool for circumventing DRM, is that too restrictive?
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wat
Noted. So if I can actually do it, I'm good.
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Re: wat
We learn three things here:
1. Copying was made legal for media you own on DVDs, etc.
2. DRM continues to be allowed.
3. Circumventing the DRM is okay. If it's too onerous, then complain.
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Re: Re: wat
part of this statement:
"Media such as DVDs are often protected by anti-copying technology to guard against copyright piracy, and this is protected by law."
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Re: Re: Re: wat
In the US, Apple can try to kill all the iPhone/iPad/iPod jailbreak efforts they want, but new JBs aren't considered as DMCA circumvention acts, even though Apple fought vigorously to try to get that in. I think it's the same here.
In other words, the copyright holder's attempt to protect his content using DRM is protected by law. However, a media owner's rights to make copies is also protected by law.
If the content owner makes the DRM so tough to circumvent that it's impossible to make a copy, then at that point the government needs to be notified.
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Re: Re: Re: wat
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That way no one has to break the law, and it reenforces that the public actually has the right to format shift.
Plus it might cause the cartel leadership to have a stroke and be replaced by people who aren't insane.
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Re:
In the US I can see this being done so that it panders to the voters sense of fairness to keep them happy while still enabling politicians to continue taking in RIAA money. See, WIN-WIN!
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Re:
They'll give you a 'digital copy' in their own proprietary format, requiring their own proprietary software to run, with proprietary restrictions on where you can play it, how you can play it, what devices you can put it on, and when it stops being yours because they decided its been long enough that you should have to pay them again.
If anything, it would just make them arrogantly smug about 'giving people what they want', and make them soapbox harder about how piracy is unfair because people don't like being told what they want.
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Re: Re:
Besides I thought it was implied I meant an un-DRMed copy... I mean I am a freetard pirate.
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Re:
Is an Ultraviolet(tm) code good enough? Because you know that's about the only digital copy they'd be willing to let you use.
If there just wasn't any DRM on the DVD, people could just use regular burning software to do a disk to disk copy, or use any number of tools to compile the DVD files into an .mp4/.avi//.mpg to play elsewhere.
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Re: Re:
Unless the system uses tricks lime bad sectors, which I haven't seen since floppy disk days, DRM cannot prevent a bitwise copy of a disk. This also means you can create a .iso file, which is just a bit image, and send it to someone else. If you are running Windows, you may have to get a proper burner program to do this.
That has always been one of the silly points about DRM, on DVDs, it does not prevent bitwise copying. Pirate DVDs were basically killed by the Internet, as the criminals involved could not compete with free.
Further you are not circumventing DRM to make such copies, the copying does not interpret the file contents, and the DRM is preserved on the copy.
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That's easy enough
She seems easy to contact, though I wonder how well she'll take it if the entirety of the UK readership of Techdirt (and possibly their social circle) email to 'raise the issue.'
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Same here, I think. They probably want to say people have more rights, but can't do so without admitting that DRM is practically unenforceable (and only affects paying customers, of course) so have arrived at a silly compromise that will change nobody's actions in reality.
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DMCA
I'm not aware of any UK law that prohibits breaking DRM, so now that they have permitted personal use copying, I don't see why there's anything to stop you breaking DRM for lawful purposes (ie: format shifting) in the UK.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
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Re: DMCA
In Europe there is Directive 2001/29/EC which is even worse than DMCA-1201 in some aspects:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technological_protection_measures
UK implemented that in 2003.
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Re: DMCA
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Re: DMCA
However, the subsection is, imho, ambiguous - something I brought up with the IPO during their technical review of these exceptions, and something I need to chase up with them again given that the Government's response isn't clear either.
The law says: If that means "these people have" "the rights a copyright owner has when their copyright has been infringement" then those rights are the right to sue for damages, injunctions etc. and so they can sue you if you circumvent DRM - whether or not there is an underlying infringement.
But if it means "these people have" "the rights a copyright owner has" "when there is an infringement of copyright" then they can only sue you when there is an actual copyright infringement. So you can circumvent drm for personal use once this new exception comes into force.
Interestingly, it may be that the relevant EU law wouldn't allow circumvention even when not infringing copyright, because a couple of key words were missed when the WIPO Copyright Treaty was turned into an EU Directive... funny that.
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Re: DMCA
Sadly the UK was first in the field with anti-circumvention laws. The DMCA is itself largely a copy of the 1988 Act in the UK
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/296
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Re: Re: DMCA
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Re:
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What's DRM?
I can, and do, burn and/or rip copies of "protected" CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray disks without any problems. I get rid of all the irrelevant crap, warnings, threats, propaganda, multiple languages, regional coding etc so I have a clean copy and then make a backup copy of the clean copy. The original gets filed away in a cardboard box in the storage room, the clean copy goes into the original case and the copy gets played multiple times.
They are based in Antigua and consequently don't care about the monopolists or govt regulations, they just follow Antiguan law.
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Re: What's DRM?
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2+2=5 ?
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That would make distros "illegal", right?
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Re:
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Meaningless
Since we all know that no one actually owns any ebooks, music or film anymore-- they're all just licensed-- that would seem to make this an entirely irrelevant endeavor.
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