The Hargreaves Report, a review commissioned by David Cameron into Britain’s longstanding copyright laws, has been published today. Amongst the recommendations? That the government make the act of ripping CDs into MP3s legal. ‘Bout time.
The report, by professor Ian Hargreaves, recommends sweeping changes to UK copyright, including the introduction of a Digital Copyright Exchange by next year to make licensing easier in a world of mass participation and creation online.
But the report also urges the end of a law which prevents UK citizens from converting tracks on audio CDs into other files (typically MP3s) a service which iTunes and many other free applications provide in the UK and have done for years – “format shifting” in legalese.
Whether or not Davey C will act on these recommendations remains to be seen, but it’s good to see the issue making the headlines when people have been doing exactly this for well over a decade now, all the while in a legal grey area.
(Via The Guardian)
