CD copy protection - legal challenge?

Just wondering if anyone has challenged the legality of any of the CD copy protection methods on the "fair use" basis?

I can't remember the wording of the "fair use" clause but it basically gives you a legal right to make copies of copyrighted material you own (books, CDs etc) for limited personal "fair use". That would include making copies of CDs you own so you can use them at work, in the car etc without having to take the originals with you everywhere.

I believe that "fair use" also includes ripping a CD to MP3 (or similar) so you can listen to a CD you own on your iPod, MiniDisc player etc.

Clearly the CD copy-protection is blocking your "fair use" rights - couldn't that be legally challenged?

Michael.

PS: the fact that all copy protection I've come across so far is a doddle to get around wouldn't be an issue. They could hardly use that as a defence!

 

The relevant part of Section 20 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 reads as follows:

29.â€â€(1) Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research or private study does not infringe any copyright in the work or, in the case of a published edition, in the typographical arrangement.


(3) Copying by a person other than the researcher or student himself is not fair dealing ifâ€â€
(a) in the case of a librarian, or a person acting on behalf of a librarian, he does anything which regulations under section 40 would not permit to be done under section 38 or 39 (articles or parts of published works: restriction on multiple copies of same material), or
(b) in any other case, the person doing the copying knows or has reason to believe that it will result in copies of substantially the same material being provided to more than one person at substantially the same time and for substantially the same purpose.

In other words, the fair dealing dispensation does not give anyone a legal right to fair dealing, it only says that such fair dealing is not an infringement of copyright. It is within the right of the owner of the copyright owner to prevent it.

Note that the fair dealing provision is conditional on the "purposes of research or private study", which of course private pleasure is not, so the ripping is clearly not fair dealing. However, this is something that nobody's going to stop on an individual basis - the concern is more with multiple copies - note that subsection 3(b) above. If the Government really wanted to clamp down on copyright infringers, it would stop the sale of the technology that allows it to happen. But it doesn't. Reason; neither it nor the industry care very much about individual copies, it's the multiple copies that are the concern.

 

Michael, IMO, where the law or legalities are infavor of the capitalist monopolists, the only "alternative legal" way we poor beings can resort to when things get really tough for us to buy their cds is to either boycott their products or continue ripping them.

Personally, I don't rip, I always buy the original. But as companies get more greedy copy protecting their cds instead of making them affordable, honest to goodness consumers like myself might have to rethink their position on this.

In business, Fair Use has always been in favor of those who hold the gold.


regards

 

Thanks Tones - I thought that might be the case (ie that "fair use" can be used as a defence but it's not a right).

The point is, if the industry is really only concerned with multiple "industrial" copying then their mickey mouse protection schemes won't stop that. If I can copy a protected CD easily then the big boys surely can aswell.

osama - I always buy CDs, I've never downloaded a CD from the net illegally which I have kept (ie, I've only downloaded for auditioning purposes and then only very occasionally). My beef is just that the protection schemes (if they worked) would prevent me from using my CDs in a way which it's perfectly legal for me to do so (on my PC or iPod).

Michael.

 

You're right in your description about their protection scheme as being mickey mousy.

Why don't they see the light? All the resources and efforts they're going to spend protecting their products are bound to fail. Somebody will always find a way to hack on them. Like what Tones mentioned, they might as well have to stop the technology that allows copyright infringement to happen if they really want to stop it.

regards

 

I don't get this copy protection. How does it stop someone linking the digital output of a CD player to the spdif input of a computer soundcard and ripping a perfect digital copy onto the PC?

 

It doesnt.

 

As Paul said, it doesn't stop you doing a pefect copy via SPDIF but that's quite a lot of hassle compared to doing a rip in 10-15 minutes on your PC (converting it to MP3 at the same time if that's what you want.

Michael.

 

For a pirate who is going to burn 10,000 copies that's not much hassle.
I can see how it's a hassle for you and me as most sound cards don't have SPDIF inputs and the CD player wouldn't normally be co-located with the computer.
Still seems to me like the music industry is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Just as well that most of the music that interests me is in the back catalog (in many cases waaaaay back ).

 

The most important thing regarding CD's with copy protection is thae fact that they are not CD quality. Philips have refused to aknowledge copy protected cd's as cd quality and thus not allowing the use of the officail Compact disc Logo.

In jan 2002 reuters news agency interviewd gerry wirtz, Gen Manager of philips copywright office who stated that " what we have seen so far is troublesome and cumbersome. We worry the labels dont know what they are doing"

Philips, because of conformity issues, has warned the record labels that the discs are not actually cd's at all, and must bear warning labels to inform customers.
Wirtz stated " we fear that some of these so called copy protected cd's will play at first but will eventually show problems and break down."

See more at Reuters.

So, misleading advertising, products that are inferior quality and break down, concerns from the Gen Manager at Philips, who in 1978 were the first, in partnership with sony, to develop cd's.

But to add insult to injury, firms like EMI have refused to supply on line cd reatailers ie cd wow if they were to state wich cds are copy protected on their sites, thus informing the public which cd's are inferior quality.

I wrote to cd wow along with play.com and amazon stating my concerns about not being informed which cds are protected before i buy them. Also informing them of wirtz's comments and the inferior quality issues.

So far Cd wow are the only ones to reply.

READ BETWEEN THE LINES GENTLEMEN.

This is the reply

"Hi Greg

Thank you for your email.

We really appreciate getting emails from happy customers and would like to
thank you for spreading the word about CD WOW.

The Copy Protection is a thorny issue. We are not allowed to mark which CD's
are affected because we would be getting onto dicey legal ground. The record
companies, to be fair to them, are using this system for a reason although
it does affect genuine customers like yourself.

What we do try to do though is keep an up to date list of which CD's are
affected. If you were looking at a specific CD you could always contact us
and ask us to confirm if the item is on the list. The list is not foolproof
but we do try to keep it up to date.

Hope this may be of some help to you in the future Greg.

Kind Regards


Richard
www.cd-wow.com

So what to do, hmmmmmm????????

Greg

 

Since these things aren't CDs, should they really be on a shelf with all the proper CDs? The best way that a shop could distinguish them apart and give customers fair warning would be to display them on a totally seperate stand. It would confuse the majority of the public I'm sure, but they need educating anyway since they're the most likely to get pissed off and kick off at the store when their disc won't play in their pc.

Indeed, by putting these products on the same racks as proper CDs, couldn't the stores be getting themselves into legal difficulties by mis-representing the product as a CD. The same could surely go for online stores, if you search under CD it'll bring up the copy protected not cd's too.

 

Da latest Noos

UK implements US-style copyright laws
London - 12 October 2003

Copyright laws in the United Kingdom will move closer towards a US-type regime when new regulations, which implement the EU copyright Directive, enter into force by the end of this month.
The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 are the UK's attempt finally to implement the EU directive on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society into national law.
Following an almost 10-month delay to the EU's initial implementation deadline, the Regulations were submitted to Parliament on October 3. They are expected to become law on October 31.
The Regulations are aimed at extending the UK's Copyright and Designs Act of 1988 to deal with digital piracy. For the past 10 months, critics have delayed the directive's implementation repeatedly, describing some its provisions as being too restrictive.
Lobby groups, such as the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) drew parallels between the EU directive and the controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying both laws restrict public rights, technological research and freedom of expression.

.(NOTE THIS PARAGRAPH WELL!)

One of the most controversial provisions makes the circumvention of technical protection devices on copyright-protected products, such as CDs and DVDs, a criminal infringement, even for the private user making personal copies at home.
Simon Stokes, head of IP and e-commerce at technology firm Tarlo Lyons, said such provisions will push the UK closer to the controversial US position.
“But the law should be welcomed by rights owners, because it clarifies their position. It also creates more clarity on their right to injunct service providers,†he said.
The law makes it an offence knowingly to communicate to the public copyright-protected works such as films, music or broadcasts. It gives record companies the green light to go against service providers who knowingly offer their services for file-sharing of copyrighted music.
The British Phonographic Industry downplayed concerns that the law will put private internet users at risk of prosecution, following recent raids launched by the US recording industry against individual P2P users. “It's not our intention to start suing people. Once the Directive has been fully implemented into UK law, we'll have a close look at the provisions in it. But suing people will be our last resort,†a spokesman told MIP Week.
Unlike the US, the BPI believes its awareness campaigns will be effective in cracking down on digital piracy in the UK and remains optimistic that it will not have to go to the courts.
Another provision on cryptography could limit access for researchers to literary and other works in digital form, said Stokes. Though the Regulations introduce an exemption allowing cryptographers to circumvent copyright protections for their work (section 296ZA(2), they fail to clarify when exactly researchers become liable.
“From an academic/business research perspective the cryptography exception is still too narrow as a lot of research might potentially prejudice owners' rights, arguably,†said Stokes.
Another provision limits some exceptions for businesses, clarifying that copying protected works for commercial research purposes, without the proper licence, could make them liable of infringement.
The UK is only the sixth EU member state to implement the Directive, preceded by Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy. The remaining nine countries face a trial at the European Court of Justice for failing to meet the EU implementation deadline of December 22 2002.
Though the directive is aimed at harmonizing copyright laws in the EU, it is expected at best to bring the laws a little closer together. “There's no way that it will create full harmonization,†said Stokes. The directive adds new provisions making the member states' copyright laws similar, but divergence will remain in the countries' national regulations on prosecution and criminal charges and copyright exceptions

 

Exactly - which is why the protection is such a joke. It won't stop the hard core pirates. I think what they were hoping is that it would stop the kids at home ripping CDs and sticking them up on Kazaa etc and if it worked it certainly would have been successful in that aim as I don't see many kids farting about with a CD player and SPDIF etc.

It just makes me so angry that these kind of draconian laws can come in without barely a whimper. On the bright side recent court cases in the US seem to have seen common sense in this issue:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/01/07/dvd.johansen/index.html

...and, I can't find a link to it, but I seem to remember that 321 Studios (the makers of DVD X Copy DVD copying software) also recently won a court battle against the movie studios who were trying to brand the software as illegal.

There will always be software out there to circumvent copy protection and I can see no way that anyone is going to go after private home users whether they are technically breaking the law or not.

Michael.

 

The point is why pay for a cd when you are not getting a CD. Its like paying for champaign but getting sparkling wine.



Cant be legal !!!!!


Greg

 

I agree with you GPC but it all depends how you define what a "CD" is.

For the majority of punters if it plays in their CD player at home and it plays in their car then as far as they're concerned, it's a CD. None of them will even know what "red book" means.

I wonder how many people though are trying to play these CDs in their PCs and either:
a) getting duped by the "player" and crappy 48Kbps rip that gets played, or
b) seeing that it doesn't work properly and returning them to get their money back.

Unfortunately there just isn't enough awareness among the public of the issue. If enough people refused to buy protected CDs or always returned them the companies would soon get the message.

I only have 2 protected CDs, they're both of Portuguese bands and over here many more CDs have protection than in the UK because copying, particularly of the "making a copy for your mates" kind is rife here.

Michael.

 

I'm a bit confused by copy protection because as far as I'm aware I've only bought one CD that had it on the Kings of Leon, and when I put it in the computer it installed it's own media player. I wanted a copy for the car, so I made an image and then burnt it on Nero just like any other CD and it copied it just like that. So where is the copy protection....or am I missing something

 

Yes, and that media player will play a pathetically poor quality (48kbps) rip of the CD which is stored as a file on the CD, not the actual CD.

As you can see, most of the copy protection doesn't actually work as it's supposed to

Since there are existing CD players with which CDs have to be backwards compatible, no-one will ever be able to create a CD copy-protection system for CDs that works. It's just an utterly pointless waste of money by the record companies and it hardly improves their already rock bottom image.

Even DVDs which had copy protection built into them from the start are pretty easy to copy these days. Once the system has been cracked they can't do anything about it (like improving or modifying it) because of the same backwards compatability problem. Once SACDs and DVD-As become popular people will find a way to break their systems aswell. Copy protecting digital media is a lost cause IMO. If only the content producers realised this and started thinking of more creative ways to earn money.

Michael.

 

you can change it so it burns/copies at 128 kbs or higher.

I found this out last night.

 

Err....change what?

Michael.

 

No, but it DOES (in the case of the Thrills' album) stop me making a minidisc dub via coaxial, from my Rega Planet (Mk1) to my Sony JB940 MD, so it might also have a similar problem on the SPDIF soundcard...