Victor Keegan admits to committing a crime in today's Technology Guardian. What crime was that? Well, he copied a CD he had bought onto his hard drive.
This is illegal under section 16 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which prohibits any copying in relation to "a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work", including storing it by "electronic means".
Actually although it is section 16 which sets out the acts restricted by copyright, it is section 17 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 which defines "copying" as being a breach of copyright.
It's worth a read, and I agree with his comment:
It is admittedly difficult to say exactly what the law should be.
When you are a solicitor, the future of the law, is not something you normally find yourself giving a lot of thought to. However, this is an area I am very interested in and I was at the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group inquiry into Digital Rights Management from which the Report, referred to in Victor Keegan's article emerged. One thing that was clear from that session, was that it was more than evident that nobody quite knew what the law should be, which makes the whole thing even more fascinating, given the impact this has on all our lives. It'll be interesting to see what the Gower Review of Intellectual Property comes up with. The Report, promised in "Autumn 2006", must be due any day now.
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