In Britain,
anyone who has copied music they purchased for their own personal use such as to an iPod has been technically guilty of copyright infringement. With consumers ditching their portable CD players for iPods and other personal MP3 players, it is clear that consumers must copy their CDs to their MP3 players in order to listen to their bought CDs on the move and thus the British Phonograph Industry announced that it will not go after consumers who make copies of their music so long as it is strictly for personal use only. The BPI chairman Peter Jamieson admitted that the copying of purchased music CDs to iPods and other MP3 players is widespread and he does not see this as a problem, so long as consumers do not make copies available to third parties.
The record industry is also interested in extending the copyright term for sound recordings from 50 years to 95 years as they claim the shorter 50 year period discriminates against the recording artists, not to mention the export industries. The BPI is also pushing for Apple to opt for interoperability, since at this time only an iPod can play music purchased from iTunes and the iPod cannot play music purchased from other legal music download services such as Napster.
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Giving evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media & Sport inquiry into New Media and the Creative Industries yesterday, the trade body said it didn't consider copying to different devices a problem as long as it was solely for personal use. UK consumers who rip CDs they have bought in order to fill an iPod or other MP3 player are technically guilty of copyright infringement. The BPI didn't say how it would collar any consumer transferring music from paid for CDs to other devices, but its chairman Peter Jamieson admitted this activity is widespread. |
As music delivered by music download services do not
incur the costs of producing CDs, jewel cases, booklets, warehousing, shipment
and so on, it seems strange for the Managing Director of Independent Records to
reveal that the cost of distributing music as digital downloads is actually
higher than by CDs. With the music industry getting well over half the price
paid per iTunes song, it seems that their distribution cost is based on something else, such as not being able to charge as high price as they would like per song compared with CD versions.
Source: Computer Act!ve
