Australia to allow CD ripping, too

In another Pyrrhic victory for fair use rights, Australia's government is set to legalize CD ripping. The revision to the country's copyright law, like proposed changes being mulled in the UK, will legalize activities that are already fairly widespread, including "format shifting" of music you legally own from CDs to digital audio players. While blessing common practices, the new law cracks down on file sharing and piracy, allowing police to issue on-the-spot fines to anyone caught in the act of piracy. The Australian law may also apply to ebooks, which could require companies like Adobe and Microsoft to allow protected ebooks to be printed or saved in other formats for use on non-supported devices.

[Via Techdirt]

[dzieci @ May 15th 2006 11:26AM]

good move :)

[Nate @ May 15th 2006 11:48AM]

/agree

[Ben Brenker @ May 15th 2006 11:59AM]

So basically, enough people were doing it/wanted it that the government made it legal for them to do it, even in the face of arguments from the RIAA equivalent in AU. Why doesn't that work for p2p also?

[Buthidae @ May 15th 2006 12:33PM]

I reckon it's a great improvement! At the moment, we're not legally allowed to record on to VCR's, let alone rip cd's! :-P

[Buthidae @ May 15th 2006 12:36PM]

Of course, that law isn't enforced, but it does look pretty silly!

[feeble @ May 15th 2006 2:12PM]

.....
you guys may need to read the fine print.
its a move in the right direciton.
but:
-you cant make cd to cd backup
-you must destroy/delete the copy after 1 day
-monitoring of what australias are downloading of the interent will be ..increased?


ok its means that recording a show to watch today is now legal for the 20million australias, but doesnt really change anything off paper.

its a step, but not a large one.

[john b @ May 15th 2006 6:20PM]

this is not what it seems
pls read this and you will shake your head
http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//004567.html

[pcgsrx87 @ May 15th 2006 9:09PM]

download are legal in CANADA
:P

[Symo @ May 15th 2006 11:29PM]

Yes this is an improvement... but not that great of a one... most people didn't even know it was illegal to rip CD's, or tape stuff off TV... everybody did it already, and now they'll just keep doing it, whats the difference?...

[Intrepid @ May 16th 2006 3:15AM]

Ah, something good from our government for a change.

[Claudiu Spulber @ May 16th 2006 3:30AM]

"A Pyrrhic victory (pronounced pirric) is a victory which comes at heavy cost to the victor."
Now this is still a victory, but I hope the war won't be lost. It's a good move. If you own the original CD, why wouldn't you have the right to create mp3s from it to listen more of them in your player? Same with books, if I want to make a copy of it to protect the original when I read, why shouldn't I have the right to do so?

And I could go on and on. But of course that the combination of greed and money gives them the power to do whatever they want.

[Nick @ Jun 21st 2006 11:24PM]

In respose to the above "music downloads are legal in Canada", beware - CRIA is lobbying parliment hard to change this by 2007. They want to pass American style laws - not Australian type ones.