ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_100506

Record industry: "Let people copy music for their personal use"

Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, it's just more or less codifying the existing behaviour: in the UK, it's currently illegal to rip your own CD onto your iPod, so the music industry now asked the government to make it legal.

The BPI has vigorously prosecuted consumers who share music illegally over the internet using peer-to-peer (P2P) websites. It wants the current legislative protections to remain in place for these music "pirates", but believes allowances should be made for individuals who simply want to copy music for their own use.

"This is about the UK music industry responding effectively to the changing way music is consumed," said a senior industry figure yesterday.

Of course, with the EUCD directive, you are still a criminal if you break a DRM system to rip your "copy protected" CD, but it's a good thing that someone out there still has some grasp of reality. It's not exactly much, though: I doubt anyone was sitting home waiting for permission to transfer music from their CDs to their iPods.

I've said it before and I've said it now: copying bits cannot be prevented, and therefore there is no point to try and restrict it (except by hiding them in places where they cannot be found). It's how you use those bits that determines who should get paid and whom you should ask permission from... And legislation should reflect that - it's a reality of the digital age.

(Via Digg.)