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Technically ‘ripping’ your CD to your computer to copy over to your MP3 player is against copyright law, but that doesn’t stop anyone as far as I am aware! The government in the UK is due to change this archaic law to reflect the reality of the times, although selling or giving away your music after you had ripped it would still be illegal.

“UK music industry body the BPI said it supported the move to clarify the law for consumers, but warned that any changes should not damage the rights of record companies.”

While this seems sensible it doesn’t really change anything materially on a day to day basis, and if anything it just shows how way behind the times our elective representatives are, and of course the usual doom mongers have had their say: “The Association of Independent Music (Aim) said the proposals did not go far enough - pointing out that CDs could become obsolete in the next decade. It said that, once CDs are replaced, the law could be misused to “open the floodgates to unstoppable copying”, adding that it would like to see copyright holders compensated when music was copied.”

Err - so this is going to make the CD obsolete? Nope - technology has already all but done that with the huge popularity of online music stores. Somehow that have to find laws that accept he inevitable and still make people happy rather than try and stop something that is actually better for the majority.

Via [BBC]