The Musicians’ Union, Basca, and the industry representation body UK Music brought about the change. They say the government “acted unlawfully” by allowing members of the public to digitize hard material for personal use because it allowed people to copy protected work without compensation for the artists.
In effect, the ruling is not likely to impact many people though. Just as before, there isn’t an easy way to enforce the law. The industry typically paid no attention to people ripping CDs to add to their digital music collection, an exercise that is likely to continue.
Only very rarely has prosecution occurred unless the individual has shared the copies with other people or attempted to sell it on line. This has always been illegal, even under the law of last year that allowed people to copy discs for personal usage.
Jo Dipple, CEO of UK Music, told the BBC: “Last month, the High Court agreed with us that government acted unlawfully when it introduced an exception to copyright for private copying without fair compensation. We therefore welcome the court’s decision today to quash the existing regulations. It is vitally important that fairness for songwriters, composers and performers is written into the law.”
The reversal of the law means consumers are once again no longer able to copy CDs and DVDs they have bought onto a computer for consumption in different places or in different formats. Regardless, few people are likely to meet with prosecution if they continue and the legislation seems more to be based around principle than actual enforcement values.
UK Music has estimated that allowing people to continue free copying of material could lead to losses of up to £58 million a year for artists and rights holders. The UK government had argued that any harm done to copyright holders would have been negligible because the law only applied to private usage.