Progress has been extremely slow when it comes to the UK and its copyright law making their way across the finish line in the digital era. It has taken a rather lengthy two-year legislative process for the UK’s Intellectual Property Office to publish the final version of copyright exceptions. In layman’s terms, this would make it legal for users to rip CDs and shift formats from this coming June 1, 2014, onwards, as long as those rips are used for personal purposes and not on a commercial whim or business premise.
Apart from that, CD rips can be performed by institutions so that these duplicates are used for backup or research purposes. The Secretary of State is also able to inform copyright holders to make content accessible should paying for an alternative format be impractical in nature.
Of course, this does not open up the doors for outright piracy, but the new measures that will be put in place ought to allow folks in the UK to bring up their media collection to speed without wallowing in guilt at night, thinking that they have broken the law. You know what they say, better late than never! If you are living in the UK, are you pleased with this particular development? [Press Release]
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