The long-awaited changes to the copyright rules allow people to rip content they've already purchased

Oct 1, 2014 14:26 GMT  ·  By

British citizens can finally copy MP3s, CDs, DVDs and live broadcasts for personal use after the local copyright law was amended to legalize this form of data copying.

TorrentFreak reports that despite the delay, the UK copyright law was finally changed to allow such basic data copying, especially since the media involved has already been paid for by the individual. While this may sound like common sense for everyone else, Brits couldn’t do this until today.

The government has decided that it’s in the consumers’ best interest to legalize copying of such material for personal use earlier this year. The announcement was made by the UK Intellectual Property Office a while back and the changes were actually supposed to go into effect in June, but Parliamentary approval was delayed.

“These changes are going to bring our IP laws into the 21st century. They will mean that the UK IP regime will now be responsive to the modern business environment and more flexible for consumers,” said IP Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe.

Basically, as long as the copy you want to make of a DVD, CD or other media is for personal use, that’s OK, even when the legally purchased media is backed up to the cloud.

Up until now there’s been a big rift between the law and public opinion because consumers believed it was their right to rip a CD or DVD that they’d already legally purchased, while a good part of users admitted to making copies even if it was illegal.

Other amendments are also on the list

The new copying rights fall in line with the law in many European countries where people can copy music for their own use. Basically, as long as one does not start selling the content or putting it on public online sites, things are fine.

There are also a series of upcoming amendments that seek to broaden people’s fair use rights, which would also benefit freedom of speech. For instance, if a person quotes from the work of others or parodies that work, they’ll no longer have to ask for permission. The only condition is for the source to be recognized through quoting.

“In relation to certain exceptions, if you are making use of that exception to copy someone else’s work it is necessary for you to sufficiently acknowledge their work. For example, where you have copied all or a substantial part of a work for the purposes of criticism or review, or where the use was for the purposes of news reporting,” reads the overview of the upcoming changes.