Don't Wait Up For Sensible Copyright Laws

The government recently announced changes to copyright laws that seemed to contain an element of common sense. Optimism soon changed to disappointment after reading the fine print.

The proposed changes to consumer copyright law aren't so generous after all. Time shifting TV programs and ripping your legally bought CD so you can listen to it on your MP3 player won't be as straight forward as it first sounded. It's hardly surprising. The politicians don't appear to understand the technology, and the media companies want to maximise profits by forcing consumers to buy the same movie / song / program more than once for different media formats.

The legislators haven't grasped the difference between 'content,' ie the song, movie, etc, and the 'media,' ie, the format on which the content is stored. Existing copyright law doesn't differentiate between the content and the media, and allows the producers to control both.

When a CD or DVD is bought, the major cost is for the content. The cost of the media is minimal. Purchasing a CD or DVD buys a licence that allows the purchaser to privately use the content in perpetuity, but as things stand, only on the original media.

Consumers are not allowed to make backup copies of digital content that they've paid for, but if the media is damaged, or in time becomes obsolete, they have to buy the content again. It is scandalous that the producers expect, and the law tries to enforce, consumers to pay for the same thing more than once.

In the absence of being able to create legal backups, media companies should have to honour the paid licence by replacing the damaged / obsolete media for the cost of the media only. In addition, as a licence fee has been paid, there should be no restriction on shifting the content from one format to another as long as it is for personal use.

Of course, we all know the sentiments expressed above aren't going to happen.

What will happen is that consumers will ignore the largely unenforceable copyright laws and use whatever available technology it takes to backup the original media and shift the content to other formats.

The producers will respond by introducing new Digital Rights Management (DRM) media formats that contain encryption, making copying more difficult.

Consumers will be reluctant to throw out their perfectly serviceable media players. Uptake of the new formats will be slow.

Even if DRM players become entrenched, it won't stop the piracy that content producers have lost sleep over for decades. When playing DRM content, it is decrypted and can therefore be copied. File sharing networks will utilise encryption themselves and control of the network itself will be decentralised, making them very difficult to monitor and shut down.

It's about time that content producers realised that once the recorded media is with the public they have effectively lost control of it. They should acknowledge users will do what they like with the content they have bought, and stop trying to lobby governments to make criminals out of the general population.

Producers would be better off concentrating on making their money early on in the release cycle. The enjoyment of a live music performance or seeing a movie for the first time in a theatre can't be copied.

Providing easily obtained, inexpensive content with realistic restrictions later in the release cycle would do more to prevent piracy than convincing governments to increase copyright surveylance and penalties.