Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's not entirely true. It's illegal to buy a CD and rip it to your PC, yes. It's not illegal to download an MP3 to your PC and copy it to your iPod. Format conversion is what's illegal: if you buy music in a particular (digital) format, there's no problem at all in moving it around from one device to another, as long as it's for your personal use.
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Although there is an interesting legal point there.
Playing an MP3 file requires copying it from the original file into RAM, which it seems under UK copyright law constitutes an act of copying[1], and if you were not licenced to make that copy, it would indeed be copyright infringement.
However, this means that an MP3 that was not sold including a licence to make such transient copies would be impossible to use, so is it reasonably to imply such permission into a sale even if it is not explicitly stated?
So actually I might have to correct myself, and say that mr ploppy might be technically correct (which is the best sort of correct
), and that absent a licence from the copyright owner, or someone authorised to grant permission on their behalf, it may indeed be illegal to make a copy of an mp3 file, and that would include actually playing it.
1: Eg, Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (t/a Sony Computer Entertainment Inc) v Ball & Ors [2004] EWHC 1738 (Ch) (19 July 2004)
Quote:
There can be no doubt that silicon chips are articles. Mr Kime does not suggest otherwise. Further he accepts that were the Sony material to be loaded into a Read Only Memory ("ROM"), that is to say a silicon chip designed to retain the loaded material substantially permanently, the chip so loaded would constitute an article. Again, if the copy were unlicensed it would be an infringing copy within the definition in the Act. He also accepts that if the same material were loaded into an Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory ("EPROM"), a type of silicon chip which can record digital data and will retain it until it is instructed to delete or override the data, it would constitute an article, even if it were decided to erase the material within a second or two. He says that the EPROM containing the copy would be a "tangible substance". The only exclusion covers the case when the digital material is copied into a RAM chip as happens in the PS2 console. Although the RAM chip itself is an article, he argues that the RAM containing the copy of Sony 's digital data is too short lived to be regarded as tangible. Mr Kime is not able to indicate how short the life of the copy in the chip has to be before the chip containing the copy ceases to be an article. He argues that, wherever the border lies, in the case of the PS2 console, the life is too short to count.
I do not accept this argument. The silicon RAM chip is an article. When it contains the copy data, it is also an article. The fact that it did not contain the copy before and will not contain the copy later does not alter its physical characteristics while it does contain a copy. It is always an article but it is only an infringing article for a short time. There is nothing in the legislation which suggests that an object containing a copy of a copyright work, even if only ephemerally, is for that reason to be treated as not an article. On the contrary, the definition in s 27 points to the instant of making of the copy as crucial to the determination of whether or not it is an infringing article. An article becomes an infringing article because of the manner in which it is made. Whether it is an infringing article within the meaning of the legislation must be determined by reference to that moment. It matters not whether it is remains in that state, since retention as a copy is no part of the definition in the section.
This is also consistent with the provisions of s. 17 which, insofar as material, provides that:
"(2) Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form. This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.
(6) Copying in relation to any description of work includes the making of copies which are transient or are incidental to some other use of the work."
Mr Kime accepts that the playing of an unauthorised copy of a PS2 game or a 'foreign' authentic game on a PS2 console involves copying a substantial part of the copyright work into RAM and, questions of licence aside, amounts to infringement pursuant to these provisions, but he argues that there is a difference in scope between the act of infringement and those articles which can be regarded as infringing copies. I can see no justification for such a difference. In my view the meaning of the term "infringing copy" takes colour from its context in the Act. Just as a transient act of copying amounts to infringement, so an article which transiently contains a copy is an infringing copy for the purpose of this legislation. Taken together, these two subsections appear to suggest that even making a transient copy of a work can constitute making a reproduction "in a material form". Thus RAM containing a copy of Sony 's copyright work is a reproduction in material form. It would produce an unwarranted inconsistency in the Act were that material form not to be considered an article for the purpose of s 27. It follows that Mr Kime's argument on this point fails.
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