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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Copyright law has no specific exemption (in the US or UK; less sure about other places) for personal copies for noncommercial use. If you make a copy, you are potentially in breach of copyright. Keeping or removing the original doesn't change the act of making the copy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkScribe
It does in both the US and the UK. It is not breach of copyright if you legally hold title to anything that you duplicate - as long as you don't part with the original so as to lose your legal status.
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The UK doesn't have an outright exemption (though my understanding is that in the US, "fair use" allows for personal copies, and "
fair dealing" in the UK allows for some personal copying). According to the
Copyright basic facts PDF from the UK Intellectual Property Office:
Quote:
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Just buying a book, CD, video or computer program does not give you the right to make copies (even for private use) or play or show them in public. The right to do these things generally belongs to the copyright owner, so you will need their permission. Photocopying a work, scanning it to produce an electronic copy, and downloading a copy of a work which is in an electronic form (for example, on a CD-ROM or an on-line database) all involve copying the work, so you will usually need permission to do these things.
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There have been at least two reviews of copyright law in recent years that have suggested making it legal to make copies for personal use, and I'm reasonably sure that the governments of the time promised to enact those recommendations. That hasn't happened yet, though.