James Delahunty
11 Feb 2005 11:12
Norway is proposing new copyright laws that would make it illegal for CD owners to copy their music to MP3 files to portable music players. The strange thing however, is that the law would allow you to copy a DVD or CD to the same medium. "For example, a CD's (security code) could be cracked to play a recording on a car stereo, since a CD-player would be seen as an appropriate medium," the news release said. "But the security code could not be cracked to copy the recording onto an MP3 player, since such a device would not be seen as an appropriate for a CD."
Not appropriate? OK, I see what this is all about. If you have, let’s say an old Metallica CD at home and a brand new iPod, you want the Metallica songs on your iPod so you decide to rip it with Exact Audio Copy to MP3 format right? WRONG! These new laws would make that illegal so instead you would have to run along to iTunes and purchase that same music all over again. That’s a Win/Win situation for the music industry but a very unfair one for consumers.
Gisle Hannemyr, of the University of Oslo's Department of Informatics, said the law was unclear and unenforceable. "We are going to be a nation of lawbreakers if this law is passed in its current form," he said on the state radio network NRK. For his part, Hannemyr said he has already copied an appropriate song for his own MP3 player: Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief." The Movie and Music Industry however, applauded this proposal.
A Norwegian man, Jon Lech Johansen is known worldwide as DVD-Jon after he made his program, DeCSS available to the entire internet. You could then use this to rip your DVD to your HDD, and with the right editing tools, could compress a DVD-9 movie to fit on a DVD-R (although at the time, people focused more on DivX and VCD/SVCD mostly). Norwegian courts however, ruled that he could not be convicted for making or using a tool to break into his own property, in form of films that he had legally purchased.
Source:
Yahoo