The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is planning to legalise the practice of ‘ripping’ content from CDs and DVDs, in a bid to bring the country’s copyright law up to date for the digital age.
Consumers are currently prohibited from copying content on a CDs or DVDs onto MP3 players or PCs. The new law would change this by allowing users to copy the CD or DVD as long as he owns it and only use it for private purposes.
IPO said in a statement that the changes make small but important reforms to UK copyright law and aim to end the current situation where minor and reasonable acts of copying are unlawful.
"They also remove a range of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book in line with the government’s aim to reduce regulation," the agency said.
The new regulations would also let consumers to copy a book or ?lm purchased on a single device onto another.
However, it would be against the law to develop copies for friends or family, or to rip anything owned by others or have acquired illegally, without the consent from the copyright owner.
The new law still does not grant users the rights to copy media from on-demand streaming services, including Spotify and Netflix.