THE GREAT UNWASHED are clueless when it comes to the ins and outs of copyright law, a watchdog has barked.
Consumers are confused by copyright laws that mean it is still illegal to copy a CD onto their computer, according to a watchdog group. Consumer Focus said that current copyright law was outdated and millions of people were breaking the law while remaining unaware of the problem.
Jill Johnstone of Consumer Focus said that the current state of British law makes it an offence to copy a CD or DVD onto a computer or an Ipod for one's own use. She pointed to a poll of 2,026 people, in which some 73 per cent said that they did not know what they could copy or record.
IT lawyer Nick Lockett, of DL Legal, told the BBC that nobody was being prosecuted for the technical breach in the law. A similar problem arose when video recorders allowed people to record a television show and watch it later in the day, which at the time was illegal.
Amendments to the law only came after video recorders had been on the market for some time, but of course that was fought like crazy by the film industry.
He said that if anyone was going to fall foul of the current law it would be companies that set up commercial operations to copy content, however the great unwashed are probably safe.
We guess this means that people are safe to copy their own legally purchased CDs and DVDs onto their own computers unless the music and film industries want to start prosecuting them. µ
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