Whilst I’m on a digital music roll, it’s worth also mentioning that the BPI chairman, Peter Jamieson, has said that the BPI won’t press for prosecution of users who make digital copies for use on portable players of music that they own. The BBC report is here and the BPI’s version is here. Jamieson was speaking to the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media & Sport inquiry into New Media and the Creative Industries.
BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson was quizzed on the fact that the “all rights reserved” nature of British copyright law means that – without specific authorisation – any UK consumer who rips CDs they have bought in order to fill an iPod or other MP3 player is currently guilty of copyright infringement.
“Traditionally the recording industry has turned a blind eye to private copying and has used the strength of the law to pursue commercial pirates,” he said.
“We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties and make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format we will not pursue them.”
Notice what he has said though. Some media are reporting this as “copying music for personal use is not illegal”. Jamieson was very careful not to say that. He is saying that the BPI will not prosecute people who make copies for personal use. Not that they couldn’t if they wanted to. Just that they won’t. Under a strict reading of the law, making these copies is copyright infringement.
I believe that the law of estoppel means that in order for the BPI to prosecute people for format-shifting in future, they would have to make a similarly well-publicised announcement that they had changed their minds over not prosecuting people.
That’s fine as far as prosecutions by the BPI. But are they the only people who are entitled to prosecute for this kind of copyright infringement? How about the copyright holders themselves?