Copying music CDs

[Geoff]

As I understand the current laws. I can't copy music from CDs under pain of large pointy sticks and forfiting a mountain of gold to the music industry. Does this situation apply to schools? I know there used to be 'fair use' rights for things like this. But I thought the EUCD abolished almost all of that.

[Snuffkins]

I thought you could copy CD's for use as a backup as long as you have the original media?

[richard]

I have had to deal with a similar issue recently and in my search for information I spoke to BECTA who sent the following to me.

As far as I know it is illegal unless permission has been granted by the rights owner. Some of the teachers may be thinking that you can make 'personal' copies under 'fair use' provisions, but this is a very narrow condition and I very much doubt copies on a school server would be covered. However, I'd stress that it it depends on what the rights owner has stated they will allow.

There is a big legal debate about digital file sharing (eg. it is technically illegal in most cases to put copies of mp3's onto your iPod, as you normally need to save them on your Mac/PC first), but changes are probably a while away.

The school should check license conditions and should consult a professional legal adviser - Becta isn't able to provide advice on these sorts of issues and any information we provide them should not be taken to be legal advice.

Hope that helps.

[Mitch]

Geoff

Depends on the origin of the music in question. can get quite complicated, even backups is a grey area. "fair use" is now abolished.

Mitch

[beeswax]

we refuse to do it here

[MrDylan]

I won't do it here either, but if someone happened to have some music in their User Area and wanted to burn it to CD, I'd sell them a blank, tell them it's naughty and push them out the door.

[webman]

Request a statement from someone at the LEA who deals with multimedia licensing.

[StewartKnight]

typical mis-information from the music industry. Copying CD's is NOT theft (as they would have you believe), it is simply copyright infringement. And since when have teachers been concerned about a little copyright infringement!

[Geoff]

Because copyright infringement is a criminal offence and you can't be a teacher if you have a criminal record.

[andy]

Because copyright infringement is a criminal offence and you can't be a teacher if you have a criminal record.

That would answer the question "Why should they be concerned"

Andy

[StewartKnight]

you can be a teacher with a criminal record (I'm sure half the teachers I've met have), you just can't be a kiddie fiddler!

[Geoff]

Did you realise the punishment for copyright infringement is actually higher/worse than being caught fiddling with kids?

[webman]

you can be a teacher with a criminal record (I'm sure half the teachers I've met have), you just can't be a kiddie fiddler!

Ruth Kelly might disagree... ops: 8O

[Benji1]

Just done a search in google and found this document. Makes interesting reading

[Ric_]

Just done a search in google and found this document. Makes interesting reading

Makes for quite interesting reading. Gives me a couple of ideas about stopping people storing music and the like. Random checking and having people produce CDs on request just for a start.

It's always good to see bodies producing documents like this for education.