Is it illegal to download your own CDs to the iPod - why Australia is a laughing stock!


How the iPod was singled out by the Sydney Morning Herald article confirms its iconic status...

Today's Sydney Morning Herald article (SMH is part of the Fairfax group of publishers, major competitors to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp . dailies) carries an article that looks like this:

Click at your own risk
August 3, 2004


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Out of tune ... Apple's ads, show you how to copy music - with the disclaimer "Don't steal music."

Apple's iPod digital music player may be the hottest electronic toy in the world,
but it has almost no legal use in Australia, writes Julian Lee.

The article goes on to say Australia's copyright laws make it illegal to load on to your iPod any music tracks you have ripped even from CDs you have purchased through legal channels.

Here's what Lee's article further states:

Anyone who has copied songs from a CD onto an iPod or computer hard drive has fallen foul
of Australian copyright laws, which critics argue are failing to keep pace with technological change.
Copying music for personal use is generally OK in the US and Europe. But not in Australia.


"It's unlikely that the Australian Federal Police would investigate individuals for offences such as
illegally copying a CD," a police spokeswoman said. "However all cases referred to the AFP are
categorised and investigated as necessary."

Now why Lee decided on singling out the iPod is interesting (and why the photo showed an old 2nd gen iPod). Especially since it is only one of a huge number of mp3 players out there, including USB thumbdrives which not only act as storage units, but can actually play mp3s, mp4s, as well as FM radio.

So the irony is that you could listen to songs on thumbdrive's FM radio because presumably the station has paid the copyright holder for the "privilege" of playing their music -
I mean, the record companies would never pay the stations to boost their clients' products would they? That would be payola wouldn't it, and we we don't want to see a repeat of those days of radio station payoffs as in the 50s, do we now?

This means listening to the same music which you ripped to the thumbdrive would be illegal, according to Lee's news report. In fact, just putting it on the thumbdrive is an illegal act, even if you purchased the CD. Indeed, it essentially means that here in Australia, what you own is the CD raw plastic material, including the crystal box, and the paper on which is printed the sleeve notes - and that's it! That's all you get for your $30 and of course the privilege of playing the CD as often as you like until it wears out. If that's the case, how about charging a little more and creating the CD on a CD-RW so that when I get tired of hearing the music, at least I own a CD I can use to back up my data, my movies and whatever else I created on my own.

Of course, if it is an iMovie I created I'm not supposed to burn it to my CD-RW if I used commercial music as a sound source, unless I downloaded it from the iTunes Music store or the local Telstra or SonyConnect online stores, which of course, are not Macintosh compatible.

Is this madness or what?

So the iPod was singled out because, as I have blogged before, it owns the public's attention when it comes to portable digital music. Would we see the iRiver or Creative Zen products mentioned by such an article? No, because it would be so ho-hum, and who cares anyway? But use the iPod, and you'll get people sitting up and paying attention.

OK, so the iPod is popular, iconic, and an object of desire, a status symbol according the owner certain characteristics in our status anxiety-conscious society.
And it's probably in the hands of many a lawyer, judge, doctor, psychologist, police officer, politician and football star. As well as a few musicians too.

So given the Australia Federal Police says "all cases referred to the AFP are categorised and investigated as necessary", let's refer a few cases to them.

I think a few well-known Australians gathered from the ranks mentioned above should walk in en masse to AFP HQ with their iPods and ripped music they purchased (bring receipts too), and present themselves ready to be charged under Australia's current copyrights laws. This law needs to be made a mockery of, to be shown to be out of step with contemporary standards and norms, and bring the copyright issue right up to the recording companies. We might have to forget about the pollies since we are in an election year and they may risk loss of their rights to stand once more for federal parliament if charged (but would gain enormous public support).

But I don't think the other well known Australians would have much to lose except their iPods which would be confiscated for examination. And do the AFP really want to get involved in these "crimes"... gosh, I wonder if even suggesting a bunch of well-known Australian march on the AFP could see me charged with incitement offences?

Humorous sidebar: One of my professors asked me for some help ripping her purchased CDs to her iPod, as some were giving her trouble. So I gave her clear instructions including info. on compression protocols, playlists, etc, using iTunes. So, did I encourage her to commit illegal acts, or did she breach the university guidelines for appropriate internet use by encouraging a student to to show her ways to breach the law? Crazier and crazier!

Actually, maybe we should forget the famous Australians and just get anyone who has an el cheapo MP3 player with their purchased music to present themselves en masse to the AFP and say, "what do you want to do to us? Prosecute now or just forget about it!" Naturally, we better include some 5 and 6 year olds and their "Bananas in Pyjamas" music they got last birthday or Christmas, just to give the media hounds a few more picture opportunities. Hmm, I wonder how many record company execs'. children would fall into this category?

The recording companies lost this battle a long time ago, and are playing at sniper games. They are stifled in their ability to put the MP3 cat back in the bag, unless they come up with a better user experience, as Steve Jobs (get well soon!) said he wished to do with Apple's iTunes Music Store. I mean, what a risk the Stevester took! "We will charge you US99c for music you can get for nuthin'!"

Huh?

Yep, Apple will make the music sampling and download experience so simple, so easy, so transparent, so foolproof, and so satisfying, that the average punter will say, "my time is worth more than 99c per tune to get my chosen music onto my PC or Mac or iPod. Virus free, reliable, and legal."

So here in Australia we play "wait and see pie" until Apple Australia completes its negotiations with local music companies. I think as soon as Steve recovers, goes off to Paris to release new G5 iMacs (and please, Keynote 2.0!), he ought to come to Australia (after all Steve Balmer and Bill Gates have blown through recently if only to shore up deals with Telstra who were threatening to go Linux and open-source).

Come on down, Steve, take a vacation here, have a chat to our local musos over a nice cuppa, and do some arm-bending. Then come to the local Mac support group and have another cuppa and chat.

A few other problems with Lee's SMH article: 100 million tunes have been dowloaded, not bought from Apple's site. Millions were given away free in competitions and freebies. Also, the psychologist who had a friend who legally downloaded iTunes music files and emailed them to him from the US. Hmm...not sure that's exactly legal either. The US friend could be running a risk there, unless of course they've gone halves in ownership of the iTMS account.

Posted: Wed - August 4, 2004 at 02:00 PM         |

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