For most of us, the idea of taking an old CD and ripping it onto iTunes is a standard practice.
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That makes iTunes/iPods essentially useless in the UK, although the government hasn’t appeared especially keen on cracking down.
Fearing a lack of revenue a number of music teams objected at the High Court, which subsequently agreed that the new laws is illegal.
As TorrentFreak notes, iTunes had at one point in the past advertised its CD ripping capabilities during the software’s installation screen, but as we’ve tested today, this message is now gone. Whenever you pop a disc into the ol’ drive, iTunes prompts you to copy the CD.
With CD-ripping being a prominent feature of iTunes, and one that Apple promotes within the service itself, this could mean that the tech giant will face significant fines and become vulnerable to lawsuits in the near future. Thanks to the High Court’s decision, the very existence of this feature is illegal and using it is punishable by law. While they specifically mention CD-to-MP3 conversion, this means any type of conversion is illegal. Unusable.
“It includes creating back-ups without permission from the copyright holder as this necessarily involves an act of copying”, the government spokesperson added.
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In other words, if your computer were to crash or get stolen, the only legally sound course of action is now to re-purchase all of your music and movies.
