Ripping CDs and movies for personal use is once again illegal in UK

Making copies of copyrighted music and videos for personal use is again illegal in the UK because of a ruling by the High Court issued today.

Today's ruling quashes the 2014 regulation that made it legal to make personal copies of performances for private use as long as the person doing so has lawfully acquired the content and doesn't distribute it to anyone else. That regulation allowed people to make backups or play songs or movies in different formats but didn't allow selling copies or sharing them with family and friends.

But the High Court ruled last month that the regulation hadn't been enacted properly. The personal use exception wasn't immediately thrown out because other remedies could have been considered, but today's ruling takes it off the books.

"A judge ruled that the government was wrong legally when it decided not to introduce a compensation scheme for songwriters, musicians, and other rights holders who face losses as a result of their copyright being infringed," the BBC reported. The decision came "after a legal challenge from Basca, the Musicians' Union, and industry representatives UK Music."

It seems unlikely that anyone would be punished for making copies if they're not distributing them. "It's unclear how the change will be enforced," the BBC noted. "Court action was rare under the previous law and the industry often turned a blind eye to people copying data for personal use."

The decision to quash the law occurred quickly after last month's ruling because government officials decided not to object. They could still impose a new exception for personal use, but they would have to implement it differently to survive any court challenge.

"Insofar as the Secretary of State has not articulated a present intent to reintroduce an exception and seeks time to think matters over, it would be neither right nor fair to rightholders to deprive them of the fruits of victory in this litigation," the High Court said.

UK Music, which represents record labels, songwriters, musicians, and others, hailed the High Court for "agree[ing] with us that Government acted unlawfully when it introduced an exception to copyright for private copying without fair compensation."

Before losing its case, "The UK government argued that by limiting the new exception to private copies, any harm caused to copyright holders was indeed negligible and therefore did not need to be funded—for example through a levy charged on consumers of blank media (CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, etc.) and equipment (MP3 players, printers, PCs, etc.)—of the kind found in other EU countries with copyright exceptions," Ars UK wrote last month.

US copyright law doesn't have a specific exception for backups and format-shifting, but the Recording Industry Association of America says that the practice "will usually not raise concerns" as long as the user legitimately owns the music and makes a copy just for personal use.