Using iTunes, ripping music and backing it up all illegal as UK changes copyright law

The ruling makes practically every way of listening to music illegal

Two monks check out a CD shop selling pirated movies and music albums in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, 02 December 2004. (Getty Images)

The UK has made it illegal once again to make personal copies of you music so that you can store them in the cloud, or rip songs from CDs.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has decided to abandon an exception to copyright law that allowed people to make copies of media for their own personal use. That means that in theory people could be sent to jail simply for using iTunes.

The exception was introduced in October 2014 to ensure that people could use the music that they owned across different devices.

But it was the subject of a judicial review from industry bodies in June this year. The High Court ruled that the exception was flawed and abandoned it, meaning that making any copy of media is illegal.

Now, the IPO has decided to abandon the exception, according to 1709 Blog. Rulings in the European court have made it too difficult to create a scheme that would allow rights holders to be compensated for the copying, but not introduce a complicated system of levies that users would have to pay whenever they backed up or transferred their music.

Right groups had suggested that while a tax on transferring music was unlikely to work, other options such as levies on blank media like CDs could be passed on to rights holders. That system has been used in other European countries.

That means that ripping music, moving it from a CD to an iPod and using iTunes are all breaking the law, which is unlikely to be reversed.

The legal status of copies that were made while the exception was in force is unclear.

It is unlikely that anyone making copies of music will actually be pursued by authorities. When the exception was previously removed, prosecutions and claims for compensation were very rare and such cases tend to be ignored.

But the industry bodies that began the case have claimed that the unauthorised copying takes as much as £58 million, and that they should receive that in compensation.