Is it worth the effort setting up a NAS? Do you watch all those films you transferred from disk?

tim68

I can't remember the last time I put a disc in a spinner and just rip my discs to a media player with an enclosed HDD, I don't have a large collection of movies so as it is at the moment my media player has 4TB internal HDD and a 2TB portable drive hooked up through USB.

I used to hate having to watch all the guff about how "I could be a criminal" if I had this content through illegal means, same rubbish spouted by TVL about how "I could be a criminal "if" I watched live tv without a TVL designed to scare you. the movie studios should be thanking me for taking the time to buy their content.

I still think it's a very grey area regarding ripping discs you own, I don't think it's the actual ripping of the disc that is illegal but breaking the copy/security protection on the disc.

Sloppy Bob

Same as with music.

I paid for it, I'll do what I want with it. As long as I'm not illegally sharing it with others via torrents etc I don't care, it's mine to do with as I wish.

mickevh

It's not a grey area at all (in the UK.) It is covered by the Copyright Act which includes some "fair usage" exemptions that IIRC now includes things like format shifting and backups.

mushii

All of the fair usage legislation, that was introduced into UK Copyright Law in 2014, was overturned by A High Court challenge by the (not so greedy) music industry, in 2015. Consequently it is still illegal, in the UK, to make any sort of copy of digital media even as back-ups for personal use only. You do not own the content of a CD / DVD / BD, you only own the media that it resides on. The music / film is licensed to you, for your use (or any other uses that you hold licenses for) and in the UK that license prohibits copying or format shifting.
Given all of the streaming services available, this is ludicrous in 2019 but Sir Paul McCartney, Cardi B and Taylor Swift still have to pay for their butlers and chauffeurs some how.

mickevh

For every Macca and Madonna out there coining it, there are literally millions of other creative people who bearly scrape a living (or run at a loss) and their output deserves to be protected from all the spivs that would rip them off. To characterize Copyright law as being something that is just there to protect 'toffs' and 'big business' is unfair IMHO. Creative content producers deserve to be paid for their work, just like everyone else, unless they choose to give it away for free.

Thanks for the head up about the High Court case - I hadn't heard that, though I haven't had cause to read the Act recently (as you might imagine, it's not something I do for, er, "fun.")

mushii

@mickevh I agree that all artist should have their work protected. I support live local music and my entire music collection is owned either on CD or as studio masters. What I think is silly that if you have bought a digital license or own the physical media, you should be allowed to store it in whatever means suits you, as long as you are not illegally sharing or distributing it. The music industry and bodies like the RIAA should be doing more to ensure that copyright laws are reasonable for the day and age that they are working in. Current copyright law is based on 30  year old technologies, where the bulk digital storage of music / films was almost unheard of. Overturning fair use legislation served no other purpose than for the greed of those artists looking to set up or buy into streaming services to gain alternate revenue streams from the public who had in many cases already bought (licensed) the music on other media. This was not the young and struggling artists, but the wealthy artists who could afford to bring these challenges for narcissistic means under the guise of protecting 'the industry'. It has done nothing to prevent piracy or illegal distribution of music. Pirates will break the law whether legislation is in place or not, this just punished legitimate music owners from building digital libraries and forcing them to use streaming services. This was IMHO an act of pure greed.