RadioArchive.cc - RIP

[Chris Marriott]

Actually, Jon, British copyright law is surprisingly lax when it comes to
radio broadcasts. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the copyright on UK
radio broadcasts, in its article "Copyright Law of the United Kingdom".

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Under the terms of the 1956 Act, copyright in a radio broadcast is not
infringed by recording it for non-commercial use. The Act only prohibits
recording a broadcast if done other than for private purposes, and it also
prohibits causing a broadcast (if it is a television broadcast) to be seen
in public by a paying audience: section 14(4), Copyright Act 1956.

In respect of the first point, a recording is not made for a commercial
purpose (i.e. a non-private purpose) unless it is offered for sale; so where
a recording was made for home use, and is not subsequently offered for sale,
at no stage is it used for a commercial purpose. In respect of the second
point, where the broadcast is radio, not television, it does not fall within
the terms of the restriction.

The effect is that it is not an infringement of copyright to record or copy
a broadcast made on or after 1 January 1959, unless it is done for
commercial purposes (i.e. for payment).

The copyright law of the United Kingdom was not amended further until 1988;
and the 1988 Act has no application to a broadcast made before it came into
force, on 1 August 1989: section 170 and Schedule 1 paragraph 5(1),
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The 1988 Act is relevant to an earlier broadcast only in that it now
expressly permits the making of a copy for private study: section 29,
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. This strengthens the previous
provision, in section 14 of the 1956 Act, that permits a broadcast to be
recorded for private purposes.

-----------------------------------------

Hence recording or copying a radio broadcast for non-commercial purposes is
not a copyright infringement. It may of course be against the iPlayer terms
of service, but that's a different matter.

Chris



-----Original Message----- 
From: Jon Davies
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:20 AM
To: get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: Fw: RadioArchive.cc - RIP

On 17 January 2013 23:45, Peter S Kirk <peter.kirk at isauk.biz> wrote:
> I up BBC radio to TPB now.

Admitting in a public forum that you're acting in a way that's clearly
contrary to the law isn't such a good idea.

get_iplayer is intended for personal use within the law:  I'm not a
lawyer (though I do a fair amount of contract/commercial stuff in my
day job) but my interpretation of both copyright law and the terms and
conditions for accessing the BBC website leads me to conclude that
get_iplayer enables legitimate uses of data from the BBC.

Sharing the programmes you download is contrary to both copyright law
(which allows timeshifting of broadcasts, amongst other things) and
the BBC's terms and conditions.  get_iplayer is not intended for such
uses.  Please desist.

Regards
Jon