By Simon Freethy From Cyrus

It was only last year that the government in the UK had agreed to allow members of the public to lawfully copy CDs and other copyright material that they already owned for their own private use. In the last few weeks a High Court ruling has quashed these changes, putting the law back to the position it was before the government changes, making it now again technically illegal to make copies of your own CDs and DVDs.

In the same way that no one was prosecuted for making party tapes in the cassette deck era, I doubt we will see the strong arm of the law raiding people’s homes. The High Court action has been bought by various bodies representing the artists and rights owners, who are looking to limit the lost revenue from non rights paid copies being made of their music. This recent ruling however is more a case of those bodies securing a big stick to help them secure their real agenda, which is for the UK to fall into line with the rest of Europe.

In Europe the issue is resolved with a tax on blank storage devices to cover copyright losses, so blank CDRs and NAS drives have a small premium built into the price which is then divided amongst the music industry. Some see this as unfair, as not everyone purchasing storage devices will be using them to copy music or films. However in my view it is a small price to pay for the convenience of listening to your music, which you have bought legally, in the way that suits you best. It works in Europe, so there is no need to re-invent the wheel in the UK. As usual it comes down to politics, and which of the music industry or the hard drive manufacturers are employing the best lobbyists at Westminster!

In the meantime, to remain strictly legal in the UK, rather than simply ripping your own CD collection to a NAS drive, you will need to build your streaming library by purchasing all your high definition music files from providers such as HD Tracks or Qobuz. There is some interesting stuff there, and it’s a fun way to discover music, but it seems a bit perverse that the law forces you to put your CDs into a CD player to enjoy them.

I am sure this will do no harm to the growing trend for online streaming services. I myself use Tidal, as one of my music sources because all the tracks streamed from here are at least CD quality. I run it on my laptop and connect the laptop to the USB B input on my Cyrus 8 DAC, so I get the benefit of the full laptop version of the Tidal control, and the full sonic benefits of my Cyrus DAC and amplifier working on decent quality source file. Tidal are currently running free a 30 day trial offer, highly recommended

Cyrus Audio
www.cyrusaudio.com