Many of us have been ripping our CDs and DVDs for years. When de-cluttering my previous home in preparation for putting it on the market, I decided to move my CDs into storage as they took up an entire wall of the living room. I’ve always had a few key albums stored on MP3, but I embarked upon ripping all of my collection and connecting the main music system to an MP3 jukebox on a computer.

Now I live in a much bigger place, but the CDs are still in boxes in the garage. I just can’t justify the pleasure of having them on display when I can save so much space, as well as use of shuffle, playlists etc. that you only get when the music is digitised. The thing is, despite the widespread practice or ripping your own CDs and DVDs, it’s technically against the law.

A number of changes to the UK’s copyright laws, based on the Hargreaves Review, have recently been announced by the Business secretary, Vince Cable. Amongst these is the legalisation of “format shifting”, that practice of ripping your media onto a computer, MP3 player etc. The Hargreaves Report pointed out that if 90% of people are doing something technically against a law, there is something wrong with that law.