Fully Charged: Ripping CDs in the UK is illegal again, and free Cardboard viewers… from VR porn site

UK court quashes media backups

Before the weekend, the UK High Court ruled that last year’s law allowing personal backups of CDs and movies was wrongly implemented, therefore making the act illegal again. Yes, it’s 2015 and we’re still talking about the legality of fair use and the ability to back up your physical media. Baffling, we know.

According to the BBC, the law was overturned due to a challenge from musicians union Basca and industry reps from UK Music. Granted, personal backups aren’t much of a legal issue to begin with, as people aren’t being arrested left and right for ripping MP3s from a CD. And considering the state of physical media, the issue becomes even less notable with each passing year.

Last year, we said the law was a first step, but not yet good enough. And now that progress is gone. As Craig Grannell wrote in his blistering editorial then, "You should have the legal right to tear down each and every DRM wall, in order to back up files you’ve spent money on, secure them from suddenly vanishing on a publisher or distributor’s whim, and to access them in the manner of your choosing."

[Source: BBC]

VR porn site’s Cardboard giveaway

Play

Google helped raise awareness of virtual reality by creating the cheap Cardboard smartphone viewer, and now BaDoink plans to raise awareness of VR pornography by giving out the viewers to potential customers. According to Recode, the site gave away 10,000 free viewers (shipping included) in the first day of availability.

Another 20,000 viewers are up for grabs, and as of this writing, you can still register to receive one. Worry not: the giveaway site – FreeVRGoggles.com – is safe for work and not directly tied into the porn site. But it’s the driving force behind this giveaway, and we’ll be interested to hear if the promotional spend ends up driving interest in adult VR content.

[Source: FreeVRGoggles via Recode]

New Street Fighter V details

Play

The annual EVO fighting game tournament was held this weekend in Las Vegas, and Capcom used the opportunity to announce some significant details about Street Fighter V – namely that the game will be treated like an ongoing service, rather than the template for follow-up Super and Ultra games as we’ve seen in the past.

How so? Well, it involves a free-to-play-like system of earned and purchased currencies, but before you get upset, Capcom says that all add-on characters and content can be earned for free via gameplay. We expect that it’s a lot of gameplay, but given how obsessively fighting fans have to play to polish their skills, that might not be a problem.

Street Fighter V will launch with 16 playable characters, four of them new, and then add more content after release. While you can earn the additional content for free, the game will also have a premium currency called Zenny that players can purchase to access extra content right away. In any case, Capcom says there won’t be another Street Fighter V disc released after the initial one. Hopefully the new approach ends up being better than the old one.

The online multiplayer beta starts this week on PlayStation 4, so if you’re eager to join in on the initial fun, hit this link to find out details.

[Source: PlayStation.Blog]