Not at all unlikely. Even today a program might be produced by one network but aired on another.
yeah, but that’s different. that’s the kind of copyright infringement that the industry loves to scream about being “theft” (when it isn’t.) you downloading something you weren’t going to purchase anyway doesn’t deprive e.g. Warner Bros. of the ability to sell it to someone else.
what the OP is doing is about as close to “Theft” as this situation can get. he’s profiting directly from selling works owned by CBS. It’s not his to sell, regardless of whether he feels entitled to. IMO CBS is totally in the right here.
Let’s use a more fitting analogy. Farmer Jones has an apple orchard with a fence around it. Some of the trees have branches that drop their apples over the fence onto a grassy sward by the road. Farmer Jones doesn’t harvest those apples because his mechanical harvester doesn’t get over the fence easily … it’s too much trouble to harvest them by hand and the apples on the roadside are a very tiny fraction … less than one tenth of one percent … of the apples his orchards produce. It’s just not worth the effort to him.
Now kids walk along the road and often pick up those apples and eat them. The apples do legally belong to Farmer Jones, it’s his property. Are those kids thieves? What kind of horrible legal penalties should we subject them to?
Poor analogy, unless you make Farmer Jones’ apples somehow unique/exclusive and that he alone holds rights to the seeds, and that prohibits anyone from growing their own, or selling the produce if they do.
Which is what Kamakiri has essentially done.
terrible analogy.
a closer one would be if said kids gathered all of those fallen apples, then sold them at market as “Farmer Jones’s Apples.”
but that’s still not that good. Let’s consider another example, this time of someone producing firm goods. Say I’m (automaker.) I source (supplier) to make (part) for one of my cars. (Supplier) does the design work on (part,) does the validation testing on (part,) and builds the tooling to manufacture (part.) I, as (automaker,) pay (supplier) for their engineering, development, and testing costs. I also pay for the costs of the tooling. When my (car) goes into production, I pay (supplier) the agreed-upon piece price for each (part) they ship to me.
So who owns the rights to produce (part)? I do. Not (supplier). I’ve paid (supplier) for all of the costs to develop and tool (part), so I own (part). I have ultimate say-so on who the supplier can sell (part) to. If my volume drops lower than (supplier) had planned for, can (supplier) sell excess inventory to someone else out the back door? No. doing so would be breach of contract, and I’d pull the tooling from (supplier) and source someone else to make (part).
And that’s typically how the TV industry works. The studio (in this case CBS) has paid the production company for their costs of making the TV show. CBS therefore owns the show and has the final say-so on how its distributed. if the appeal of the show is too narrow to make a DVD release worthwhile, they’re under no obligation to do so. No one else is legally able to say “well, you’re not selling it so I’m going to.” Not the production company, not any of the actors in it, not some schlub on the internet.
^^That’s the reply you should’ve sent.
And if the kids eat too many apples? Is the farmer liable for their ills?
Kamakiri, I’m still wondering who it is that you think could have sent you the email, if not CBS. Do you really suspect that there could be some scammer in Nigeria whose purpose is to deprive the “hoards of fans” from a digitized version of some old CBS made-for-TV movie?
If not, then I’d just let it go–don’t post the movies any more, and chalk it up to experience. Your martyrdom for the long-suffering “hoards of fans” isn’t worth it.
No need to write back or apologize, though. I’m sure CBS lawyers have received much worse than your email, and all they want you to do is just stop.
That’s like saying it’s possible to watch too much Shatner. Can you get Shatner Poisoning?
Your apple analogy in this case doesn’t apply because there’s laws existing that say fruit beyond your property line are your neighbors or the public’s to pick as the case may be.
it’s never too late for a Shatner joke.
How many Shatners does it take to pick an apple?
One. One Shatner is all that is ever needed.
I used to work as a cake decorator in a Wal-Mart. We’d put just about anything on a cake that was authorized. To put Disney stuff on cakes you had to buy their figurines or stencils.
But these lagged behind the opening of a new film.
RING RING! “Hello, this is Wally World’s bakery department, how may I help you?”
“I’d like to order a birthday cake for my daughter. with Ariel from The Little Mermaid on it.”
“I’m sorry, but we haven’t yeat got the Ariel figures instore yet, so we can’t do that.”
“I won’t tell anyone!”
“But someone at the party might. We can do mermaids, we can even do one with red hair, but we can’t recognizably make it Ariel.”
Loud sigh “you’re no help!”
“Ma’am, we could get sued, Disney is very protective of it’s characters.”
“Fine, I’ll just call someone else who will then!”
“Good luck with that!”
I so now want a cake with Shatner on it.
But could you eat it? If so, which piece?
Intellectual copyright laws are very intricate and the resulting court battles are long and extremely expensive. Any copyright attorney worth having is also extremely expensive. Just his 1 hour council or his rate for simply sending a reply for you is outrageous.
Here’s what will happen if you foolishly tried to fight this. Your attorney will charge you about $500 to tell you how copyright law works. With your new education in copyright laws now being violently clear you will be given a choice, continue fighting this and prepare yourself for bankruptcy, or settle. Most copyright cases are settled. Depending on how badly you’ve pissed off the intellectual rights holder will be how badly you are punished. At the point of settling, law doesn’t apply. You are simply making a deal that both sides find agreeable. As in you will be trying to appease them for as little cost to you as possible. If you decide to fight… well just don’t. It would probably ruin you. not just in damages. you would probably lose your job as the case would be tried in the state occupied by cbs (because cbs isn’t stupid and they would press you to settle) therfore you would lose your job and undoubtedly lose your “small business” in which you sell 1 dvd every 3 months.
The piece with his piece, of course.
This.
The mistake is in thinking that of all the antenna broadcast TV networks, CBS seems like “the Nice one”.
Hint: that’s just spin & image; if you cost them a nickle and if they Can hurt you, they Will. They are A Network; its what Networks Do. It does not matter what logo is on their letterhead.
That email was their one shot across the bow, so they don’t look like Total Dicks in the court of public opinion should your story ever get told.
(They probably have ways to keep your story from ever getting told, too… or in such a way that you end up looking like Pablo Escobar.)
Take the stuff down & get a lawyer ASAP is Honestly the best advice that can be offered.
What always bothers me about these cases is that, though they sometimes end after a mostly reasonable exchange of letters, they also sometimes turn into this:
Three separate juries assigned insanely high damages for less misconduct than shown here. If the studio’s legal department is really bored some day, they can take your house. Or maybe they’re at a busy time and just have a secretary send it to you in hard copy. It’s a coin flip.
Pray (seriously, if so inclined) that CBS does not take you down the road the MPAA and RIAA do (movie people and records people, respectively) to those who illegally distribute movies and music. They know how much up front it will cost a defendant just to show up in court so they may very well make you an offer.
You could very well receive a letter from CBS demanding you pay them $5,000 right now and all of this goes away. But if you fail to pay them, or outright ignore them, CBS knows when they take you to court, they will win and your fines (which will be more than $5,000) will cover their legal fees.
For CBS it’s not about making money from you. For CBS it’s about protecting copyright so they can make real money from legitimate use, and taking you down to where you will never recover financially.
Good luck, suck it up, and blame the dog for the response you sent to them.