Only insofar as it applies to the physical object that you’re renting.
Which shows your fundamental misconception about copyrights law and the reasons behind it. You are not merely renting a digital video disc, but the ideas, characters, story, physical depictions all the things that go into a movie. I guess that distinction, as well the difference between renting and owning, the ethics of abiding by your agreements, and respecting the rights of the copyright holder, are of no consequence to you or your ethics.
Not when I’m not trying to profit, no. I’m taking nothing away from anybody.
Do you agree that your argument falls apart if you watch the copied DVD with any other person? “Personal use” means personal use only, right?
Yes, but the point that Diogenes and I are making is that the Copyright isn’t being misused- the Copyright Holder has received money for the use of their work, and as long as all you’re doing is simply making a copy of a DVD for home viewing, you’re not “Misusing” their copyright- after all, if they didn’t want people watching the movie at home on DVD, it wouldn’t have been made available for rent or purchase in the first place, would it?
Now, if you took said movie and edited parts out of it (like the Phantom Edit) and distributed it, or if you took bits from different movies without permission and strung them together to make another film, which you then released into the public arena, then yes, that’s definitely a misuse of copyright- but copying a DVD from your local video library to watch at home really doesn’t strike me as being an unethical or immoral thing to do, and although I accept it’s illegal, it’s a law I don’t agree with.
No, I’d argue “Personal Use” in this context means “Watching at home with or without friends/other people, and for which you are not charging a fee.” (And let’s not get into stupid hypotheticals like “What if you’ve got 18 friends over and you put on a DVD?”, alright?)
There’s another aspect to the whole “the artist already got his payment from the rental store” argument. Rental stores buy in bulk, and don’t pay retail price for the DVDs. They’re able to do this because they aren’t selling the DVDs, they’re renting them. If they were selling the DVDs, they wouldn’t be able to buy as many as they do. By copying the DVD, you are denying the artist (or the DVD producers) the money they would make selling it at retail price (or the profit they would make on a DVD sold at retail).
Another way to look at this is, what if everybody did this such that no one ever bought a DVD again? You can’t look at your actions in isolation, you have to look at them in the context of the ethics by which society expects to run. After all, isn’t that what ethics are-- an agreed upon set of rules that make society possible? One of the most fundamental of all rules is that we agree not to steal. You may not think you’re stealing if it’s only you doing it, but if everyone acted that way, then the owners would be at a net loss.
Movies are a form of entertainment and entertainment is usually paid for in units of time. Amusement parks allow you to pay once to get into the park and ride the rides for one day. If you want to go back and ride the same rides another day, you pay again.
Movies and other digital media really aren’t much different except that it is a lot easier to not get caught “sneaking back in”.
The owners of the copyrighted material have the right to determine how it is sold and they currently sell unlimited viewing in the form of a DVD purchase for around $15-$25 and a one-time viewing in the form of a rental for around $5 through a third-party.
How can someone say that paying $5 for what is supposed to cost $20 is ethical? I suppose it is understandable if they don’t value the unlimited viewing of a movie at $20 and wouldn’t pay that amount ever, then they might feel justified in copying the DVD. But that is very shaky ground.
IMO, if you copy the movie because you didn’t really like it but might watch it again, then you are probably okay. But if you copy the movie because you really liked it and want to watch it repeatedly, then that means you value the movie at full price and should pay full price for it, even if it is just for personal use.
If you sneak into a movie theatre without paying, then you’re not trying to accrue financial profit, but you’re still depriving the movie theatre (as well as the moviemakers) of income.
No. Rentals are time-limited, PERIOD.
I get the point. I’ve gotten it from the first time Diogenes attempted to raise it. But I find it to be of absolutely no persuasive power, and, in fact, simply a rationalization created in the minds of people who violate copyrights. They simply claim there is no victim, so they’re not doing anything wrong, despite the fact they’re violating their agreement and they’re violating the rights of the copyright holder. The rights of the copyholder are not, as Dio says, only to make a profit (apparently from someone other than themselves) from they’re work, but also to control their work, which includes, and has included since copyrights existed, the right to control duplication. So, the copyright holder has a right to control distribution of their work, correct? If you copy that work without their permission, you are infringing upon their rights, correct? It is of no import that they made money from someone other than yourself, or made less than they had, you are violating someone’s rights without their permission. I don’t understand how one could say that violating the rights of another and violating your agreement, is anything but unethical. And when I ask, I get the same platitudes rephrased.
Even if you don’t profit from your movie? That seems to be Dio’s position, that unless there is a profit made from the violation, it’s not a violation. In addition, when you rent the movie, the copyright holder grants you a limited use of their work, for which you pay less than you would to for a broader grant of use. When you copy that movie, you’re profiting (gaining more rights than you were granted) and the copyright holder is llosing out the difference between those two.
I think there’s a whole lot of justification going on. Making a backup copy of one you buy just in case the original is damaged or lost is fine.
Making a copy of one you rent so that you never have to rent it again may be common but unethical.
Would you invite a friend over to watch, or loan, your copy so that they don’t have to rent it? Is that hurting the rental business?
I agree that it’s different from selling copies for profit and the cost to businesses may be minimal so they will continue to profit. It can and will effect business if it gets to easy. That’s why certain software was taken off the market and new anti pirating measures are taking and that do indeed cost money. If I pay more for rental or purchasing because of anti pirating measures is someone being hurt?
(In an aside, I find it very odd that some seem to be arguing that the only time copyright infringement makes a lick of difference is when someone profits by it, on a board that expressly prohibits posting more than a brief snip of a copyrighted article.)
This idea that copying intellectual property is just okey-dokey just boggles my mind. I just cannot fathom how someone can justify that the rental of a DVD actually justifies the renter becoming the owner of the intellectual property therein. What kind of business transaction can be considered ethical when the customer portrays himself as willing to conclude his use of a product within a finite, agreed-upon timeframe, only to violate that agreement by thinking that temporary custody of a CD or DVD is actually license to own it? That’s just simply an outright deceptive act within the context of the business transaction.
Even the EFF, which was linked to earlier in the thread and is notorious for having a restrictive view of the rights of holders of intellectual property, apparently does not argue that video rental allows people to make copies. Not a legal case, not even an ethical case.
In the end, I see this as not terribly different than an act of plagerism. Stealing quotes from other writers does not cause any harm to the original authors, especially not any monetary harm. But it does violate the basic tenet that you shouldn’t pretend that what belongs to others actually belongs to you. In the same way, unless one buys it, someone has no right to own of a movie, song or album. That’s just wrong, no matter how thin one slices one’s case.
Ah, but the Movie Theatre has actual costs associated with running it- staff, power, insurance, etc etc. And let’s face it, unless you’re Kim Jong Il, you’re unlikely to have a 70mm SenStadium Cinema in your home. When you go to the movies, you’re paying for an experience (one which is increasingly being ruined by other people- there’s a Pit thread on this at the moment). When you rent a DVD from Blockbuster, you’re paying to watch the film- nothing more. (Yes, I know Blockbuster has overheads and staff too, but that’s built into the cost of the DVD rental, so they don’t miss out in any way if someone burns a copy after they’ve paid to rent it.)
What agreement? I’ve never been asked to sign anything whenever I’ve joined a video library- all they’ve asked for is proof of residency.
You’ve totally mis-read my point: The example I gave before (making your own edits of films and distributing them) IS a copyright violation, even if you don’t make any cash from it.
I really don’t see how anyone could have a problem with someone making a copy- for personal/home use only- of a movie they rented from Blockbuster, unless they were a paid lobbyist for the Film Industry.
Let’s face it, the more people that see a film, the better, right? And the more people that like the film, they more likely they are to rent it themselves, buy it when it comes out, and go and see the sequel when it’s released at the cinema. So, the $10 initially lost by the fact someone didn’t rent the movie a second time is made up later… it all evens out, without violating anyone’s “Rights” or financially hurting anyone.
Show me one case of any actual person who has been harmed or had their rights violated in any more than a token way by having people copying DVDs of their films or downloading their music off the Internet. And not some shitty Garage Band that no-one’s ever heard of, but you happen to like, either…
[QUOTE=cosmosdan It can and will effect business if it gets to easy. That’s why certain software was taken off the market and new anti pirating measures are taking and that do indeed cost money. If I pay more for rental or purchasing because of anti pirating measures is someone being hurt?[/QUOTE]
Yes, but that may be a matter of changing the business model. If you realize that you have a product that people are willing to copy (which does cost them resources, either in time, or money), but not actually willing to ‘pay for’, then you need to re-evaluate your model.
That software was replaced with other, better, faster, easier and less ‘trackable’ software on all platforms. Anti-pirating measures are a joke and the MPAA know it. It’s just another means to milk the public out of a few more bucks.
Most people are honest people and if the industry would allow the ability to replace for a nominal fee, damaged media, that alone would at least reduce the need to burn back-up and reduce the demand for the software.
I would much rather have a nice silk screened, jewel cased version of whatever, to replace my old video-tape or dvd; than the magic-markered things that I have…but I’m not going to pay retail price again, for something I already paid for.
Have you ever wondered why Blockbuster doesn’t rent audio CDs? Wouldn’t it be a safe assumption that if Blockbuster rented CDs, the first thing that everyone would do would be to copy the CD so that they could listen to it over and over again, gratis? I think it is pretty darn obvious that renting CDs only so they could be copied results in an untenable business model.
The idea that movie rental services wouldn’t suffer a bit if everyone copied rented DVDs is belied by the fact that there are no major businesses offering rental of IP products that are more easily copied.
You’re kidding right…at least you’re kidding yourself.
People justify…and as more people justify…more and more people justify.
Stores have changed their return policies because of a gradual increase in the rent for free scam that these most honest people do. I just encountered this yesterday from a church. When the guy realized he was busted he backed down and accepted an in store credit.
The same principle for DVD copies. Copying may be simple for folks who are somewhat computer savy but for lots of folks it’s still more trouble than buying the DVD. If it became less trouble then more and more, and then more and more, people would rent and copy, rather than buy. It’s just how people are.
Its far more common and inexpensive than you might imagine. At least 3 people I know have this type of device. You could train a 5 year old to use one.
Inasmuch as you are gaining something of value to yourself, you most certainly are profiting (why else would you be copying the work, if you did not value it?). And inasmuch as you are gaining something for which you would otherwise have had to pay money, you most certainly are taking something away from somebody.
It’s quite simple; there is a difference between rental and retail prices because there is a difference in value between those modes of sale. By arbitrarily declaring them to be equal you can seemingly justify your dubious ethics, but you completely ignore the fact that your own actions invalidate your argument. If there were not extra value inherent in owning a permanent copy, you would not have bothered to make one in the first place. Therefore you are implicitly acknowledging that rental is not equivalent to purchase, and that you are merely making a copy of the rental to avoid the higher price of purchase.
And the copyright holder has actual costs in the making, promoting, and fighting piracy. It’s their rights, not Blockbuster’s, that are the issue.
Do you see the glaring problem reconciling this statement with copying the movie?
Blockbuster cannot give you rights that they do not have. They do not have the right to allow you to copy it, only the copyright holder has that. They can no more grant you the right to copy than a car thief who sells you a Mazeratti for $20 can.
Just because it only influences my life in a minor way by having to pay more for movies and rentals, doesn’t make it any more ethical. It’s the same justification that the big, bad Film Industry deserves to get ripped off.
It’s almost sad to see the rationalizations and pretzel logic you go through to justify piracy.