Is Magashare Legal?

[aldiboronti]

@VinylTurnip

This depends on the method of streaming. If it’s progressive download, the file is cached and you will have the entire clip/movie if it’s allowed to download completely. With true streaming, the media segments are decoded, buffered, played and discarded. I don’t know what Megashare used, but most of the big content providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu use true (adaptive) streaming. YouTube traditionally used progressive download, but I believe they’re moving to adaptive streaming as well. I have no idea what the legal implications are.

That’s interesting. I hadn’t realized there were two kinds of streaming. I agree with Chronos though, even if the computer is only storing one part at a time you’re still copyright-busting, certainly morally and ethically. And as stated above, such sites are notorious for malware.

[Bricker]

@aldiboronti

Not true. Firstly when you stream you are downloading a copy of the film to your computer, albeit a temporary one. (The movie downloads the next piece as you watch the previous one. It’s called buffering.) When you’ve watched a movie you’ll find the whole thing in your temporary internet files folder, to be deleted when those files eventually get cleaned. Thus you are in the eyes of the copyright law making a copy of the film in order to view it. The fact that it’s a temporary file is neither here nor there.

You don’t get round copyright law that easily.

Um…

…What?

Merely placing pieces in a buffer for watching does not require that the entire movie is then available. See Vimeo’s player, for example, as a proof of concept for a player that allows a streaming video to be watched without storing a complete copy at the conclusion of the piece.

And the law includes a specific requirement that the copy be more than “transitory.”

See, e.g., e Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings, 536 F.3d 121 (2nd Cir 2008):

“Copies,” as defined in the Copyright Act, “are material objects … in which a work is fixed by any method … and from which the work can be … reproduced.” Id. § 101. The Act also provides that a work is “`fixed’ in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment … is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be … reproduced … for a period of more than transitory duration.” Id. (emphasis added). We believe that this language plainly imposes two distinct but related requirements: the work must be embodied in a medium, i.e., placed in a medium such that it can be perceived, reproduced, etc., from that medium (the “embodiment requirement”), and it must remain thus embodied “for a period of more than transitory duration” (the “duration requirement”). See 2 Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 8.02**[3], at 8-32 (2007).

(my own emphasis in color added to the court’s)

I agree that IF the given streaming mechanism ended up saving a complete copy of the movie, one that needed to be manually deleted, you’d have a point. But that’s not how all streaming solutions work.

[md2000]

First, of all the downloading talk I’ve seen, the actual possession of a downloaded copy is not illegal. The act of sharing it is illegal. (Of course, laws have been changing fairly quickly - but if this were the case, probaby 3/4 of all iPods would be illegal. )

Most of the cases brought (in civil court) are around use of BitTorrent, where the downloader is simultaneously allowing others to download off him (i.e. uploading) therfore guilty of sharing. The criminal prosecutions generally have been over movies uploaded specifically to sites like this Mega/Maga one, where someone deliberately set out to broadcast a movies as widely as possible through the internet.

Most streaming today deliberately does not create a useable copy in any temporary location. The buffered material is unuseable except by the program during the current viewing - simply because a site like Netflix or YouTube makes their money through your connection - if they allow you to capture and pass on the content, they lose revenue and exposure and primacy in the market. the “interesting” sites take advantage of this to try to make you download a site-specific streaming client that comes with additional baggage like trojans.

[Chronos]

Downloading a copy is sharing it. You’re sharing it to yourself. The copyright holders are less likely to go after you than they are after the source, but they could if they wanted to make an example.

[Revtim]

@Chronos

Downloading a copy is sharing it. You’re sharing it to yourself. The copyright holders are less likely to go after you than they are after the source, but they could if they wanted to make an example.

That is not what is meant by sharing with regards to the MPAA/RIAA lawsuits. They mean you are sharing it to others over the internet, usually my means of P2P software such as bittorrent.

[Chronos]

You’re still making an illegal copy, though.

[aldiboronti]

@Bricker

I agree that IF the given streaming mechanism ended up saving a complete copy of the movie, one that needed to be manually deleted, you’d have a point. But that’s not how all streaming solutions work.

You may not have noticed, Bricker, but Vinyl Turnip just pointed out to me that there were two sorts of streaming, which I had been unaware of, a correction for which I was grateful. For your second helping, not so much.

[Learjeff]

@AK84

Most of the cites I have are from subscription based websites but here is one which is from a free site and while not complete, it does summarise some of the main issues well.

According to that:

However, the Copyright Office contends there is no violation when “a reproduction manifests itself so fleetingly that it cannot be copied, perceived or communicated.”

If you’re watching the movie, seems to me that counts as “perceiving”.

@Chronos

You’re still making an illegal copy, though.

I think you’re receiving an illegal copy, not making one. Is receiving an illegal copy illegal? It might be.

Regardless, I bet it’s unlikely that you’d be subject to litigation or criminal charges. But the question wasn’t whether it’s risky (it is, thanks to malware), but whether it’s illegal. It might be, and it might not be.

IANAL

[Revtim]

@Chronos

You’re still making an illegal copy, though.

I’m not so sure about that. In the case of a website simply offering the file for download (and not a P2P scenario), the web server is making the copy, not the PC of the person downloading it.

[Chronos]

I think you’re receiving an illegal copy, not making one. Is receiving an illegal copy illegal? It might be.

The data sent out over the network wires isn’t a copy until it’s put someplace, and the machine that’s doing the putting is under your control. Furthermore, the machine that hosts the original copy didn’t even send out the data until you instructed it to do so. I see no way to interpret that as not being you making the copy.