I have a legal question. I don’t understand why it is illegal to copy DVDs (or CDs for that matter). I mean, it’s ok to tape a movie off TV to watch later. Why can’t someone who has bought a movie copy it for me? To me it seems like the same thing.
I’m not wanting to get into a big debate, I’m just trying to understand WHY it is wrong and illegal. Why is copying a DVD different from taping off tv?
IANAL, but it’s based on the “fair use” concept. When you get information ( like a TV program ) from the TV, you can use it for yourself how you like, including copying it for later viewing at your home ( not that the industry likes that, mind you ). When you copy a DVD and give it to someone else, you are no longer using that information for yourself, but giving it to others who have not paid for it.
When you are taping off a TV show, you’re copying a free-to-air broadcast. Sharing it around does not cause anyone to “lose money”. Though possibly the ads will be skipped or fastforwarded, which ain’t so great.
When you’re copying a DVD to share around, there is a potential purchase, with real money, being circumvented. Definitely not what the production company wants.
My understanding is that even if you copied a program on tape off of your tv, you don’t have a right to lend it to another person. I know this happens all the time and always will. But I think your premise is faulty. If I’m wrong on this, I hope one of our legal scholars will correct me.
My understanding from a previous thread is that it is legal to copy DVDs and CDs for reason of making a personal backup, assuming that there is some legal way to get the information off of the disk.
Of course the reason why they might encode/format disks in such a way as to leave no legal way to get the data off of the disk is because they suspect that a lot of people are more willing to download free copies of mediocre songs/movies off of the internet than will rent/buy that same thing. Whether that is valid or not is of course a matter for debate (and a debate which has been had in times previous.)
Your understanding is wrong. Libraries are allowed to do this, but not an individual. You have no right to make a personal copy for backup; indeed, if you read your software license agreement, the specifically grant you the right to copy the file onto your hard drive, since you don’t normally have it without permission.
If your original gets lost, it’s no different than if a book gets lost: you wouldn’t expect to be allowed to have a free copy of the lost book, would you?
Back to the OP:
The ruling on videocasettes allowed people to record an on-air program for the purpose of “time shifting.” In other words, you’re allowed to pick up something on the air and record it so that you can see it later. It only applies to broadcasting/cable shows.
I would assume that recording an on-air (or on-cable) program on a DVD would also be allowed under this ruling, though it hasn’t actually been tested. Still, it’s likely the court would allow it for the same reason as the VCR case.
What you do with one of these cassettes/DVDs after recording is a gray area. I doubt there’s any ruling against lending or giving the tape/DVD to a friend (and, as a practical matter, it’s unlikely anyone is going to go to the trouble to sue you), but making multiple copies and selling it is definitely piracy.
The ruling on videocassettes did not grant you the right to copy one prerecorded video to another. Thus, copying a DVD would be a copyright violation. The difference is that you’re making a direct copy, instead of one from the public airwaves.
I’m not sure I follow the logic here.
Before the days of CD’s, we had cassette tapes and (horror) 8-tracks. I know I had a stereo system that was manufactured to record cassettes from the turn-table, the 8-track (you always got that nice “CHUNK” when the tracks changed) and the radio.
Admittedly, the quality wasn’t nearly as good. But I never heard anyone getting into trouble for copying a record onto a cassette tape. Since I had a cassette deck in my car, it was a good way to make my music mobile.
Has the copying in the digital age just been so great that they had to put laws in place, or were those laws always on the books and just never enforced?
As far as the book analogy goes, I wouldn’t expect to get a new book if I lost my copy. But I don’t see why if I could somehow easily make a copy, I wouldn’t be within my rights to do so. As long as I’m not selling it, why can’t I have a back-up of my own property?
When debating, I generally use guerilla tactics taking off on what other people said rather than going out to do the research myself–so indeed I may be wrong. But from what everyone else said, my synopsis is accurate.
Most individuals never got in trouble for it because they weren’t doing it on a large enough scale that the RIAA (or similar body) would take notice or want to spend the money in legal fees to pursue. However, IIRC, there was a legal case in the early 80s invloving Maxell (I think) or one or more other manufacturers of cassette tapes, similar in nature to the Betamax Case. I couldn’t find a website discussing what I needed, so I hope someone else will come along & help out - but I remember the end result being that the manufacturers of cassettes had to pay a tax on each unit sold to cover the assumed copyright infringement being perpetrated by the purchasers of the cassettes.
It is explicitly spelled out in Title 17 that you can’t change the format of the work without the written permission of the copyright holder - regardless of what you intend to do with the copy you make.
The laws have been on the books for a long time, but are difficult to enforce.
Because the commercial or non-commercial nature of the copying is not what determines whether or not it violates copyright. You have no right to copy all of a book, or even a significant portion of it, without the explicit written permission of the copyright holder.
Oops - I forgot to mention the DMCA - Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which has redefined some of what you can & can’t do in the realm of using & copying digital works. ALA & other groups have been working on legal challenges to the DMCA for quite some time, as there are parts of the DMCA which contradict or seem to contradict certain privileges for Libraries that are explicitly spelled out in Title 17.
So the laws have been on the books for a long time (Title 17), and there are new ones that have been added (the DMCA).
Generally speaking, it is not legal to make an unauthorized copy of any copyrighted work without permission. There are some exceptions.
One exception (known as the Sony-Betamax doctrine) is that it is legal to use a VCR for the purposes of time shifting. It is not legal to use a VCR to make a permanent copy of a show, whether or not you share it with anyone.
Wouldn’t that make it illegal to copy songs from a legally purchased CD onto an MP3 player? How has Apple escaped prosecution for the iPod?
My best guess is that converting your CDs to MP3 is illegal in the same way that copying from LP onto cassette was illegal, but is generally winked at the same way LP to cassette copies were.
I assume that Apple has so far escaped prosecution because case law has pretty well established that the maker of the device cannot be held liable for copyright infringement enabled by its devices, as long as the device passes a general test - the chief part of which, I believe, is whether the device has substantial non-infringing uses - as the iPod does, since you can purchase digital music from legal sources such as iTunes and put it on the device.
From the Wikipedia article on the Betamax Case:
However, IANAL, and my knowledge of copyright law as it applies to digital media outside the library is shaky.
The record companies have explicitly authorized you to transfer your legally purchased CD to your mp3 player. That’s why it’s legal. In any case, Apple would be safe, because even if it was illegal to fill up your mp3 player with music from your CDs, there would still be legal downloading.
In the court case RIAA vs. Rio it was ruled legal to shift music formats to MP3 players. It’s not out of the goodness of the record companies’ hearts. They did try to make MP3 players illegal.
You quote an SDMB post (I usually correct this misconception, but I must have missed that one); I’ll quote from the copyright law. There is only one mention of archives under the limitations on exclusive rights portion of the law: it’s in section 108:
There is no mention of personal archives being a limitation (“Fair use” is just one of several categories of these limitations). If you can find it, be my guest, but how about quoting the law itself?
Not enforced because of the hassles involved. Also, copying prior to the digital age caused a quality loss, so it wasn’t an issue with sales. Digital copying has no loss of quality, so it’s a bigger issue, and the copyright holders are more diligent about enforcing the rights they always had.
Remember that copyright is a civil tort. You can’t just have the police arrest someone; you have to sue them, and it takes money and time to prosecute (though you can force the infringer to pay your court costs). The copyright holder has to decide if it’s worth the effort.
Motorgirl has it right. Copyright is the right to make copies. Only the copyright holder has this right (subject to certain exclusions that don’t apply to any of this discussion).
Now, pay attention: this is where people get confused. You own the book as a physical object. You can do what you want with it – except copying it. In order to copy it, you need to hold the copyright, or be granted that right by the copyright holder. But the book itself, and the text that makes up the book (and which can exist outside of that particular book) are two different things.
It’s the same with a CD. The CD itself is yours to do what you want with it – you can sell it, give it away, throw it out, or anything except copying it. The music on the CD is copyrighted. Again, that means you do not have the right to make copies of it.
If you read the license agreement with your downloading service, they usually grant you the right to burn a (limited) number of CDs from the downloaded files. They also allow you to download it onto an MP3 player. So you can take any legally downloaded file and put it on CD or MP3, and often on a second computer.
Read the license agreement. Now, if you had the right to make copies of a song, why would they be granting your these rights? The only reason to grant a right is if you don’t have it in the first place.
This is usually not a safe assumption to make. Contracts like licensing agreements will often explicitly grant you the right to do things that would have the right to do anyway.
When I used to practice Copyright Law, it was Fair Use which we concentrated on the most. Without going into a 4-day seminar, the Fair Use exception for non-digital works (and I mean truly digital, as in electronic, not VHS or Beta) primarily centered on the not for commerical or selling aspect of the exception.
This is true. A lot of our analysis in law school dealt with quality loss and that’s why people were allowed to time shift, give copies to their friends (also because royalties paid by the manufacturers of such medium), make mix-tapes, etc; more importantly, however, is the not for commercial aspect. A major reason for the drafting of the DMCA was over the concern of the ease and lack of quality loss with copying. This was something that the original drafters of the copyright laws did not envision.
While this statement is mostly true in a practical aspect, is also quite wrong that copyright violations are only a civil tort. There are substantial penalties for violating copyright laws, and yes, there is a criminal provision. Too lazy to cite, but do recall the FBI warnings that all of us fast forward through when we rented VHS tapes.
No this is not true. With the implementation of the Audio Home Recording Act, every sale of digital media kicks a couple cents towards the record labels. This is to allow for the fair use exception of copying your own music to another media for your own personal use. However, you can’t give away the CD that you made. Also, there is a new issue out there concerning this provision: a major label encodes in its music, copy protection, i.e. making the consumer purchased CD uncopyable. IMHO, copy protection deliberately assails the consumer’s right to personal use fair use exception. At the very least, the Label shouldn’t receive the roylalties from the sales of digital media. (And, I hate major record label companies, let’s put that on the record).
What the hell are you talking about? There is no license agreement when you buy an audio CD. I just bought 7 yesterday, and not one had any type of agreement (or warning for that matter, not that it should). When you buy a CD and copy it onto another media, you can make as many personal copies as you feel like (just don’t give them away).
Funnily enough we were discussing this at work today.
My searching skills are insufficient to provide cites, so I’ll let the lawyers provide them.
Here in the U.K. you are allowed to record broadcasts for later viewing or listening, but you cannot keep them. A week or two after you’re back from holiday or the series has finished is a good guideline. Further, viewing is restricted to family and close friends and you can’t charge for it. So you can have a Dr Who party showing all the episodes back to back, but you can’t host a paid convention. Now, if you’re recording from a DVD, you already have the material so there’s no need to make a copy to view later, and thus you’re breaking the law.
You are not allowed to make a backup, either, as you’ve technically purchased a license. However, this does mean that if young Trevor decides to make nice patterns on your DVD with a sharp point, you can get a replacement DVD at modest cost - send in the damaged original, get a good replacement. Of course, the cost of doing this may exceed the cost of buying a new copy.
It has nothing to do with a license. You’re not allowed to make “backup” copies of books either, and there’s definitely no license there. I’m pretty sure there’s no license with a CD, and I’m extremely doubtful that there is a license with a DVD.
There are purported licenses with computer software, and, so far the court cases I’ve seen have upheld them as valid contracts.