Is taping television shows (that are not commercially available on DVD/VHS) for personal viewing illegal? I really enjoy the Simpsons and Futurama but the later seasons are not yet available on DVD so I have a tape ready for episodes I haven’t seen in a long time. Of course the tape never leaves my VCR and I just view them when I feel like it. Is this legal? If it is, then is it also okay to download these same episodes from newsgroups and torrents? The only difference would be that someone else is doing the taping, and giving them to me in digital format. Thanks.
The networks TRIED making taping shows illegal in the 80’s, but failed. Yes, it is perfectly legal to tape shows you want to see and keep them as long as you want. Just limit it to personal use.
Downloading them from newsgroups is NOT legal. Even more specifically, it’s not legal for the folks who taped them to upload them to the newsgroup in the first place.
Gotcha. Thanks. If there’s an explanation for this and you’re willing to expand, I’d like to hear it. I can’t understand the difference between pushing Record on my VCR and Download on my computer. Unless of course, the matter roots on the side of the uploader. But even then, that would be like lending my tape (or making a copy of a tape and giving it to) my friend. Is that also illegal?
FYI. If you want legal digital copies of tv shows on your computer the best way is to get a tv capture card and record them. I remember seeing an entry level tv capture card for 29 bucks. A little digital editing will take care of the commercials.
Excellent. That’s pretty cheap, why do some cost alot more? I was thinking about a Radeon AIW 9600 but it’s pretty pricey.
Here is where I saw that price but they appear to be out of stock right now. I hear This site has some good info on using it. I don’t know much about it though I don’t use that card.
ATI makes a similer card calld a tv wonder for around $40 if you look around. You have to use 3rd party software to use tv capture with a tv wonder though. I know a guy who has that setup. I’ll ask him tomorrow what software he uses. I have an All In Wonder Radeon 8500. It’s pretty good.
The difference in cost is caused by many things. A Radeon AIW 9600 for example is a tv capture card + graphics card. Most of the price is for the graphics card part.
Because a court ruled that taping off the air was “time shifting” and was allowed for personal use.
Later, the copyright law was amended so that you were allowed to tape on approved media (media for which a fee is paid to the copyright holder) without being liable for copyright violations. Videocassetes and audio tapes are approved (a fee is paid as part of the cost of the tape), but a computer hard drive or CD is not.
Downloading is not like lending a tape to a friend because a copy is being made. Lending the tape does not involve copying, so copyright isn’t an issue.
You can make a copy of the videotape and give it to a friend because the copy is made on approved media.
If you download, you are liable for copyright violations because you’re making a copy of the work.
Depending on your juristictions – some countries have more carefully structured laws about it – there are types of fair use provisions for “time shifting” – taping shows so you can watch them later. (For example, in Canada, if you look up “time shifting” in the index of your Copyright Law book, you’d probably find a mere sentence or two about making copies of a broadcast for personal viewing, but there’s not much.)
E.g./
I’m going out to dinner and will otherwise miss the latest episode of Alias. Oh, goody! I can tape it and watch it on the weekend!
That is okay.
Technically, lending the tape to a friend is not okay (becomes “distribution” of sorts), but it’s also extremely hard to prosecute and not worth the effort for that one copy. If you started making several copies, then you’d be an all out pirate!
Making the show available on the internet is very different. It’s a huge no-no, because it becomes a more like broadcasting it. You are distributing an unlimited number of copies. It can be downloaded again and again and again – quite different than the one tape that someone lent you (but technically shouldn’t have).
The tangible medium of the tape has a limited scope. You’re not really supposed to give the one tape to anyone else, but the damage you can do by doing so is much, much smaller in scope, to the point where it’s almost negigible. By offering a TV episode for download, you can potentially distribute thousands of unauthorized copies, which could potentially affect the value of the original.
That’s why there is a difference between hitting record on your VCR and clicking Download. It has more to do with lending a tape vs. broadcasting to the masses. One could have a more serious impact on the value of the original.
The person offering the video via download is the one who is more in the wrong, but it’s still rather naughty to be downloading it too. Think of it like a drug deal: buying drugs is naughty, but dealing drugs will get you in the deeper doo-doo. So you’re naughty for downloading, but the guy whose letting you download is much naughtier than you. At least in the eyes of the law.
Is this true? I remember that it was proposed, but I thought the industry later backed off on this because of huge public protests. There are many, many blank videotapes purchased which do not record TV programs.
It depends on where you are. There is no fee on tapes in the US, but that there is in Canada.
Perhaps a Canadian Doper can confirm this…
I would like a cite for this. Hauppauge, ATI, pcHDTV, and others sell cards with tv capture to the hard drive, compact flash, memory sticks, USB drives, CDs, DVDs, zip disks, floppy (although you would’nt get much on a floppy), Tape back up drives, pretty much any digital storage medium.
Cite? I don’t believe this is true, because no copy has been made, therefore no copyright violation can have occurred. It might be illegal if you sold it, but I don’t think lending a tape can possibly be illegal.
I have a Hauppauge WinTV card ($110+ ca 1999), and found its video recording capabilities to be severely limited. The data throughput is just too big and for some reason it doesn’t capture sound.
Never had a WinTV card. I was reading about the WinTV card after I posted that. It does sound sucky. Maybe I can help with the sound though. Inside the case does the WinTV card have a retangular connector (Probally near the corner and it’s probally white) with one row of pins?
It has a white connector with 2 pins and a black connector with 4 pins.
I should point out that the sound is coming into the sound card okay (through an external plug that connects to the Line-In), just not being captured by the video software.
I would also think there is somewhat of a concern over the integrity of the product. When you record from the TV broadcast, you are getting the product exactly as the producers intended.
But, if you download it from the Internet, nobody can be sure that the video has not been modified (most likely being that the commercials have been removed).
I suspect that if the producers knew for sure that their programs were being distributed in whole (including the ads), they probably wouldn’t have much of a problem.
You can still commit copyright infringement without making a physical copy of a work. One of the rights of a copyright owner is the ability to control use and distribution of the work.* Not profitting off another’s work is a factor to consider in deciding whether a specific situation qualifies as fair use, but it isn’t the telling factor. (Practically speaking, of course, people will rarely sue if you aren’t taking some cut out of their profits.)
See 17 USC for the gory details.
(One exception to this is the First Sale Doctrine, where the owner of the copyright to say, a book or CD, is only entitled to profits from the first sale, but can’t expressly control what happens to that work afterwards. This is probably why several years ago, musicians like Garth Brooks were trying to stop the used CD market.)
One technical reason for the difference in opinion (among content providers) between taping vs. computer/CD uploading is that taping is analog and self limiting. Each copy is a little worse than the original so that a copy of a copy of a copy is barely watchable. A digital copy from the internet or CD or hard drive is exactly the same as the first copied version. So literally an infinite number of copies could be made exactly the same as the first. This is leading to wonderful technologies like down-resing and the Broadcast flag coming to digital cable boxes soon.
So, out of curiosity along this topic - who would press charges? The broadcasting company? Or is there an RIAA / MPAA / TVAA etc?