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Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,089,277 times
Reputation: 3995
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tek_Freek
The actions of this organization only threaten you if you are breaking the law, just like the radar gun wielding cop. Don't break the law and you have no reason to worry about being sued or getting a ticket.
Actually, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have not been so discerning in the past, and have been known to formally accuse people of illegally downloading copyrighted content who didn't even own a computer.
I certainly don't mind them tracking down people who violate copyright laws, but the (often incorrect) blanket assumptions they make and the threatening tactics they use are uncalled for, IMSNShO.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
11,334 posts, read 26,089,277 times
Reputation: 3995
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeJaquish
People who take stealing others' stuff lightly, whether justifying it because they do not like the price, or just because they want it, should experience it from the other side of the taking.
With all due respect, copyright infringement is NOT stealing.
It's certainly illegal, but it isn't "theft" in a legal context.
It also isn't always obvious (especially to inexperienced users) that music or video files obtained via the internet are actually copyrighted or that there is some limit placed on their distribution.
I certainly realize that something is copyrighted the moment it is "embodied in a tangible medium", but as a software developer who sometimes plays with other media I have reason to know. Many people have no clue about it.
A file distribution service could be considered to be something very similar to television or radio in the way it distributes music, for example.
Listening to the radio is legal in the US, as is recording off the radio. Same with the TV. As far as I know, taping shows or using a DVR is legal in the US.
Making a copy of a record album or CD by taping it is also legal in the US, and is considered fair use. It's an explicit exception to the law. Even making a digital copy from a digital source can be legal ... my old Philips 765 CD recorder, for example, uses data CDs which are labelled "for Music Use", ensuring that the record industry gets their cut. Those digital-to-digital recordings are currently legal.
Recording a CD to another CD on a computer for personal use? It isn't quite as clear.
Listening to music or watching movies via data streams on the internet is also legal in some cases, but it isn't always obvious which methods are acceptable to the RIAA or MPAA (or to the law, which is not the same thing) and which methods are not.
What is the status of recording and saving data obtained via a legal streaming service like Netflix? Or Comcast? Or a streaming music station?
I'm not sure I can answer that myself, at least definitively. Can you?
What is the status of a movie recording by a DVR in a common format and then played on that DVR?
What if it's subsequently transferred to a PC?
Images are broadcast all over the net. There are images on web pages, which are obviously intended to be broadcast via http to the web browsers that are viewing the site. Copies are being made all the time for that purpose, or for caching.
People use images without permission all the time, but I suspect most of the time those images are picked off from sites which are not the original author's (or creator's) site, and I also suspect that most of those images have no watermarks or other identifying information embedded in them. So how is a person supposed to find the copyright status of an image grabbed from an image collection site? Or from USENET (if anyone uses that anymore)?
Please stop acting like all of this stuff is obvious. It isn't.
A LOT of people know exactly what they are doing, and do not expect to get caught.
When you have your stuff stolen, it focuses your perspective a great deal.
When you observe serial copyright abuse by people who move on when caught and take other people's stuff, it becomes obvious that the rationalization turns from ignorance to "What really are the chances of being caught?" I have seen that dynamic many times.
Legally stealing? Whatever. I am not an attorney and do not purport to be having a legal discussion.
Effectively stealing? I am comfortable with that description.
Last edited by MikeJaquish; 08-26-2010 at 12:02 PM..
Listening to the radio is legal in the US, as is recording off the radio. Same with the TV. As far as I know, taping shows or using a DVR is legal in the US.
This is two examples of exceptions because they were pursued in court, similar to the exception regarding making backups of software. With audio it's the Home Recording Act. What the RIAA got out of it was a tax applied to DAT and standalone CD recorders. There's also a tax on "audio" CD's. A standalone CD recorder will reject any CD without the "audio" label.
As far as VCR's, DVR's etc.. you can legally record for later viewing often called "time shifting". Amassing a large collection of videos would not be legal.
Quote:
Making a copy of a record album or CD by taping it is also legal in the US, and is considered fair use. It's an explicit exception to the law. Even making a digital copy from a digital source can be legal ...
Yes but these would be for your own use, if you hand a copy to your friend it's copyright infringement.
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DVD's or anything using copy protection are bit different because because of the DMCA. To obtain a copy you need to break the copy protection which itself is against the law irrelevant of the copyright. Any copies that have been obtained are illegal. If there is no copy protection there is no court decision similar to the home recording act or anything else so it would fall back to the standard laws regarding copyright.
Quote:
So how is a person supposed to find the copyright status of an image grabbed from an image collection site? Or from USENET (if anyone uses that anymore)?
You have to assume it's copyrighted because it is, it's really that simple. If you can't determine the author then don't use it.
Well, if you don't make any money at the box office...you can always put it up on a p2p and sue the crap out of some ****** who's kids 'stole' it. (No offense)
In my opinion, they're doing a grave disservice to the artists if they think mixtape / mixedcd sharing should be a prosecutable crime that is 'killing music'.
I'm not sure what the answer is...I agree that sharing music far and wide must cut into sales and harms the artists....but total number of downloads are increasing every year and apparently the 16 million dollar campaign to scare the poop out of file sharers with million dollar lawsuits didn't accomplish much.
New solutions are needed.
If you don't want your pictures shared you should think twice about putting them online to begin with. Or... do like everyone else and put a watermark on them.
Well, if you don't make any money at the box office...you can always put it up on a p2p and sue the crap out of some ****** who's kids 'stole' it. (No offense)
In my opinion, they're doing a grave disservice to the artists if they think mixtape / mixedcd sharing should be a prosecutable crime that is 'killing music'.
I'm not sure what the answer is...I agree that sharing music far and wide must cut into sales and harms the artists....but total number of downloads are increasing every year and apparently the 16 million dollar campaign to scare the poop out of file sharers with million dollar lawsuits didn't accomplish much.
New solutions are needed.
If you don't want your pictures shared you should think twice about putting them online to begin with. Or... do like everyone else and put a watermark on them.
"Sharing" is allowing others to view them. I share most photos readily, and do not post photos I would not want to share with others.
Having them swiped by competition is not "sharing." It is abuse.
Watermarks ruin sharing. i.e., viewing qualiity, and thieves can crop photos and use what they want anyway.
I have had pretty good response from webmasters when complaining to them about copyright abuse.
We are writing as a courtesy to let you know that we have received notification from one or more owners of copyrights claiming that their work has been transmitted over the Internet from your account without their permission. Copyright owners may include motion picture studios, the recording industry or others who produce or distribute legally protected material. A copy of the notice is attached.
And there is more. One of my kids or their friends downloaded a movie over Bit Torrent. Everyone is denying it of course, so everyone is catching equal hell tonight.
Once I calmed down it occurred to me, that after years of teenagers with Internet access, this is the first time this ever happened.
I read the letter a little more carefully and discovered the complainant is BayTSP Inc., on behalf of a large movie conglomerate. I'd never heard of them before, so I googled the company and explored them at this address BayTSP - Piracy Protection For Your Digital Assets
My wife is a writer, and I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of intellectual copyright, but there is something unsettling about BayTSP. They provide something called Early Propagator protection to entertainment companies, and in their own words, BayTSP "Monitors peer to peer networks like Bit Torrent and eDonkey, Usenet, IRC and public FTP sites for the first instances of unauthorized video and audio content, can take action to have them removed and monitor for compliance."
Essentially, they spy on us.
I realize this is a brave new world online, that authors and musicians and the companies that provide these services have to protect themselves, but I find the whole thing creepy and more than a bit depressing. I wonder if anyone is watching the people watching us.
Everyone is essentially being watched in some way or another...both on- and offline. It's just more apparent nowadays. The notice sounds more like a cease and desist letter. Get rid of BitTorrent and any other P2P networks and file-sharing programs (ex. Kazaa, DC++, etc.) off the computer. Let the kids know that downloading media w/o consent from its owner is illegal and could land your family in hot water both legally and financially. If they want to watch a movie, there're physically renting the movie, watching it on Hulu (if available), or renting/buying movies in the iTunes store via the iTunes program (which is legal and free to download). These are just some of the legal options. Hopefully, the sent notice is as bad as it will get.
What the RIAA got out of it was a tax applied to DAT and standalone CD recorders. There's also a tax on "audio" CD's. A standalone CD recorder will reject any CD without the "audio" label.
Just to add to what I posted above, this tax is certainly one thing that helped prevent the DAT format from going mainstream, it's also why portable CD recorders are rare and expensive and also why the CD's with the "audio" label are more expensive.
This is one thing that really gets me hot, they have prevented technology from getting into the hands of people. The DAT format is debatable because it may have not gone mainstream for other reasons but if this tax wasn't applied to portable CD recorders then every CD player would most likely be a recorder too.
There is a long list of products they have tried to prevent going to market . Recently they tried killing MP3 players and DVD/CD burners on computers.
Last edited by thecoalman; 08-27-2010 at 07:01 AM..
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Hopefully, the sent notice is as bad as it will get.
