Is it legal?

[jgandara]

To offer a service to backup movies and CD's? I want to work some extra time during the weekends, so I was thinking on offering a backup service for DVD movies, CD's or even a computer backup.

I'd do a backup in one or two DVDs, only if they own the original disk. Can it be legal?

[adam]

No its not legal. The argument that one should be able to backup their legally owned DVDS relies on the principle of Fair Use, though this has never been tested in a court of law. The idea though is that you aren't violating the copyright to make a profit or to divest the copyright holder of anything, you are simply protecting your investment. Fair Use however is an affirmative defense to copyright infringment. In other words it admits that copyright infringement has occurred but simply excepts the person from any liability.

To charge money to backup DVDs is a completely different story. Under the letter of the law you are violating the copyright because you are not allowed to duplicate without express permission and you are violating DMCA by bypassing the encryption on the DVD, but in this case you are doing it for profit. There is no way this would ever be covered under Fair Use or any other copyright exception. Even if it were ruled that your customers had a right to back up their legally owned DVDs, this still wouldn't give you the right to do it for them for profit becase as I said before, even if your customers are covered under Fair Use copyright infringement is still occuring and violating copyrights cannot be considered a valid business.

So no, such a business would definitely be illegal but it does sort of exist in a big legal grey area so its unlikely anyone would care unless you operated on a large scale.

[jgandara]

thank you, very nice explanation.

[Roll Tide]

All legal issues aside, I can't imagine doing this service for less than say $10 per disc. At that price point I don't think anyone would be that interested anyway if it were legal. Most DVDs could be re-purchased for $10-20 if lost or ruined. Just my thoughts, not trying to criticize.

[jgandara]

You are true, but i'm thinking maybe soccer moms, who have 10 or 15 children's DVDs, then it's whort it , I think.

I just want to make a few buck during the weekend. Maybe transfering home videos or installing hardware, or selling custom computers. I don't know, I just want to get more money outside my work.

[Gazorgan]

I pay for my habit.....er....hobby by doing wedding and soccer videos. They bring me the camcorder and I give then a DVDR.

Soccer videos are usually 'best of' or a season compilation. I lucked out and had 9 parents want a copy of a semi-final and final game on 1 DVD (8 worked and 1 was a royal biatch that wouldn't take any DVDR, wound up doing a VCD and they were happy).

Wedding videos are easier and harder, I do them in Premiere.

Do I make extra $$$ ? yes. Do I do it for a living? Hell no!!! Only wedding videos come close to paying for my time ($20/hour including encoding times and burning). It's more of a pain than anything, but at least I learn a lot!!!

[jgandara]

Gazorgan,
do you do any special editing, like slow motion, music?

I was thinking about doing a plain transfer from VHS, miniDV, Hi8 to DVD. I'm not godd at editing, but I can learn if I can charge more.

Capture->Encode-> Create a fixed amount of chapters and burn!. 10 bucks for the 1st DVD, 4 for extra DVDs (if needed).

What do you think? Is it too much?

I got a free trial for DVD transfer, from Best buy trough Yesvideo and the transfer was OK, but plain, just a lot of chapters and a few video music with some scenes.

I assume you can't add any soundtrack to a video, right?

[noki]

jgandara
if these are home-made movies (dvds) you're talking about then there is NO legal issue. i think Adam was talking about hollywood commercial movies. good luck in your consulting venture.

[jgandara]

Well, the main goal would be home movies, but I was thinking providing backup for anything else, like DVDs, CD..., but I'll stick to the first idea only.

[verchad]

For those of you that have made this a "side job", how did you advertise & get business. I thought I'd try this, I've got a cendyne/pioneer dvd-r and a panasonic dmr-hs2. I tried fliers at local stores, with tear off phone numbers, I even tried an add in the local newspaper and got zero responses. My price the first time around was $15 for the first disc and ten for each additional, later I tried $10 and $7. I was even including a standard dvd case with a generic cover to be made.

I pitched backing up old home video, special events, and I could handle all formats except old films. I thought this would work, but maybe not in my area. We have drug stores that offer this service for $25 - $30 a disc and they don't give you much beyond the disc, case, and index print cover.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[chazzie]

I've made a couple of hockey-DVD's, editing, adding sound, graphics etc. It's a lot of fun but it also takes A CONTAINER LOAD of time. To do a game that lasts 2 hours incl. studio and post text sequence usually takes me from late October to mid-December, and that is working between 6PM to 3AM almost every day. Usually we made it for SVCD, so the quality isn't that good, but checkout a sample at:

rtsp://dezoris.homelinux.net/ackes_2002_demo.rm

enjoy.

[Towncrier]

Apparently the "fair use" laws are different in the UK. Or at least that's what an Ebayer who is selling copies of the Harry Potter audio books is claiming. He offers a service whereby he converts the audio books to MP3 format and sells them to people, but only after they swear that they have a licensed copy.

I agree that even if it were legal, you'd be hard pressed to make enough money backing up people's DVDs to make it worth your while. On the other hand, there might be a short term opportunity for converting VHS tapes (which are not commercially available in DVD format) to DVDs. I doubt though that you'd be able to make enough money to cover your legal fees.

[LanEvo7]

To offer a service to backup movies and CD's? I want to work some extra time during the weekends, so I was thinking on offering a backup service for DVD movies, CD's or even a computer backup.

I'd do a backup in one or two DVDs, only if they own the original disk. Can it be legal?

Well, its legal as long as they do it themselves. So they could come into your store or whatever and you can "rent" them the hardware for a price so they could do it themselves.

[housepig]

Apparently the "fair use" laws are different in the UK. Or at least that's what an Ebayer who is selling copies of the Harry Potter audio books is claiming. He offers a service whereby he converts the audio books to MP3 format and sells them to people, but only after they swear that they have a licensed copy.

if he has to go to court, he will find out the hard way that he's quite wrong.

I've seen that dodge on stuff here too... before converting an out-of-print concert video, I did a quick search to make sure it hadn't been re-released. I found a guy who was selling dvd copies of it, but to get to his order page you had to click through a page with that same kind of agreement, that you were only paying for his backup of your original tape, and not the content...

[housepig]

[Well, its legal as long as they do it themselves. So they could come into your store or whatever and you can "rent" them the hardware for a price so they could do it themselves.

interesting theory... that's actually pretty good. and you could set it up so they weren't charged for the computer time, but make them buy a blank disc from you for $10... no bringing in your own blanks...

adam, any thoughts on that angle? I have a feeling that there's a hole in it, but I can't think of it right now...