Is this legal?

[vid83]

If this is not the right place to ask, I'll ask it in Yahoo Answers.
I have a few TV shows that I taped last year on VHS tapes such as Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Oprah, local news, etc. It is not the entire show. Most of the videos are only about 3 minutes each. I am going to turn this into DVDs. It will take about 8 DVDs total. Four people wants the DVDs so I am going to make 4 copies and give it to four people that I know. I am not doing this for profit. I am not making money from this. I am only being paid for the materials such as DVD cases, inserts, DVD label, ink jet ink. Is this illegal?

[guns1inger]

I have yet to see Yahoo Answers produce anything but ill-informed garbage.

If you were doing this for yourself then it probably falls under time-shifting, which has been accepted as legal in the US. However once you start making copies for friends, I suspect that it becomes technically illegal. Will anyone come hunting you down with dogs and guns ? Probably not.

[gll99]

I'm not a lawyer so can't give a legal opinion but as a layman IMO......

There may be educational exceptions but in most jurisdictions, if you don't have written permission from the original distributors / producers then it is not legal to distribute parts of tv shows even if it's non commercial. Technically some may say even you can only legally view this material once as a time shift but I doubt that anyone would make an issue of it if you looked at it more than once.

Distribution is often the issue in such cases whether it's for commercial purposes or not. Look at what the little singer Prince did to that lady who posted a video clip of her child dancing with a barely discernible track of his music in the background. She received a cease and desist order from his distribution company under threat of legal action. He may be biting the hand that feeds him but legally that's his choice. As a counter measure, I plan to answer with my wallet, boycotting his music and sponsors and changing channel whenever he comes on.

[aedipuss]

not a chance it's legal. the time-shifting exemption only applies to personal use. no copies for friends, that's jail time.

[Noahtuck]

Show me once here the TV "police" showed up to raid your house for something like this

Technically... yeah... it may be against the law.... but coming down from everyone's "moral" high horse.....
if this was a reality... 99.9% of the entire country would be in prison for recording tv shows off TV for the last 30 years onto VHS and watching it a 1000 times over
Crap!!!!!!!! i am SOOOOOOOOO going to prison for 1000 years for spitting out gum on the sidewalk, taking a leak in my own yard, and throwing a butt into a parking lot or onto the road going 70 MPH on my bike 8)

I have yet to see Yahoo Answers produce anything but ill-informed garbage.

I'll give ya that one

not a chance it's legal. the time-shifting exemption only applies to personal use. no copies for friends, that's jail time.

CRAP!!!!!

come down brother.... come down....

[guns1inger]

The OP didn't ask if he would get arrested or if anyone would care, just if it was legal

[Noahtuck]

The OP didn't ask if he would get arrested or if anyone would care, just if it was legal

I know... that's why i said...

Technically... yeah... it may be against the law....

But....

not a chance it's legal. the time-shifting exemption only applies to personal use. no copies for friends, that's jail time.

Hey..... i just gotta input a little reality once in awhile :P

If you knew how many people were in jail for STUPID law's here in the U.S.!!!!!!!!!!

C'mon.... how F'd up is it in Australia ?? where they banned santa's from saying "Ho Ho Ho" because it might offend women

Most law's are a joke and are just for show on paper.... look!!!!!!! we are actually doing something to make a diff.!!!!!!!!!!
And that is NOTHING against aus.!!!!! cause the U.S. and the rest of the world is just as F'd up if not more!!!!!!!
We just all need to band together and take over the world and make it right!!!!!!!!

Oh crap!!!!!!!! I'm in trouble now.........

[gll99]

Dear vid83

On the one hand you have law abiding friendly members who are trying to help you navigate the murky waters of copyright law and attempting to provide some measure of reasonable guidance by expressing a thoughful well balanced view on the subject.

On the other hand you have the an ARK ist who shall remain nameless but would lead you in the path of d@mnation and destruction

Choose whom you will follow wisely grasshopper

[Cunhambebe]

I have yet to see Yahoo Answers produce anything but ill-informed garbage.

-LOL - LOL - LOL

That's perfectly legal. I guess the System is concerned with things much more serious than this one. If it is for home entertainment is OK. I can assure you - I'm a Lawyer, of course a bad one lol lol lol
Cheers.

[jman98]

vid83 - Here's the bottom line on this.

The people who produced the TV shows would argue that what you want to do is 100% illegal and could, in theory, sue you. In reality they will not do so because despite what they say, using excerpts MIGHT be legal under "Fair Use" doctrine and they would not want a court of law to set a precedent that what you want to do is legal. So while they would argue that you have no right to do this, they don't want to track you down about it and actually take you to court on it. Please do not be stupid enough to ask the producers if you can "license" their stuff or pay a fee. You could expect to pay a fee of thousands of dollars per clip. I have to emphasize the word "might" above because Fair Use doctrine is decided on a case by case basis and there are no hard rules about it. However, I think you could make a case that what you are doing is covered by Fair Use and you would be OK, but I would not advise you to set up some kind of business where you routinely sell this DVD. They may only be excerpts but they might be related by a theme (ie. they might all be short clips of the same musical performer) and if you are making a lot of copies and making money off this, you could potentially be sued not by the producers but by the perfomer for making money off them. So you see that the situation is not clear, but if you really only make 4 copies for friends, then the odds of you being sued, raided by the feds, etc. are extremely low.

[oldandinthe way]

If you have doubts about the legality of reuse of someone else's intellectual property, you should expect the possibility of having to defend yourself in court.

The law is vague, the trial law inconsistant and anyone who has a cheap lawyer, lawyers on retainer, lawyers on the payroll or other means of having lower legal costs than you can sue you in the hopes of extorting a settlement.

Needless to say this situation impacts totally legal use of material as well as illegal use. It was created by the Congress at the behest of the MPAA and the RIAA, and you can guess which party receives their largess.

You make a judgment based on the liklihood of your being sued. Guess wrong and it can be expensive. Although awards of damages typically run $5k or less, legal fees for a settlement can run up to $30k and for a trial up to $150k. You will wind up settling. This is unfortunately the voice of experience.

[Cunhambebe]

Ops... He said he wants to give the DVDs to 4 people - then it is not for home entertainment (your own use). 100% Illegal - You shouldn't do that.
Cheers.

[fritzi93]

i am SOOOOOOOOO going to prison for 1000 years for spitting out gum on the sidewalk, taking a leak in my own yard, and throwing a butt into a parking lot or onto the road going 70 MPH on my bike 8)

Only 70 mph? I'll occasionally go 100 on my bike, just to blow out the carbon, you understand. Preventive maintenance. I do all the other stuff too, so make mine 1001 years.
:P

[aedipuss]

look at it this way. you make the illegal copies for 4 friends. no big deal you know and trust them, right? but they all have a dozen friends who see the illegal copy on their entertainment center. somewhere down the line one "friend" may well be a cop or a lawyer from the dark side...... hey they go after grandma and dead broke college kids for smaller infractions.

it's just something to remember as you make those copies.

[AlanHK]

not a chance it's legal. the time-shifting exemption only applies to personal use. no copies for friends, that's jail time.

A 3-minute excerpt surely qualifies as "fair use" under US copyright.

And as for "jail time", of course not. Who has ever gone to jail for anything less than massive commercial copying.

And practically, of course, no law enforcement office would bother to investigate let alone prosecute.

Why even ask the question if you're only giving it to four friends.

It's like the states where oral sex is a crime. Well, who is going to turn you in unless you broadcast the fact?

[orduser]

What about stuff people post to youtube? It may be off topic but don't quite understand that. I see old TVprograms and such, is it because you can't copy them that they're OK to post?

[guns1inger]

YouTube and Stage6 and the rest will take work down, but they don't do it pro-actively for the most part. Under US law they can not be held responsible for the content posted, so long as they take it down as soon as the copyright owner, or their agent, request it. They will take down the most obvious stuff if they see it, but when you think how much stuff is posted, it is impossible to filter for and pro-actively remove copyright material.

[Noahtuck]

i am SOOOOOOOOO going to prison for 1000 years for spitting out gum on the sidewalk, taking a leak in my own yard, and throwing a butt into a parking lot or onto the road going 70 MPH on my bike 8)

Only 70 mph? I'll occasionally go 100 on my bike, just to blow out the carbon, you understand. Preventive maintenance. I do all the other stuff too, so make mine 1001 years.
:P

Well with no windshield it's a bit hard to smoke over 70mph, and i tend to like to keep both my hands on the grips when doing 90 & up :P

When i was younger we used to go from town to town on the highway's upwards of 140mph on our bikes....
but i've mellowed in my old age