Legally, Is there a difference?

[Swanick]

Adam wrote:

Well, I still think the question is dumb But only because I think it should be obvious that it is illegal to rent and copy. The time shifting aspect appears to be a topic of debate though.

There is no debate that copying rented DVD is illegal, the reason for the question was whether recording tv material is just as illegal.

I say copying rentals is legal. Tell me where I'm wrong.

[adam]

No they don't. As long as it's for personal use, it's perfectly legal, even if you didn't own it in the first place.

Once again, there is no exemption for personal copying generally in US Copyright law. You are welcome to read the first damn sentence of Title 17 to verify this. And yet again, I welcome you to read the text of the Betamax ruling where the Supreme Court of the United States expressly ruled as such.

There are express exemptions for personal copying of computer software under section 117 and musical recordings under 1008 provided you meet the requirements of the statute. Additionally libraries can make archival copies of most of their materials under section 104 as specified in the House Committee Notes.

That is it. I'm sorry but what you say is not true under US law.

[Swanick]

A library is any collection. As the court said, library building is when you keep the material for a longer period of time (than time shifting) or when you watch it multiple times. Its just the classification given when your previously time shifted material ceases to be that anymore.

Forget about library-building, its a general term for whenever time shifting is abused. Its very simple. Copyright prevents you from copying without authorization, period.

No it doesn't. Fair use allows any unauthorized copying, as long as you don't distribute the copies. But, if anyone, a friend, a video store, or a radio or TV station lets you use it once, there is no law preventing you from copying it for yourself.

But there is an exception made for time shifting. You can record broadcasts and keep them for a reasonable time to watch them ONCE at a later date. There is no exact time frame but you are strictly limited to a single viewing. If you go beyond this its library building and you no longer fall within the exception. There is no Fair Use exception for library-buliding. If your infringement turned on how long you kept the material, not whether you watched it multiple times, then the question would be presented to a jury and they would decide whether you acted reasonably.

It all turns on intent. Are you really just recording it because you couldn't watch it at its scheduled time? Are you really only interested in getting in that viewing that you missed? If so its time shifting. If you are recording things and putting them on your shelf to keep or are watching them repeatedly, then you are no longer time shifting.

Yeah right. Tell that to every kid with the entire season of Family Guy on tape; I'm sure you'll have no problem convincing them.

[ROF]

Adam wrote:

Well, I still think the question is dumb But only because I think it should be obvious that it is illegal to rent and copy. The time shifting aspect appears to be a topic of debate though.

There is no debate that copying rented DVD is illegal, the reason for the question was whether recording tv material is just as illegal.

I say copying rentals is legal. Tell me where I'm wrong.

By saying copying rentals is legal you are wrong. Ask your local retailer and I'm sure they'll provide you with a reason. When you copy a rented video or a broadcast for multiple viewing, you no longer have to maintain your membership(broadcast) or re-rent the video. You have violated the 4th section of fair use by destroying the marketability of the copyrighted product.

it doesn't make sense. If you rent a video 6 times at 4 dollars a time, you've paid 24 dollars to the copyright owners(minus fees to the retailer and sales taxes). So in essence, you've bought the video and should be able to copy it for indefinite use, unfortunately that's not the way broadcast or rental agreements work.

Read the application for video membership and you will see why it's illegal to do so. It's in the fine print why and what you can expect to pay in litigation cost and jail time if you do this illegal action.

[Swanick]

There is no tax other then the usual sales tax on blank tapes. The only media tax I know of in the United States applies to the Music Cdrs and it is provided for under the Digital Audio Recording Act and the right to backup audio cds does not come under Fair Use it comes under an express provision of copyright law. That was the deal. We pay taxes on music cdrs, we get the right to backup music, and hardware manufacturers of recorders get immunity from contributory copyright infringement liability.

But that doesn't make any sense. Any copying for personal use (of stuff you already own) is Fair Use. It already allows us to copy what we legally own for personal use, so why should they charg us any additional fee, unless.........they knew we were going to use it to burn music we didn't pay for? If we have to pay the fee, then logic would dictate that we're legally allowed to do more than just backup our CD's or make mixes. You, my friend, have been royally pwn3d.

[adam]

Everything he has said thus far has been wrong actually.

Swanick, please cite a case where a court ruled that there is a right to make personal copies under Fair Use. Otherwise, I'm not going to argue with you because I already cited the case where the US Supreme Court expressly said that there is NOT such a right.

Could it be that maybe, just maybe you are mixing up Canadian and US law? You guys do have more liberal laws regarding personal copying, and you do pay royalties/taxes on additional (all?) types of recording media.

[ROF]

There is no tax other then the usual sales tax on blank tapes. The only media tax I know of in the United States applies to the Music Cdrs and it is provided for under the Digital Audio Recording Act and the right to backup audio cds does not come under Fair Use it comes under an express provision of copyright law. That was the deal. We pay taxes on music cdrs, we get the right to backup music, and hardware manufacturers of recorders get immunity from contributory copyright infringement liability.

I thought we paid this same tax and fee on videocassettes and DVD+-R/RW media too??

[adam]

I thought we paid this same tax and fee on videocassettes and DVD+-R/RW media too??

No, only on DAT tapes and Music CDRs.

[ROF]

Everything he has said thus far has been wrong actually.

Swanick, please cite a case where a court ruled that there is a right to make personal copies under Fair Use. Otherwise, I'm not going to argue with you because I already cited the case where the US Supreme Court expressly said that there is NOT such a right.

Everybody seems to want to interpret fair use as being able to make personal copies for yourself. if that were true than wouldn't macrovision be illegal as it would violate my rights? Some people get confused when they think about fair use. They interpret it to mean "My Use".

[Swanick]

In the US, yes copyright law does say that any copying not exempted is an infringement and that includes personal copying. Also in the Betamax case the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had implicitly rejected any personal copying right.

Where does it say that it includes personal copying? Because I find that hard to believe. After all, if it were true, the AHRA would not have been passed.

The AHRA does authorize copying of personal musical recordings only, and there are restrictions too. You have to use an actual certified digital audio recording device like a DAT recorder.

That doesn't make any sense. The medium you copy it to is out of the question; whether you copy it to a DAT, or a cassette, or a CD or a hard drive or MP3 player, you're still copying something you don't own for personal use, which is legal. And besides, anyone could legally copy it to a DAT, and then exercise their fair use rights to rip it to your hard drive. Besides, controlling the formats has far too many grey areas. Because of technological advancements, many young people don't even have CD players anymore, but have MP3 players. If I lend a friend a CD, and short of a discman, he wants to play it on his iPod, he'd have to rip it to his computer first. Really, all he has done is exercise his fair use rights, but your logic would dictate that he's commited infringement in the process. Another example:

Let's say I have a CD collection containing music my friends like. They have a CD collection containing music I like. Whenever we get together, we like to play our music in the car. But it's such a hassle carrying around a big stack, and having to constantly swap the discs in the player. So one of my friends gets an idea: make a mix CD. So we get everyone's CD's together, rip 10 or 15 songs to my computer, and burn the disc. But at the end of the night, one of us has to hold onto the disc. By keeping it for more than one second, any of us could be guilty of infringement, by your logic. In fact, your logic implies that I have infringed copyright law just by copying it to my computer, simply because of the fact that I don't own it. By exercising my fair use rights, I am an infringer. You are full of crap.

Under Fair Use copying, like what you'd do with the library's photocopier, you can only copy excerts not the entire book. If you copy everything it can never be Fair Use.

Who's to say it is? So if I copy part of the DVD for myself it's not illegal, but if I copy the whole thing it is?

You also have to fall within one of the specific types of Fair Use copying, but if the copying is being done in a library its safe to say it falls under the general educational purpose.

Does it need to be done in the library? What if you have your own photocopier and you'd rather use that? You're saying that even though the end result is the same, it's not legal if the copying wasn't done using the library's equipment????

[Swanick]

Under Fair Use copying, like what you'd do with the library's photocopier, you can only copy excerts not the entire book. If you copy everything it can never be Fair Use. You also have to fall within one of the specific types of Fair Use copying, but if the copying is being done in a library its safe to say it falls under the general educational purpose.

What about copying for distribution in a classroom setting. let's say your putting together a report about the AIDS epidemic and you happen to find a small 20 page pamphlet at the library. Your deadline for your oral and written report is in 5 days and you don't have time to write to the printer of this pamphlet asking for permission to distribute or have the time for them to send you 30 copies. Instead, you pull out your scanner and scan the pamphlet into your laptop and print out 30 copies (1 for each person in your class).

Since you copied the entire pamphlet without permission would you be in violation of copyright law for doing so?

I say you would be in violation, but others seem to think you wouldn't be violating any law since it was used and distributed for an academic/lecture purpose.

You are not in violation for copying it for yourself. Under most circumstances, however, you would be in violation for distributing copies. However, this case is an exception since it's for educational purpose.

[ROF]

Under Fair Use copying, like what you'd do with the library's photocopier, you can only copy excerts not the entire book. If you copy everything it can never be Fair Use.

Who's to say it is? So if I copy part of the DVD for myself it's not illegal, but if I copy the whole thing it is?

Depends on the use, the amount copied, and the effect on the market value of said copyrighted material. if you read the law it gets really specific about these types of commentary copies.

[Swanick]

But if you wanted to, you would be within your rights. You paid for it, you should be able to do what you want.

No you would not. You did not purchase the material, you never do you only purchased a license to watch it.

Correction: You paid to borrow it for a period of time. During that time, you are legally permitted to do whatever you want with it, as long as it's returned in the same condition as it was when it was given to you. If you want to copy it for yourself, that's perfectly acceptable.

Time shifting is strictly applied only to let you watch something later because you couldn't watch it when it was aired and had no control over when you received that broadcast.

Who's to say you can't use it for rentals? What if I want to have a marathon of several movies at my house. It doesn't matter when I do it, but I'd like all the movies to be played back to back. The video store I go to has a bad selection, so they only have one of the movies I want available. I do not want to rent this movie now, because it's no good without the others, and I don't want late fees from waiting for the others to arrive.. However, knowing this store's unreliable inventory, by the time the others arrive, this one will probably be gone. So I rent the movie, timeshift it, and return it to the store. I do not watch the timeshifted movie until the others arrive. Finally, they become available, I rent them, and have a marathon. Were it not for my right to time-shift, I would not be able to have this marathon.

[Swanick]

No they don't. As long as it's for personal use, it's perfectly legal, even if you didn't own it in the first place.

Once again, there is no exemption for personal copying generally in US Copyright law. You are welcome to read the first damn sentence of Title 17 to verify this. And yet again, I welcome you to read the text of the Betamax ruling where the Supreme Court of the United States expressly ruled as such.

There are express exemptions for personal copying of computer software under section 117 and musical recordings under 1008 provided you meet the requirements of the statute. Additionally libraries can make archival copies of most of their materials under section 104 as specified in the House Committee Notes.

That is it. I'm sorry but what you say is not true under US law.

America's so screwed up. But what about me? Am I expected to obey your country's ridiculous copyright laws too?

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning. Keep your political comments to yourself.
/ Moderator lordsmurf

[ROF]

America's so screwed up. But what about me? Am I expected to obey your country's ridiculous copyright laws too?

Yes, Compliance and allegiance to the almighty American rule of law is the only acceptable way in the new world order.

[adam]

Swanick the only thing ridiculous here is your attitude.

I am an attorney and I specialized in Copyrights in law school and I am currently pursuing an LLM specifically in intellectual property. I deal with copyright questions everyday as it is the main focus of my practice. I have done my research and I stand behind it. You obviously have not done yours and yet you just won't drop this even though you are clearly talking out of your ass. I already pointed you to the the relevant portions of Title 17 that answer your questions and to the Sup. Ct. case that breaks the whole time shifting concept down. It is blatantly obvious from your questions and contentions that you have not even bothered to look at these sources yet so there's nothing more I can help you with.

[Swanick]

Adam wrote:

Well, I still think the question is dumb But only because I think it should be obvious that it is illegal to rent and copy. The time shifting aspect appears to be a topic of debate though.

There is no debate that copying rented DVD is illegal, the reason for the question was whether recording tv material is just as illegal.

I say copying rentals is legal. Tell me where I'm wrong.

By saying copying rentals is legal you are wrong. Ask your local retailer and I'm sure they'll provide you with a reason. When you copy a rented video or a broadcast for multiple viewing, you no longer have to maintain your membership(broadcast) or re-rent the video. You have violated the 4th section of fair use by destroying the marketability of the copyrighted product.

No I haven't! As long as I'm not distributing pirated tapes, the market remains unaffected. And your "broadcast for multiple viewing" is BS. That implies that it's illegal to watch a video with your friends.

it doesn't make sense. If you rent a video 6 times at 4 dollars a time, you've paid 24 dollars to the copyright owners(minus fees to the retailer and sales taxes). So in essence, you've bought the video and should be able to copy it for indefinite use, unfortunately that's not the way broadcast or rental agreements work.

But there's no law holding you back. As long as it's for personal use, and you don't distribute the copies, it's fine.

Read the application for video membership and you will see why it's illegal to do so. It's in the fine print why and what you can expect to pay in litigation cost and jail time if you do this illegal action.

No, it says you can't create copies for OTHER PEOPLE.

[ROF]

I stand by the opinion that quite a few people thing "Fair Use" means "my use". I'm no lawyer but common sense tells me that copying programs for later multiple viewings while they are available for purchase is illegal. Some people just can't wrap their brain around that concept. They think that fair use entitles them to record and copy whatever they wish so long as they do not personally profit from said copying.

[Swanick]

Everything he has said thus far has been wrong actually.

What did I tell you about referring to yourself in third person?

Swanick, please cite a case where a court ruled that there is a right to make personal copies under Fair Use.

THE AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT!!!!! I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED THAT!!!

Otherwise, I'm not going to argue with you because I already cited the case where the US Supreme Court expressly said that there is NOT such a right.

But that has never been challenged. The DMCA has never been taken to court by anyone. In fact, none of the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits have ever gone to court. So until someone's actually willing to take them on, you'll never know.

Could it be that maybe, just maybe you are mixing up Canadian and US law?

Nope. But maybe you're confusing US copyright law with common sense.

You guys do have more liberal laws regarding personal copying, and you do pay royalties/taxes on additional (all?) types of recording media.

Not anymore. I got 30 bucks back for my iPod after the government ruled that the CPCC could no longer charge the blank media levy.

[ROF]

As long as I'm not distributing pirated tapes, the market remains unaffected. And your "broadcast for multiple viewing" is BS. That implies that it's illegal to watch a video with your friends.

Really. You created a pirated copy, did you pay the licensing fee to own that copy or did you pay the rental fee? You've affected the market, because your not the only one who has done this.

BTW, Broadcasting a movie with your friends is illegal too. You did not pay the fee to do so.

[ROF]

Swanick, please cite a case where a court ruled that there is a right to make personal copies under Fair Use.

THE AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT!!!!! I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED THAT!!!

Citing it, reading it, and comprehending what you've read are separate actions.

[Swanick]

Everything he has said thus far has been wrong actually.

Swanick, please cite a case where a court ruled that there is a right to make personal copies under Fair Use. Otherwise, I'm not going to argue with you because I already cited the case where the US Supreme Court expressly said that there is NOT such a right.

Everybody seems to want to interpret fair use as being able to make personal copies for yourself. if that were true than wouldn't macrovision be illegal as it would violate my rights?

It should. However, this is not the case. Creators are allowed to add copyright protection to protect their work. They can't stop you from copying anything, but they can sure as hell try. Trust me, all kinds of copy protection are violations of your fair use rights, but copyright law still allows Copy Control, CSS, Macrovision, Region Coding, DRM, and all that other jazz.

Some people get confused when they think about fair use. They interpret it to mean "My Use".

Well isn't that what it is? As long as you don't distribute the copies, it's still fair use, unless it's for educational/criticism etc. purposes.

[Swanick]

I stand by the opinion that quite a few people thing "Fair Use" means "my use". I'm no lawyer but common sense tells me that copying programs for later multiple viewings while they are available for purchase is illegal. Some people just can't wrap their brain around that concept. They think that fair use entitles them to record and copy whatever they wish so long as they do not personally profit from said copying.

No, it means you can copy whatever you want for yourself, but not for other people. And really, the word "fair use" is thrown around too much and used out of context; I only use it because it's what everyone's used to. But in reality, fair use means copying or presenting a copyrighted work without permission for educational purposes, criticism, parody, etc. Copying it for yourself falls under Personal Use, which is what allows you to make backups, mixes, archives, conversions/space shifting, etc. However, it does not say anywhere that you must own the work to begin with, which logic would dictate means you CAN copy rentals, or record stuff off TV or the radio.

[adam]

The Audio Home Recording Act is an express statute which grants the right to copy music recordings, its authority does not come from Fair Use. Do you not see the nail in your own coffin? If all personal copies were authorized under the Fair Use provisions of section 107, which was enacted in 1976, then why did Congress later add section 1008 in 1992 to grant the right to backup audio?

And why is there also an express exemption for computer software?

The reason is that Fair Use has nothing to do with archival copies. Fair Use has never even been applied to archival copying. The DMCA has been tested hundreds of times in court and it isn't even the authority that makes archival copying an infringement, the very first damn section of Title 17 is.

You have single handedly turned this thread into cornucopia of misinformation.

[Swanick]

As long as I'm not distributing pirated tapes, the market remains unaffected. And your "broadcast for multiple viewing" is BS. That implies that it's illegal to watch a video with your friends.

Really. You created a pirated copy, did you pay the licensing fee to own that copy or did you pay the rental fee? You've affected the market, because your not the only one who has done this.

No I didn't. Piracy is when you literally take over the market and keep the profits for yourself (if any), by distributing unauthorized copies to other people. It's not the same as copying a rental, taping a show, or downloading a song.

BTW, Broadcasting a movie with your friends is illegal too. You did not pay the fee to do so.

Yes you did. You didn't receive permission for a public broadcast, but watching it with your friends in the privacy of your own home is legal, and you have every right to. They lent you a copy, and you can do as you wish. If what you said was true, then wouldn't video stores be refusing service to families that rent a video together?

[Swanick]

The Audio Home Recording Act is an express statute which grants the right to copy music recordings, its authority does not come from Fair Use. Do you not see the nail in your own coffin? If all personal copies were authorized under the Fair Use provisions of section 107, which was enacted in 1976, then why did Congress later add section 1008 in 1992 to grant the right to backup audio?

The AHRA WAS in 1992. Goof.

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning.
/ Moderator adam

[lordsmurf]

I think this thread has run it's course.

For those that missed it, the original poster got his answer:

Thanks to all who have posted and a special thanks to Adam!

Plus I hate seeing the spewing of misinformation (Swanick, especially).

THREAD OVER.

[adam]

The AHRA WAS in 1992. Goof.

That's what I just said. The AHRA added section 1008.