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"So I guess all the video recordings I made with my vcr and let freinds view it because they didn't see the show was against the law. - the only difference is I didn't put them on the internet to share with other folks that didn't see it. what difference does it make if I shared a video tape recording with one friend or a thousand on the internet - you are still breaking the law."

Not correct. Copyright law is long and arcane for a reason; much of it goes into the nature of the nature of the use of copyrighted material. Phrases like "fair use" and "public performance" come into play here, as does the economic impact -- think about it for a few minutes and I'm sure you'll understand the potential difference in economic impact between watching a movie with some friends in the privacy of your home vs. making that movie available for download by thousands of strangers. Additionally, even while some trivial copyright infringement is technically illegal, it's under the radar and not worth enforcing.

By the way, lots of laws work this way. For example, there is certainly a difference between giving a joint to a friend vs. selling a thousand joints to a thousand "friends" whom you don't know; and there's a difference between sneaking a $10 bill out of your mom's purse vs. taking $10,000 from her.

When we make thoughts illegal, we're faced with legislating people's minds.

Where I come from, "legislating people's minds" is called Titles 17 and 35, United States Code.

Dictionaries do fit the criteria. They owe their existence to previous dictionaries

Counterproposal: I'm about to create a very small, very abridged dictionary here :

Doug's 2004 Dictionary

Dictionary: a book that contains words and short summaries about what each word means.

Thesaurus: a book that contains words, and then lists of words that have similar meanings to the first word.

Clueless: lacking clue.

Clue: could mean `a bit of knowledge', or it has come to mean `overall knowledge, either about a specific field or about everything'.

Shizzle: a relatively new word, made up by some rapper. It's hard to tell what it means, but I suspect it means either `sure' or `sh*t'.
(c) 2004 by Doug

Ok, that's my dictionary. I've just created it, just now. It's automatically protected by copyright as soon as I write it, registered or not. The (c) 2004 bit is not required for it to be copyrighted, but I'll include it just so there's no question.

If you feel that my dictionary is not covered by copyright, this is where you need to prove your point. If you feel that it's existance is based on a previous dictionary, then you'll need to be specific about which one. Certainly, I did not consult any other texts while writing it, and do not have an edietic memory. Also, I don't recall ever looking up any of these words in a dictionary. And consider that the word `shizzle' is very new, and not likely to be found in any dictionary more than 10 years old (and therefore all would still be covered by their copyrights, unless explictly put into the public domain.)

As another counter example, consider this -- a slang dictionary ... do you feel that he's not entitled to the copyright on his work? Certainly, he does.

Another counterexample -- these people seem to think that you keep the copyright of definitions that you add to the project. If individual definitions are protected by copyrighted, would not the whole thing also be similarly protected?

Really, you've come up with a position that's pretty difficult to support.

Claiming copyright and actually having a copyrightable right are two different things, as SCO is finding out.

The trademark protection on the term "Webster's" in connection to dictionaries expired LONG ago.

However, trademarks and coprights are very different beasts, and just because one has expired , that doesn't mean the other has too.

I bring this up because in your previous post, you seemed to show some confusion between the two by saying this --

the term "Webster's Dictionary" no longer has copyright protection

you'll find that only the unique parts in your "copyrighted" dictionary are covered by copyright - the actual list of words and their definitions aren't.

WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?
...
Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)

...rent CDs and buy blank MD discs to record them on (now THAT would never go over in the US).

It would work in a heartbeat, if it weren't a violation of copyright laws, written by and for the recording industry. Ever wonder why you can't rent a CD here in the States?

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#109

Please point out again which statements are false staments I made.

Many of your general statements were false, because they were too general.

Sharing a single file or program once (presuming it is a "normal" file or program) is not criminal.

Sharing a single $1000 program once is criminal. Your statement is too general. This entire argument, I have labored to correct your over-general (false) statements. By demonstrating a counter-example (a single $1000 program), which fulfills all of the characteristics of your over-general statement, I prove that your statement is false. I recognize the intent of your statement, but it is over-general (false).

Stop making over-generalizations, and we can end this argument and all go home a lot sooner.

I did make some general comments, maybe some that said "file sharing is not illegal." I believe that to be a true statement.

Yes, it is literally true that "file sharing is not illegal," right up until the file is a copyrighted work that you do not own, or have permission to share. Then it is against the law to do it (civil law). In fact, in some instances ($1000, yadda yadda), it is even criminal.

I don't recall explicitly stating that it can never be illegal to share a file an unlimited number of times.

I pointed out 10,000 *simultaneous* downloads of Doom 3, and you generalized that there was no criminal copyright violation. That's awfully close to you explicitly stating that it can never be criminal to share a file an unlimited number of times. (10,000 being a rather larger number.) Later, you told me that you thought there was probably a 1:100 ratio of criminal to civil violations.

Let me be explicit.

What you said is mostly true - but you're leaving out the most important part:

"by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000"

And here again is the point in the law.

In other words, someone merely has to share, say, 50 DVDs in a 180-day period. That's really, really not that hard to imagine, AK Marc. In fact, I'm certain that criminal copyright violation happens in significant (thousands) of offenses per year, through BitTorrent alone. I base that on the fact that BitTorrent Accounts for 35% of all Traffic on the Internet.

Oh, and if I'm wrong, I'm not lying (since you seem to be throwing that word around willy-nilly).

You started with the word "lying," and that's what got me so super agitated. I brought up DeCSS, and you claimed it was either a lie (because you thought that I indicated that you brought it up), or a non sequitur. We're still talking about it, so I think it's a tautology that it wasn't a non sequitur.

At worst I'm mistaken, so you should learn what words mean before throwing them around.

See, and we were doing so well - almost having a civil conversation - right up until you said I don't know what words mean.

Again:

You keep making general statements which are too general. They are over-general. They are false. I have repeatedly demonstrated to you, again, and again, and again, that your statements are over-general, and yet you keep saying them again, and again, and again. I have pointed out to you that you are mistaken, and you have even acknowledged that you were mistaken, but then gone on to again restate your general statement. Knowingly making a false statement is a lie.

I know what the word lie means.

You are communicating with an anal-retentive computer programmer who takes words very seriously.

You are obviously incapable of seeing the big picture and taking it

It currently isn't a criminal offence (thus not a crime).

Remember earlier when you called me a liar? Well, when you say something false - that's a lie.

It's not a criminal offense to rip a DVD with DVD Shrink, encode it with Divx, and share it with BitTorrent?

"Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes and video discs."

"The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in Federal prison and a fine of $250,000."

It's not a criminal offense to hack software to have no security and share it with BitTorrent?

That's not fair use. It's copyright infringement, and that's a criminal offense, if you do it for private financial gain, or if the total retail value is more than $1,000 in a 180-day period.

How much retail value do you think there was in over 10,000 copies of Doom 3?

(I'm ignoring your other comments, because they are based on the false premise that it's not a crime. It is.)

Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.

the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

Well... If the auth servers are down in 5 years (which I assume you're inferring).. just claim Exemption 3 to the DMCA and legally crack it. If Valve was smart, they'd post the legal crack on their server if they went out of buisness (to facilitate customer happiness).

Except for the provisions in section 110 (from your linked web site.

(1) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made;

So assuming you can get a legal copy and you are showing it to students of a specific class in a setting where the general public is not permitted while the showing is going on - as the parent states "in class, as part of the class" it would seem to be covered by Fair Use exclusions .

There are a LOT of ifs, ands and buts included in section 110, including the requirement for maximum SqFt area of estabilshments (2000 not including parking area) for non-food or drinking establishments and using not more than 6 loudspeakers, with not more than 4 in any one room...

Laws are complex, for actual legal advise, consult a shyster! (um, I mean a lawyer)

I didn't mean to imply that they quantity of files shared made infringement a crime, just that charging money did. Sorry bad choice of words.

However to clarify - civil penalties always apply, but criminal penalties do not apply unless you charged money or profited or the material you infringed upon in the last 180 days has a total retail value of over $1000. See Copyright Code Section 506 . For now at least - the cut-off for what is criminal has been decreased several times in the last 10 years.

If the film is being shown in class, as part of the class (meaning, it's not just entertainment, but actually pertains to the subject of the class) it's very much legal. It's called Fair Use.
See this copy/paste from http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107:
"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

Now, I'm sure overzealous legal eagles may try to weasel out of this one, and in fact, at least one part of this clause has already been made practically impossible legally by the DMCA, the "including multiple copies for classroom use" part.
If a film school teacher wanted to copy a scene from a copyrighted film, and ask each student to re-edit the scene, they would have two choices.
Either request the material from the copyright owner, which is hit or miss at best and can cost the school a fortune, as the copyright owner pretty much sets the price; or make a copy of the finished material.
Prior to the DMCA that wasn't a big problem.
Bypassing Macrovision was as simple as copying from VHS or DVD to a 3/4" tape and then making copies.
Copying DVDs digitally for each student wasn't possible as decss hadn't been created yet.
Today, if it wasn't for the DMCA, a teacher would be able to legally make copies of scenes from films, in the best quality available, directly from DVD. Thus, rights guaranteed a teacher before 1996 no longer apply, thanks to the DMCA.

DMCA violation, go to jail.

Please know what you are talking about, before you actually start talking.

On October 28, 2003, the Librarian of Congress, on the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The four classes of works exempted are:

(1) Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains, websites or portions of websites, but not including lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network or lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to prevent receipt of email.

(2) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.

(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

(4) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format.

Then, you claim DMCA exemption #3, and legally crack it.

Anyone responding with, "But what if there's no crack for Half-Life 2?" will be bashed about the head with a crowbar.

Oops -- that's not the Constitution, it's something else I read. At least, I thought it was, but I can't find what I'm looking for on copyright.gov either.

It could be that I just figured that since copyright specifically prohibits derivative works, they must be allowed otherwise, and that the ability to make such derivative works be preserved.

In any case, I was mistaken and/or confused; sorry about that. Please disregard.

In either case though downloading doesn't count as infringement as far as I know. It's only when you start uploading that you have problems.

Wrong. Read US Code, Title 17, Sec 106; the copyright holder has the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work.

Section 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

1. to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
2. to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
3. to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
4. in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
5. in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
6. in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

"Copyright was supposed to be for a LIMITED time and to create a LIMITED monopoly for the ORIGINAL copyright holder."

You're correct about the "limited" part (it's in the constitution) but do you have a citation regarding your "original" claim? In reading various histories of copyright law I can't find a reference to when the ability to transfer a copyright was added to the law. Chapter 2 of US copyright law is called "copyright owner and transfer" so I'm guessing that transferring has been part of the law since the early days; at least for the past 100 years or so. If you know differently, please englighten me.

"The problem with copyright is because of people like you who think that the purpose of copyright is to give you an UNLIMITED stream of revenue."

I don't understand what you mean. People like me? The phrase "limited time" is in the constitution. That concept is one of those 1L "intro to copyright law" things.

Your post was very informative, but there were a few points to debate:

"The copyright code was intended to nail people that intentionally rip off copyrighted works and sell them for profit."

I'm not aware of that distinction in either the constitution or US code. Do you have a citation?

"Originally that was to stop books from being copied and sold."

Books, maps and charts were the first articles protected, but they were protected against unauthorized duplication. In common practice, there was little reason to make unauthorized copies unless you were going to sell them, but nonetheless, I'm not aware of any such distinction. This was in 1790. Printed musical works were added in 1831. That was before plays or (obviously) photos were added. Interestingly, unauthorized performance of copyrighted music wasn't added until 1897.

(an aside here: motion pictures were added in 1912. Just one more example of the law being retroactively updated to catch up with technology. Congress didn't bother with any of this "the genie's been let out of the bottle, and the incredible technology of movies is way beyeond our puny copyright laws" nonsense; they simply added them to the list. Many Slashdotters are of the mistaken impression that the scramble to update copyright laws to deal with the precedent of P2P is some sort of new concept; of course, they're being retarded. The law books get bigger as technology moves on. State vehicle codes didn't even exist much more than 100 years ago, and today the California Vehicle Code is about three inches thick.)

"I believe that predates the music industry. That is still the big distinction: if you commit infringement but don't profit by it, that's one thing (fair-use at best, a civil matter at worst), but sell it and make money and you can end up in criminal court, if the amount you make exceeds certain specific limits set up by the law."

Partially correct. It's quite easy to run afoul of criminal copyright law -- just distribute more than $1K or so of copyrighted work. You don't need to be collecting money for it, although that's a Common Slashdot Meme(tm). This is covered here This is another example of copyright law (as do many, many other areas of law) being updated for the times: in the 1850's, for example, it would be quite pointless and costly to give away the equivalent of $1,000 worth of copyrighted material, but today it's as easy as putting a few gigs of music or movies in your P2P share folder. Incidentally, this provision was added before the Internet became the cultural phenomenon it was today, and was put into place to nail the kiddies who ran the warez BBSes and web sites. I believe it was called the "No Electronic Theft" (NET) act.

"As an aside, one of things the RIAA would like to do is remove that distinction, and thoroughly criminalize any copyright infringement of any kind."

Interesting... I've never heard that. Do you have a citation?

"It was. It was called fair use."

Interesting, I haven't heard that. Do you have a citation?

"I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree."

Also interesting. Do you have anything to back that up? If you would like to see what US law says about "fair use" (as opposed to the common Slashdot misunderstandings), Here's the link. Ivan Hoffman also has an excellent article about Napster's failed attempt to defend their actions as fair use. pdinfo.com addresses the specific issue of music and fair use here ; they write "We have attempted to do find specific details and examples of Fair Use of music. The rumors that it is OK to use so many notes or so many bars are just not true. There is little doubt that, other than private in-home listening and playing, Fair Use of music is extremely limited."

So, if you've found a law that makes it okay to copy my friend's CDs onto cassette tapes, please post the links. In either case, there's an important difference between "under the radar" copyright violation (making copies of your friends CDs in small quantities) for which nobody will get on your case, vs. activities which are truly "fair use."

"Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough ..."

That's counter to the popular understanding of how it works. It's explained here (Google is indeed great for finding instances of that retarded "the RIAA gets a cut" meme, but for stuff like this, just going to the actual law book will save a lot of wasted time). The vast majority of the money goes to artists, composers and musicians -- who, I should add, generally aren't paid enough. A small percentage goes to record companies. None goes directly to the RIAA.

"It was. It was called fair use."

Interesting, I haven't heard that. Do you have a citation?

"I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree."

Also interesting. Do you have anything to back that up? If you would like to see what US law says about "fair use" (as opposed to the common Slashdot misunderstandings), Here's the link. Ivan Hoffman also has an excellent article about Napster's failed attempt to defend their actions as fair use. pdinfo.com addresses the specific issue of music and fair use here ; they write "We have attempted to do find specific details and examples of Fair Use of music. The rumors that it is OK to use so many notes or so many bars are just not true. There is little doubt that, other than private in-home listening and playing, Fair Use of music is extremely limited."

So, if you've found a law that makes it okay to copy my friend's CDs onto cassette tapes, please post the links. In either case, there's an important difference between "under the radar" copyright violation (making copies of your friends CDs in small quantities) for which nobody will get on your case, vs. activities which are truly "fair use."

"Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough ..."

That's counter to the popular understanding of how it works. It's explained here (Google is indeed great for finding instances of that retarded "the RIAA gets a cut" meme, but for stuff like this, just going to the actual law book will save a lot of wasted time). The vast majority of the money goes to artists, composers and musicians -- who, I should add, generally aren't paid enough. A small percentage goes to record companies. None goes directly to the RIAA.

No, I understand that you have the right to quote copyrighted works. This doesn't fall under fair use AFAIK, but still it is your right.

No, actually, it falls *exactly* under fair use. Would you like me to quote the law on fair use doctrine? Okay, I will:

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

I think we can agree, quoting of a copyrighted work falls under this definition (presuming you are doing it for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, etc, etc). And if you still don't believe it, feel free to read the law yourself.

DMCA applies only to cases whereby an encryption / obfuscation method was broken

No, that is not true. Have you actually RTF-Legislation? Perhaps you should take a peek at Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, paying particular attention to Title II, where it establishes liability limits for service providers that follow the new rules. Among these rules is that the service provider "in the instance of a notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity."

So, under Title II of the DMCA, a service provider is not required to comply with a so-called DMCA infringment/takedown notice, but if it elects to ignore or defy such a request, the service provider looses its limited liability protection under DMCA.

Furthermore, if the mirrors are an accurate repesentation of the original parody site, IMHO CNN has a valid case regarding copyright infringement.

1. I don't know if you can consider this a commercial use: the author's site does sell advertising space, but does not charge specifically to view this parody.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work is the entire look, feel, layout and design of the CNN website, which certainly qualifies as a creative work as well as intellectual property.
3. The worst issue against the parody is that except for the article text itself, 100% of the page is copied directly from CNN.
4. This individual parody has nil effect on the value of CNN's copyrighted work. But the domino principal applies and the value of CNN's copyrights can become eroded, one parody at a time.

I guess you have never seen the FBI warning before a movie or read the law.

What we need is a case brought on the grounds "I bought this software.

Part of why this ruling is so devastating, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion by now, is that this judge said, flat-out, that you don't buy software; you buy a license to use software.

He essentially gutted the entirety of Section 117 of copyright law, by taking out the entire underpinning of it. Since nobody actually owns copies of programs any more, by this inept judge's reasoning, nothing in 117 applies the way I see it.

Another thing I just thought of - I don't understand how making archival copies for backup purposes is a protected right that can't be infringed by an EULA but reverse engineering for compatibility is a fair use right that CAN be infringed by an EULA (actually, I just looked it up and apparently the government now suggests that parts of Title 17, including the right to archival backup, can be thrown away by EULA).

Fair use and archival backup are both sections under Title 17 of the Copyright Act. In order to accept that any of exemptions can be made not to apply, you have to accept that the software you are buying at a store isn't 'bought' at all, it is solely licensed after the fact by the EULA. So as to the question of what happened in that store when you handed them cash or your credit card and carried that box home, I basically give up trying to make sense of it.

" OK. lets get this out of the way. It is NOT theft. It is NOT a criminal act [yet]."

Another persistent Slashdot myth. In the US, copyright violation carries both civil and criminal penalties. This has been the case for some years now, and I think this myth survives around here largely because Slashdotters keep telling each other that there's no such thing as "criminal copyright infringement" rather than doing a bit of reading.

"Now. Why is it social protest? Its people realizing that they are being price gouged by large corporations involved in price fixing. Price fixing and unreasonable extension of copyright."

Of all the people I know who get their music via P2P, they do it for simple greed -- they'd really rather get it for free than pay the $0.99, simple as that. But they don't try to snow anybody by claiming that it's "social protest." The Montgomery freedom march was social protest. This is just piracy. Big difference.

"The problem is that the music companies are going to try and conspire to raise these prices I think."

Record companies are subject to the laws of a free market economy just as every other business. This is why record prices have dropped significantly over the past few years, and why record companies must operate on lower net margins than many, many other industries. If they could raise their prices, they could, but if the market doesn't let them, they won't.

"I think that the record companies are in for a shock. They are no longer needed. The internet has replaced them."

The impending death of the record industry at the hands of the Internet has been predicted for years now.

Record companies do a lot of things. They find talented (or at least marketable) artists and front them the money for engineering, producing, marketing, promoting and distributing their works.

The huge success of the iTunes Music Store and other services has shown that it's the traditional retail channel for old-fashioned plastic CDs that may go first (in fact, a recent industry report has given the CD as the primary music medium another six years, tops). The record companies probably don't mind this; iTMS is just another sales channel for them.

Music will still take money to produce. Setting up a recording and mixing rig and finding a skilled engineer and producer, or taking the time to learn how to do this yourself, all take time and money. The Internet doesn't change this.

While the Internet provides some absolutely great opportunities for self-promotion, effective promotion still takes skills, time, and money. Ripping your stuff onto MP3 and putting it on your web site or on the P2P networks is a good start, but it won't get your CD to every radio station in the country for airplay. It won't get you a video produced and shown on MTV. It won't get you in the Best Buy circular or on the home page of iTMS or other services. It won't get you booked on a concert tour and it won't get you in front of a stylist and professional photographer for PR materials. It won't accomplish the other squillion things that a record contract will do for you. This is why most musicians still want recording contracts and aren't flocking to Magnatune in droves.

Of course, there are plenty of indie musicians who frankly don't need or want any of that; folks who will be happy to distribute their stuff on a payment-optional basis via P2P and picking up the occasional local gig. The Internet will continue to be a tremendous enabler for these folks. The Internet is a truly wonderful thing, but it isn't the Great Equalizer that many Slashdotters see it as for many industries. In a buyer's market such as the music industry, there's still no substitute for talent and money, and the folks who have talent and money can use the Internet just as easily as anybody else.

"Adapt o

THEY AREN'T BREAKING ANY damn laws.

Does *everyone* on slashdot seem to think copyright infringement is a legal matter? It's *not* - otherwise, they're frikking be in jail.


Speeding is breaking a damn law, and I've never been frikking put in jail for it.

The damn law you do not believe exists is well documented here

Finkployd

It's worth noting that the (c) convention, to my knowledge, doesn't have any legal force. The actual copyright symbol or the word "Copyright" is supposed to be spell out. That said, I can't imagine that a reasonable court wouldn't decide that "(c)" is sufficent, but it's not listed on the Copyright Offices website as one of the 3 standard forms. See http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#fnv

That's actually not true. I am not a lawyer, but until I hear from one, I think I'll go by this.

602 - Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords

(a) Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501. This subsection does not apply to--

(1) importation of copies or phonorecords under the authority or for the use of the Government of the United States or of any State or political subdivision of a State, but not including copies or phonorecords for use in schools, or copies of any audiovisual work imported for purposes other than archival use;

(2) importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage
[...]

(b) In a case where the making of the copies or phonorecords would have constituted an infringement of copyright if this title had been applicable, their importation is prohibited. In a case where the copies or phonorecords were lawfully made, the United States Customs Service has no authority to prevent their importation unless the provisions of section 601 are applicable.

Copyright also controls how a work is performed. See Section 106, and note paragraph 5:

106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

According to the US Copyright Office the copyright owner has the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.

Interesting, Section 102 of the US Copyright Law says that "motion pictures and other audiovisual works" may be copyrighted in the US. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#102

Could this be another case of US copyright laws being enforced in another country?

Are you flaming me, Brother SnakeStu?

No, why? Are you hypersensitive?

(About the licensing thing, uh, yeah, well, thanks, but first of all you're wrong and second of all even if you're weren't wrong it wouldn't be relevant. The issue is that OMR couldn't use music from the demo scene because most of that music is deliberately released without any documentation describing the licensing conditions.)

Well, that's an interesting left-field comment. First off, how am I wrong?

"The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U. S. law... Notice was required under the 1976 Copyright Act. This requirement was eliminated when the United States adhered to the Berne Convention, effective March 1, 1989."
US Copyright Office

If there's no requirement to post a copyright notice to avoid having something enter the public domain, there's obviously no requirement to post a license. Second, of what relevance is demo scene music to the OMR? Do you even know what the OMR was, or are you still speaking in ignorance? Who cares if the OMR couldn't use demo scene music -- that was never the goal of the OMR to begin with. That's like saying that Ford can't use Chevrolet parts -- would Ford really care? The OMR existed as a registry of specifically-licensed works, where the application of that license by the artist granted users of the audio the ability to use it in a wide (yet enumerated and not unlimited) variety of ways. It was not about downloading whatever you could get your hands on that wasn't obviously a copyright violation, which is apparently the MO of Webjay.

Is it legal to download works from peer-to-peer networks and if not, what is the penalty for doing so?
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150, 000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights.

• http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/02/12/napster.decision .05/
• http://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/web/newopinions.nsf/0/ c4f204f69c2538f6882569f100616b06?OpenDocument
• http://news.com.com/2100-1023-243698.html?legacy=c net

Is it legal to download works from peer-to-peer networks and if not, what is the penalty for doing so?
Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150, 000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights.

Taken from the DMCA: "Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. ... As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second. The distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of the copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure to prevent copying." http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf It sounds to me like you can still take your DVD and copy it onto your computer. What you can't do is break any encryption that protects the work itself. On another note, how is keeping people from accessing copyrighted works detrimental to society? I am not so sure that I did miss the point.

The real problem is that because the word "property" is in "IP", people tend to flasely analogize that the attributes of IP are like the attributes of our prototype of property, "personal property", when they're hardly similar at all. For example, did you know that a published song is subject to compulsory license? The U.S. copyright law (as described in this PDF) allows anyone to record an already-recorded song and sell copies, so long as they do some paperwork and pay the songwriter a small per-copy royalty, the so-called "mechanical" fee, currently the greater of 8 1/2 cents total 1.65 cents per minute, per copy sold.

If we're analogizing copyright with cars, this would mean that anyone could fill out some paperwork, borrow your car, and pay you a small per-mile fee.

The real problem is that because the word "property" is in "IP", people tend to flasely analogize that the attributes of IP are like the attributes of our prototype of property, "personal property", when they're hardly similar at all. For example, did you know that a published song is subject to compulsory license? The U.S. copyright law (as described in this PDF) allows anyone to record an already-recorded song and sell copies, so long as they do some paperwork and pay the songwriter a small per-copy royalty, the so-called "mechanical" fee, currently the greater of 8 1/2 cents total 1.65 cents per minute, per copy sold.

If we're analogizing copyright with cars, this would mean that anyone could fill out some paperwork, borrow your car, and pay you a small per-mile fee.

Whether or not you want to call this theft or whether or not you actually do believe that physciality is a prerequisite for theft doesn't concern me.

The prerequisite for physicality was your argument, not mine. The prerequisite for theft, in any context, is that you must have the thing for it to be stolen. Potential earnings cannot be stolen from you because you do not have them yet.

Those are semantic issues of little concern.

They are very much of concern because people like you are trying to equate imaginary property to physical property which it clearly isn't.

What does interest me is a belief that the illegal obstruction of my future benefits is good for society.

Show me where I claimed that.

I think to sustain your argument you need to show how rights to my work pass from me to someone else.

It is copyright law that gives you those exclusive rights to begin with. Without copyright law, everyone would be free to copy the work without restriction. Copyright law does not, in any way, give you ownership of the idea, whether or not you created it. Your exclusive rights are at the expense of others.

Within the term of copyright for that work, how could amy of those rights legally pass to anyone else absent my deliberate transfer of them?

Read the law. There are several instances where people may use and copy your work without your permission. I may make copies of your work for educational purposes without your permission. I may quote portions of your work for criticism without your permission. I may make a parody of your work without your permission. And, in some cases, the law has provided for compulsory licensing in which I may use your work without your permission for government set compensation. You clearly do not own the idea as was your assertion.

All rights to a copyrighted work are derived from the rights held by its author and pass to others only with the permission and intent of the author.

Read the law.

So, explain to us all how that scenario wouldn't be "just cause", and explain to us all how ANYONE is acting like thugs?

That would be the part where everybody forgot to get (or mention having) the warrant, which... ironically enough, also mentions a crime that is being committed.

No where (that I saw) was there mention of 1) a warrant 2) a crime being committed (just vague inuendo on this one) 3) an investigation.

Also note that according to the law:

For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

Mere distribution is not sufficient.

So, where/what is the crime?

"which is a f-ing CIVIL manner anyway?"

Sheesh. This is the fifth or sixth comment I've seen here from somebody insisting that this falls under civil law. Is this one of those Slashdot memes?

I feel like I'm just banging my head against a wall here, but here's where you can read up on what constitutes a criminal offense in copyright law.

Please help me spread the word. To fight the law, you must first understand it.

"This is an extremely disturbing development, seeing as these folks are not guilty of a crime, merely a civil offense."

I'm not sure where you got the idea that this is a civil case. If you'd like to learn more about criminal violations of copyright law, here's the relevant section.

This war will be fought with new ideas, not ignorance. Being the squillionth Slashdotter to parrot the old "civil, not criminal" meme will not help things. If you truly believe that artists have too many rights and it's high time to put them in their place, the first thing to do is to understand how the law works, so you can work to change it.

"The DOJ should saty out of what is clearly a civil matter."

Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold. This has been the case for several years now. Here's the section of US copyright law that covers criminal offenses.

You're a guy who steals children's movies because he's too cheap to buy them.

I'm a guy who exploits his legal right to back up content for archival purposes.

See a slight difference? If not, then maybe you can understand why I scorn you so deeply. I have maintained a three digit monthly budget for buying books, music and movies since I was 19, because I love art and want to experience it but also to support the people who create it. I am putting files I ripped from media I own on to DVD, because if it were lost, damaged or stolen, it would be prohibitively expensive to replace it. My friend lost his whole CD collection in a break-in, $3k worth of music in a single binder. That sucks and I don't want to have to worry about it, so I'm backing it up. Even the shitty stuff like my Damn Yankees records. I also backup all the stuff I get from iTunes...hard drives are fickle things and Apple only lets you download them once.

On the other hand, you have stolen films for little kids because you feel that paying for it is beneath you. It's not the same thing, is it?

That's trademark, not copyright.

I'm not going to wag my credentials at you, but it's safe to say that I know a few things about IP law. ;-)

You're correct that "fair use" is not an ironclad set of allowable activities, but a set of guidelines for determining if an otherwise infringing act is allowed. Often, the fine line between fair use and infringement goes to the court on a case-by-case basis. You can see these guidelines here. Notice that the first guideline references "nonprofit educational purposes." You said that this isn't a use defined by the courts -- did you mean that literally? Can you give me an example of a court finding against a teacher who photocopied an article for his or her students?

When I stated that photocopying by teachers is "the classic example," I meant just that -- when explaining fair use doctrine, experts typically use the "photocopying by teachers" example quite a bit. This can be shown empirically by talking to any lawyers you know and asking them for some examples of fair use.

I hope this has helped. You're correct that there's a lot of misunderstanding of fair use doctrine here on Slashdot, although most Slashdotters think that it has more teeth than it does.

• Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their literary and artistic works.

Nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice. The following discussion refers to the federal laws of the United States of America; other jurisdictions' laws may vary.

You go to the Louvre and take a picture of the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa may well be in the public domain, but your picture is your intellectual property.

If your photo is a substantially faithful reproduction of a pictorial work such as a painting, then no, it isn't original enough to count as a distinct copyrighted work. However, if you use photographic filters to make a significant change to the expression, then yes, your picture is a new work to which you own a copyright from the moment your work is fixed in a tangible medium until roughly a century after the Supreme Court invokes the three-strikes rule implied in its Eldred opinion and overturns a successive copyright term extension.

But what happens when you copy a work of public domain literature? Did you copy the original, or a copy of the original? Your work may well be explicitly in the public domain, and yet still violate the copyright of the copy you copied from.

A new edition of a public domain work created through spell-check isn't a new copyrightable work either. From a Copyright Office circular on derivative works: "Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself."

A Cyber-Ethics Champion Code with items such as

I look for the copyright symbol (©) whenever I add a new program or game to my computer.

Why? First of all, use of the mark is now optional, at least in the U.S. Second, the mark itself doesn't explain to the child (or anyone else) whether or not a program may be copied (e.g., GPL'd software is copyrighted). The license does. Which leads us to...

I know that the copyright owner gets to decide how many times a software program can be copied. That means I can't copy the software that is running on my home computer unless the license for that program says I can.

So the assumption is that a child young enough to be attracted to the weasel-ferret-whatever mascot will read and understand the license agreements included with his or her software? Perhaps the BSA wants to donate to some sort of fund for early legal education?

I guess the problem I have with all this is, there's currently a lot of controversy surrounding free software, copyright, patents, and other "intellectual property" issues, and if we're not prepared to educate our children about the issues, we shouldn't allow the "voice of the world's commercial software industry" to do it for us, any more than we allow McDonald's to educate our children about nutrition. Oh, wait...