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It's Illegal to Pirate Films in Iran, Unless You're the Government (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: While legal "pirating" exists in Iran, six administrators of the Iranian pirate movie site TinyMoviez have been arrested by Iranian authorities. This was a website the Iranian national broadcaster had used to download and nationally air movies in the past. The exact date of the arrests are unknown, but Tehran's Prosecutor General announced the arrests on September 26, 2017. The website is still online, but users haven't been able to download content from it since September 19, 2017. Now TinyMoviez administrators are finding themselves on the wrong side of Iran's odd and often pirating friendly copyright laws. Iran's copyright law is a quagmire when it comes to understanding what rights exists for creators of an original piece of work, and what rights exist for those wanting to re-distribute original works, such as movies. Meanwhile, Article 8 gives the government broad powers to reproduce work that is not its own. This means that the government is exempt from Article 23, which criminalizes the theft of another's work.
A classic case of: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
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It's Illegal to (VERB) in (PLACE), Unless You're the Government
This means that the government is exempt from Article 23, which criminalizes the theft of another's work.
In civilized countries, it is called "taxes".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The featured article claims that Article 8 of Iran's copyright law mentions an exception for public libraries and educational institutions.
I don't see how it's fundamentally different from sections 108 and 110 of the U.S. copyright statute, which likewise grant exceptions for library and classroom use respectively.
I fail to see why this is cruel or dictatish (kings english), not that I disagree those terms apply to Iran.
IP is a completely artificial concept, there is no such thing as rights here. There is no such thing as "theft of another's work" just infringement of these artificial grants to stimulate creativity. It makes perfect sense that a government wouldn't extend the grant to limit itself allowing creative people to profit from their work while allowing the government to utilize the best the citizenry has produced to govern as well as possible. If the US did the same it would save taxpayers billions, if not trillions of dollars.
It seems like it would be much more newsworthy when a government limits itself with copyright or the equivalent thereof.
If you're licensed by the government to do so. And it isn't really pirating
for Iranians since Iran is not a signatory to the WIPO treaty and not bound by international copyright conventions.
BTW, here is a PDF of Iran's copyright law from the WIPO website http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=197798
Reading it you'll find that it is hardly a quagmire of confusing and conflicting clauses for authors, and that motherboard's representation of Article 8 is disingenuous, " Article 8 gives the government broad powers to reproduce work that is not its own".
Notice Article 8:
Article 8. Public libraries, documentation centers, scientific institutions and educational establishments, which are noncommercial, may reproduce protected works by a photographic or similar process, in the numbers necessary, for the purposes of their activities, according to a decree to be issued by the Board of Minister
Seems like a rather taxpayer friendly policy.
I can't believe Steve Martin thought he'd get away with this.
This government can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, for as long as it wants, because....if you don't like it, it can take it up with the people who have weapons that can take out your house. an intelligence that can blackmail your pets, and murder squad so good at killing you don't even know you're dead till a few hours after the trigger has been pulled. It's kind of like the story: Someone gets a loan from a bank for a tank. They by the tank. A friend asks what are you going to do when the bank comes calling for it's money to be paid back. The borrower answers, "I have a tank".
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Iran is not a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works or the WIPO Copyright Treaty, or a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), so it is not bound by international copyright laws. Why? The United States has vetoed Iran's ascension to the WTO 22 times, and Iran will not play by the rules if they don't get to join the club.
Is the OP sure that the arrests were for piracy, and not for putting up something that might be considered either pro-Western or un-Islamic?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Like it's different in ours? Ok, not concerning anything that touches the property of corporations, that's sacrosanct, but when it comes towards your "rights" vs. government's "I wanna", guess who's going to be right.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't look for logic anywhere on planet Earth.
Stop trying to paint the Iranian government as a threat to Hollywood, or whatever it is you're trying to do.
Good news - this projection doesn't break any copyright laws.
... US citizens might like to read this: https://www.lewrockwell.com/20...
In the USA, the state can confiscate cash (or pretty well anything else) without even accusing you of a crime.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
EVERY government does stuff that is illegal for its citizens.