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It's Illegal to Pirate Films in Iran, Unless You're the Government (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

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.

4 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Library exception by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    The featured article claims that Article 8 of Iran's copyright law mentions an exception for public libraries and educational institutions.

    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 Ministers.

    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.

  2. Re:Iran is a cruel dictatorship by shaitand · · Score: 2

    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.

  3. Given that this is Iran... by sconeu · · Score: 2

    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.
  4. Re:not illegal to pirate in Iran by mutantSushi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That shows the moronic premise of the article. If the government doesn't make it a crime, it isn't a crime. "IP rights" are nowhere considered "natural law", they are specific government policy with aim for certain economic outcome.That Iran happens to differ from US law is unsurprising, MANY countries differ from US re: IP law (e.g. software patents). Hard to take article seriously when 99% of it is misguided and superfluous. But "OMG IRAN" plays well in Zionist States of America, so...