Freedom of the web

[Prometheus]

I'm getting this info from; You know when you start a dvd, you get the piracy bit at start, it often says that you must not broadcast or lend ... im sure it does.

The anti-piracy text on British DVDs these days also refers to copyright infringement as "theft", which I'm pretty sure it is actually not. It's copyright infringement - my understanding is that the concept of theft can't be applied to something non-tangible (i.e., the act of copying the contents of the disc).


They also like to give the paying customers lectures about how they http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7_G-TUfGYM.

 

[Binky]

I can't tell what the laws are in england for this but such a written _warning_ is not legaly binding and is mostly there to scare people off. We have those too, big companies just like to slap such things onto everything to spread doubts. Heck, if everything a company says is true then, according to Nintendo, emulation would be illegal, wich is not the case of course.

I think that in the UK, such warnings are completely void unless there were brought to your attention at point of sale.

 

[Binky]

The anti-piracy text on British DVDs these days also refers to copyright infringement as "theft",

It that better or worse than referring to copyright infringement as maritime robbery with extreme violence?

 

[DaMummy]

 

[Prometheus]

^ To be honest, I mostly stopped buying DVDs after I ended up with one that had a particularly nasty (and convoluted) anti-ripping scheme, which meant that I couldn't watch it on my Pandora. The only exception is official DVD compilations of old TV shows, since their budget never seems to extend to preventing their customers from getting the most out of what they've bought (as with DM's chart, above, such releases tend to have no ads, and will hop from a brief copyright warning straight to the menu.)


I would rather go without, since elsewise I'm just wasting money on a product that's unusable for me.

 

[Christoph.Krn]

The anti-piracy text on British DVDs these days also refers to copyright infringement as "theft", which I'm pretty sure it is actually not.

If, for some reason, a carver was able to virtually cost-free duplicate works she has created, then taking one of these duplicates without giving the requested compensation would be theft (but neither "pirating" not "bootlegging"), irrespective of the fact that the carver would be more stupider than any of her customers if she tried to continue her existing sales model.


De jure there is a difference between copyright infringement and theft, but the way I see it that understanding is based on a partially aged understanding of the involved concepts, thus de facto I wouldn't call the term "theft" an unfitting dysphemism in most cases. In fact, when someone likes some commercial music and decides to download it without actually paying for it, I will typically either call it "theft" or "shooting yourself in the foot".


edit-24mar2012: Edited for higher precision.

 

[Znirk]

The anti-piracy text on British DVDs these days also refers to copyright infringement as "theft", which I'm pretty sure it is actually not.

If, for some reason, a carver was able to virtually cost-free duplicate works she has created, then taking one of these duplicates without giving the requested compensation would be theft.

Correct, but what you're describing there is equivalent to shoplifting a legitimate dvd. Copyright infringement would be the parallel to somebody else making a duplicate of her work without her permission.

 

[WizardStan]

If, for some reason, a carver was able to virtually cost-free duplicate works she has created, then taking one of these duplicates without giving the requested compensation would be theft (but neither "pirating" not "bootlegging"), irrespective of the fact that the carver would be more stupider than any of her customers if she tried to continue her existing sales model.

In this case, the carver has done work to produce that duplicate, even if it is virtually cost-free it is not entirely cost free. By taking that duplicate, you have directly caused the carver a loss: she put work into something and now has nothing.


Copyright infringement, on the other hand, does not cause a direct loss. If someone copies the carvers work, the carver has done no additional work and still possesses her originals that she can then continue to sell. What it does potentially cause is lower gains: since you copied it you are less likely to be interested in buying it. But there should be a massive distinction: a loss is not the same as less gains. Mathematically they work out the same way (at the most basic level, ignoring arguments for whether loss would be more or less than the lowered gains) but from a psychological point of view they are completely different.


Only getting half your paycheque this week is a completely different experience from getting your entire paycheque and having someone take half of it as you leave the bank.

 

[Binky]

Only getting half your paycheque this week is a completely different experience from getting your entire paycheque and having someone take half of it as you leave the bank.

Especially if the money that wasn't in your paycheck is was invested by your boss, and results in a bonus later on

 

[Null]

Remember kids, film piracy is evil and wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/I9_hWoGrxWg?feature=oembed

 

[kojack]

In Australia you (and libraries) can lend something as long as there wasn't a licence you had to agree to when getting the original (software eula, etc).


However if the thing is a copy of the original, it must be a legal copy (transcoding a vhs into a digital form is ok, copying vhs to vhs isn't. Recording a tv show is sometimes ok, but copying the recording isn't, etc) and you can only lend it to family members or people you live with.


You can space shift cds (rip a cd for a portable music device, etc), but you can't copy dvds at all (only video tape can be copied). Removing or bypassing region code on a dvd is legal, but bypassing other protection schemes is illegal.


http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/16934392514f33460a3ae09.pdf


For games, there is no general "backup" provision. You are allowed to make a backup copy of a program, as long as the copy requires no special means of running (like no cd cracks). But you aren't allowed to copy any audio, music, graphics, dialog or other copyrighted content. Any game you can legally back up isn't going to be much fun to play.


http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/16165712984f3857274a060.pdf


So by australian copyright law, ripping a cd to play on a pandora is fine. Ripping a movie to watch on a pandora is fine too, as long as you ripped from a video tape and not a digital form like dvd or bluray. Ripping a game from a cartridge/arcade board/etc to play on a pandora in an emulator is fine, as long as the game has no graphics, music, sound effects, or script.

 

[ahahah]

afaik it is only the websites which propose roms downloading that are illegal.


(computers, consoles, smartphones, tablets etc... are not under attacks whereas it is possible to make illegals things with them)

 

[Prometheus]

afaik it is only the websites which propose roms downloading that are illegal.


(computers, consoles, smartphones, tablets etc... are not under attacks whereas it is possible to make illegals things with them)

Absolutely. The trouble is, something being perfectly legal (such as selling emulation software, or companies exporting goods from a country where they are available to one where they're not), does not always prevent a company on the warpath from trying to misuse the law to make it so!

 

[Christoph.Krn]

Correct, but what you're describing there is equivalent to shoplifting a legitimate dvd. Copyright infringement would be the parallel to somebody else making a duplicate of her work without her permission.

In this case, the carver has done work to produce that duplicate, even if it is virtually cost-free it is not entirely cost free. By taking that duplicate, you have directly caused the carver a loss: she put work into something and now has nothing.


Copyright infringement, on the other hand, does not cause a direct loss. If someone copies the carvers work, the carver has done no additional work and still possesses her originals that she can then continue to sell. What it does potentially cause is lower gains: since you copied it you are less likely to be interested in buying it. But there should be a massive distinction: a loss is not the same as less gains. Mathematically they work out the same way (at the most basic level, ignoring arguments for whether loss would be more or less than the lowered gains) but from a psychological point of view they are completely different.


Only getting half your paycheque this week is a completely different experience from getting your entire paycheque and having someone take half of it as you leave the bank.

You are right.


I do not know whether "I had an error in my reasoning" has the right connotation, what I'm trying to say is that I made a "Denkfehler", which means that I did not realize a mistake that would normally have been obvious to me. I wanted to create an analogy of what would happen if 3D printers fast-forwarded by 50 years, but then I over-optimized my post.


--

afaik it is only the websites which propose roms downloading that are illegal.


(computers, consoles, smartphones, tablets etc... are not under attacks whereas it is possible to make illegals things with them)

That's not true everywhere. For instance, in Germany the GEMA receives part of the money made from certain things that can be used to yopy information (German), such as CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays (0,0614€ per hour), PCs (13,65€ per PC), and Smartphones (1 smartphone with touchscreen and >=8GB of space: 36€). Yet, German copyright regulations are not very liberal.