Downloading illegally

[shouldbeinbed]

Norm, you can deprive someone of a service through theft, but COPYING something does not deprive them of it...therefore not Theft. (Nor legal either)

hmmm. If you copied a CD that you would otherwise have to buy and the artist, distrubutors, logistics companies and retailer would split the proceeds of your purchase, then by copying you have deprived them all of that income.

Its great whilst you're on the right end of it consuming for free but not so hot if you're one of the joe publics working in the EMI warehouse on minimum wage that rely on people buying CD's and DVD'd to keep their minimum wage job.

its the little people that suffer the most in all this, could be you one day.

 

[Dan B]

I'm not convinced it's quite as simple as that.

Section 50A(1) of the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 states that:

"It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the purposes of his lawful use."

The question then is when making a back-up is "necessary". It's not clear to me that a private user of a computer game would necessarily benefit from this exemption.

I would find that rather surprising (but I am not a lawyer). Media degrades over time and with use. If I can lawfully use the computer game indefinitely, it will sooner or later become necessary for me to copy it onto fresh media in order to continue using it. Won't it?

 

[Dan B]

hmmm. If you copied a CD that you would otherwise have to buy ...

then blah blah blah, all you've said.

But if I copy a CD that I wouldn't otherwise have bought, none of that applies.

 

[mr_cellophane]

How else can I watch Lost ?

 

[Dan B]

hmmm. If you copied a CD that you would otherwise have to buy and the artist, distrubutors, logistics companies and retailer would split the proceeds of your purchase, then by copying you have deprived them all of that income.

If I decide to buy a CD and then decide at the last minute that I don't want it after all, and the artist, distributors, logistics companies and retailer would split the proceeds of my purchase, then by changing my mind have I deprived them all of that income?

 

[Fnaar]

How does YouTube fit into all this? Presumably much of the stuff up there (film snippets, old TV progs, music etc is subject to copyright? I don't know the answer, just asking. I know some artistes are hard to find on there.

 

[Dan B]

How does YouTube fit into all this? Presumably much of the stuff up there (film snippets, old TV progs, music etc is subject to copyright? I don't know the answer, just asking. I know some artistes are hard to find on there.

YouTube used to pay a licence to the PRS/MCPS/whatever it's called now so that listening to music on youtube vids was OK. They had a big and well-publicised disagreement at licence renewal time a year or so ago which is why an awful lot of music vids disappeared. I am told that they have since renegotiated and most of this stuff is legally available again, but haven't actualyl checked myself

 

[2Loose]

I'm not convinced it's quite as simple as that.

And in one regard you would be completely correct, in that although you are (perhaps) legally exempted to make personal copies of games, bypassing the protection mechanism of most games to do so is in fact illegal. Catch 22.

 

[Fnaar]

YouTube used to pay a licence to the PRS/MCPS/whatever it's called now so that listening to music on youtube vids was OK. They had a big and well-publicised disagreement at licence renewal time a year or so ago which is why an awful lot of music vids disappeared. I am told that they have since renegotiated and most of this stuff is legally available again, but haven't actualyl checked myself

Thanks.

 

[Debian]

hmmm. If you copied a CD that you would otherwise have to buy and the artist, distrubutors, logistics companies and retailer would split the proceeds of your purchase, then by copying you have deprived them all of that income.

Its great whilst you're on the right end of it consuming for free but not so hot if you're one of the joe publics working in the EMI warehouse on minimum wage that rely on people buying CD's and DVD'd to keep their minimum wage job.

its the little people that suffer the most in all this, could be you one day.

The days of the hard copy medium for music, video and software are almost over so these people are going to be losing their jobs anyway. No one wants a CD any more, certainly not for music. I want MP3 files that I can play on my PC, MAC, laptop, iPod, in-car MP3, etc without cluttering up my house / car with little plastic discs that inevitably end up lost / broken / scratched anyway.

Or indeed I just stream the stuff on demand with Spotify or similar.

 

[User169]

And in one regard you would be completely correct, in that although you are (perhaps) legally exempted to make personal copies of games, bypassing the protection mechanism of most games to do so is in fact illegal. Catch 22.

In the case I know of where this was an issue, the respondents argued that their anti-copy protection device allowed back-ups to be made, so didn't fall within the prohibition on bypassing copy protection. The judge held that, since the game was supplied on a CD or DVD, there was no necessity to make a back-up.

I suspect all of this is somewhat moot in the sense that copyright holders don't typically go after private users making back-ups for their own use.

 

[Dan B]

I want a CD because if I'm going to pay a tenner an album I'd rather have all the bits, not just the bits that MP3 compression thinks are worth preserving. Then I'll losslessly encode it to FLAC and when MP7 or son-of-Ogg comes out that has better quality and better compression I can create a copy in that format without two lossy transformations.

But I will continue to copy all my CDs onto my hard disk (for my own personal use and archival, and I do actually mean that genuinely) in the expectation and hope that some day the law is changed to make this practice legal.

 

[Dan B]

In the case I know of where this was an issue, the respondents argued that their anti-copy protection device allowed back-ups to be made, so didn't fall within the prohibition on bypassing copy protection. The judge held that, since the game was supplied on a CD or DVD, there was no necessity to make a back-up.

CDs and DVDs never get scratched or worn? What a bizarre ruling

 

[Debian]

In the case I know of where this was an issue, the respondents argued that their anti-copy protection device allowed back-ups to be made, so didn't fall within the prohibition on bypassing copy protection. The judge held that, since the game was supplied on a CD or DVD, there was no necessity to make a back-up.

I suspect all of this is somewhat moot in the sense that copyright holders don't typically go after private users making back-ups for their own use.

Do you have a link to this ruling?

 

[User169]

CDs and DVDs never get scratched or worn? What a bizarre ruling

Sorry, I should perhaps have made it clear that the supplier of the games stated that they would provide a replacement in the event of damage.

However, if you were to scratch a music CD some years after purchase, would you expect it to be replaced free of charge?