[mythtv-users] recorded shows

[Tom Jaeger]

You do realize that all your arguments are moot as soon as you move to
non broadcast -- pay services
You may be able to record cbs nbc and other tv channels but not off
cable or direct tv .. Especially PPV HBO MAX etc...
The reason you don't see any lawsuits against people making private
tapes is the companies don't care.  Its like J-walking (who cares).
I am not saying we should not be doing this .... After all I am... I
even added a DVD-+R to my system

All I have been saying is Fair use does not apply to all of us nor to
all channels. I believe just TV you get off an antenna.

Tom J
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org 
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Ray Olszewski
> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 7:21 PM
> To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] recorded shows
> 
> 
> At 06:24 PM 1/4/2004 -0500, Tom Jaeger wrote:
> [...]
> >My previous mention of the fair use is because it was mentioned as a
> >defense for making a copy ... I was saying that it does not apply
> >because I/we are not using it for educational purposes.  The supreme
> >court was not ruling as to if it was legal for a person to 
> record a TV
> >show but they were ruling as to if a company could 
> manufacture a product
> >that was made to record a show.
> >
> >Please show me a govt link that holds your case not some 
> website that is
> >3rd party interpretation to serve their interests.
> 
> The link you yourself provided a bit earlier in this 
> discussion, the one 
> quoting the full text of the Betamax decision, addresses your concern 
> explicitly. It is not a "government link", but unless you 
> want to suggest 
> that it is a forgery (and it was *you*, after all, who 
> provided it), I'll 
> assume it quotes the Betamax decision correctly. (EFF, though 
> an advocacy 
> group, is generally considered reliable in its factual reporting.)
> 
> Read Betamax in full to get a complete understanding of what 
> the ruling 
> actually says. For now, here are a couple of short excerpts 
> that make me 
> think that your interpretation of it (above) is too limited.
> 
> "When these factors are all weighed in the "equitable rule of reason" 
> balance, we must conclude that this record amply [p.455] supports the 
> District Court's conclusion that home time-shifting is fair 
> use. In light 
> of the findings of the District Court regarding the state of 
> the empirical 
> data, it is clear that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the 
> statute as presently written bars such conduct. n40"
> [...]
> "One may search the Copyright Act in vain for any sign that 
> the elected 
> representatives of the millions of people who watch 
> television every day 
> have made it unlawful to copy a program for later viewing at 
> home, or have 
> enacted a flat prohibition against the sale of machines that 
> make such 
> copying possible.
> 
> "It may well be that Congress will take a fresh look at this new 
> technology, just as it so often has examined other 
> innovations in the past. 
> But it is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written. 
> Applying the copyright statute, as it now reads, to the facts 
> as they have 
> been developed in this case, the judgment of the Court of 
> Appeals must be 
> reversed."
> 
> While a complete reading of the decision leaves me believing 
> that some 
> now-common uses of VCRs and PVRs may fall into a fuzzy 
> ground, it also 
> leaves me convinced that the main common uses -- 
> time-shifting and building 
> personal libraries (which is just time-shifting for a long 
> time) -- are 
> consistent with the language of Betamax. Now like the rest of 
> us here, I am 
> not a lawyer, so I would not presume to advise you, on anyone 
> else, about 
> what to do in this matter. But I would expect anyone claiming these 
> activities -- I'm talking here about recording for personal, 
> non-commercial 
> use, not sharing or reselling recordings -- violate US law to 
> point to a 
> successful prosecution of anyone for engaging in them, since they are 
> widespread and hardly done in secret.
> 
> Here in the USA, we don't *need* a government site that says 
> something is 
> *legal* for it to be legal. US law is not that Orwellian. It 
> works the 
> other way; we need a law, either statute or case law, that says the 
> activity is *illegal* for it to be illegal. I don't know of 
> any. Do you? 
> (The Nolo site someone referred to talks about fair use in 
> the context of 
> education, not all possible fair-use activities. It is simply 
> irrelevent to 
> the present discussion, not supportive of either side.)
> 
> Consider that after losing against the new breed of P2P 
> software providers, 
> copyright owners quickly started suing individuals who (they 
> allege) make 
> copyrighted materials available for unauthorized copying. Yet after 
> Betamax, no copyright owner (that I know of) even *tried* to sue an 
> individual taper. Why not, do you think? Perhaps their 
> lawyers understood 
> the Betamax decision to be more broad than you read it to be?
> 
> 
> 
>