[mythtv-users] recorded shows

Sun Jan 4 21:55:27 EST 2004

Yes, I understand that quote. Do you?

You have highlighted several sections of the opinion which give reasons why
Sony is not liable. However, none of these reasons you have highlighted say
that time shifting is illegal despite your assertion to that effect. "Sony
is not liable because most copyright holders don't care if people time
shift". To this quote you add your own "3rd party interpretation to server
your interests", that says that it is still illegal but that they just don't
care. This sentence does not state in any way that time shifting is illegal.
It merely says that because the copyright holders don't care about time
shifting, that Sony holds no liability in this matter REGARDLESS of whether
it is legal or illegal. Later you add commentary about Disney having no
right to keep people from time shifting when the owner of the copyright
allows it. This portion of your interpretation I agree with, although it
still says nothing about time shifting being illegal. Your next commentary
about not being able to ban it across the board because there are legal uses
is true as far as it goes, but I believe that you have missed the point of
the second portion of the Supreme Court's statement.

even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is
legitimate fair use

It says that even UNAUTHORIZED home time-shifting of programs is legitimate
fair use. It doesn't matter if the copyright holder has given you permission
or not, the Supreme Court says that it is still legitimate fair use, and
therefore legal. That particular interpretation of the law was made by the
District Court originally, but the Supreme Court backs up their findings
here.

*       It does not say that you have the right to copy someone else's
copyrighted material for your own private use.

No, it does not say that you can without restriction copy someone else's
copyrighted material for your own use. You can't tape record a movie in the
theater and take it home, but the opinion DOES state that when done for the
purposes of time-shifting you absolutely CAN copy the copyrighted material
for your own private use. 

Frankly this argument is getting ridiculous. You have stated "fair use does
not apply to you unless you are a teacher", which is just plain wrong. Your
main original arguments seem to have come from "Guidelines for Off-Air
Recording of Broadcast Programming for Educational Purposes" which have no
force of law whatsoever, but are merely a set of guidelines that educators
and copyright holders have come up with for use of copyrighted materials for
educational purposes. How you get from this that fair use only applies to
teachers, I have no idea. You have accused us of pointing only to biased 3rd
party sites, and not to official sites. To which I have responded with the
original Supreme Court decision, which you obviously interpret differently
than I, do. Or apparently with the way the EFF, Stanford, and the Harvard
Law Review do as well, since they also read this Supreme Court opinion to
define unauthorized time-shifting to constitute legitimate fair use. You
have continually attacked every piece of evidence presented to you, however
you have yet to provide one shred of evidence of your own backing the
assertion that time-shifting is illegal. You have pointed out that the
Supreme Court opinion offers other reasons for not banning VCRs besides fair
use. However this does not change the fact that ONE of the reasons it gives
is the fact that UNAUTHORIZED HOME TIME-SHIFTING OF RESPONDENT'S PROGRAMS IS
LEGITIMATE FAIR USE. I don't understand how that statement could be any
clearer.

As for your opinion that pay services are somehow different in this regard
than broadcast services, that at least could be legitimately argued I think.
I don't agree with you on that point either, but at least it's worth looking
at. Since the Supreme Court says that authorization from the copyright
holders is not necessary to time-shift, I don't think that it matters much
who paid to have the shows aired matters that much. The point is that you
had the right to view it when it was originally aired, so recording it for
the purpose of time-shifting is legitimate fair use. I don't think that the
difference between broadcast station, cable station, or premium station
really changes anything. If you'd care to point to any actual law or court
decision that says otherwise, I'd be happy to look it over.

Shawn Asmussen

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Tom Jaeger
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 6:03 PM
To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] recorded shows

Do you understand that quote???
Lets break it down

c) The record and the District Court's findings show
(1) that there is a significant likelihood that substantial numbers of
copyright holders who license their works for broadcast on free television
would not object to having their broadcast time-shifted by private viewers
(i. e., recorded at a time when the VTR owner cannot view the broadcast so
that it can be watched at a later time); and
Sony is not liable because most copyright holders don't care if people time
shift (still illegal to do so but like j-walking they don't care)
(2) that there is no likelihood that time-shifting would cause nonminimal
harm to the potential market for, or the value of, respondents' copyrighted
works. The VTR's are therefore capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
(sony not liable because the product can be used for legal uses) 

Private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home satisfies this standard of
noninfringing uses both because respondents have no right to prevent other
copyright holders from authorizing such time-shifting for their programs,
(Disney has no right to keep people from time shifting when the owner of the
copy right allows it)
and because the District Court's findings reveal that even the unauthorized
home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate fair use. You can
do legal recording of copyrighted material under the fair use so they cant
ban it across the board) 

This says that VCR's cant be banned because some companies allow time
shifting and even if the company does not authorize time shifting there are
still times under the fair use (collecting data for a school project) that
it is legal in the home.

It does not say that you have the right to copy someone else's copyrighted
material for your own private use.

Tom J

Pp. 442-456. ( > 

-----Original Message-----

> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Shawn Asmussen
> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 7:11 PM
> To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] recorded shows
>
>
>
> >Please show me a govt link that holds your case not some
> website that is
> >3rd party interpretation to serve their interests.
>
> http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&co> &co
> urt=us&vol=464
> &page=417#417
>
>
> Although findlaw is not technically a government site, all of
> the official
> US government sites that archive the Supreme Court opinions
> that I could
> find only had the opinions up to 1975. However, this link is not to an
> article stating a 3rd party interpretation. It is a link to
> an archive of
> the actual Supreme Court opinion.
>
> Here is a direct quote from the Supreme Court opinion:
>
> (c) The record and the District Court's findings show (1)
> that there is a
> significant likelihood that substantial numbers of copyright
> holders who
> license their works for broadcast on free television would
> not object to
> having their broadcast time-shifted by private viewers (i.
> e., recorded at a
> time when the VTR owner cannot view the broadcast so that it
> can be watched
> at a later time); and (2) that there is no likelihood that
> time-shifting
> would cause nonminimal harm to the potential market for, or
> the value of,
> respondents' copyrighted works. The VTR's are therefore capable of
> substantial noninfringing uses. Private, noncommercial
> time-shifting in the
> home satisfies this standard of noninfringing uses both
> because respondents
> have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing such
> time-shifting for their programs, and because the District
> Court's findings
> reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents'
> programs is legitimate fair use. Pp. 442-456.
>
> In particular, note the last portion of the last sentence.
> "THE DISTRICT
> COURT'S FINDINGS REVEAL THAT EVEN THE UNAUTHORIZED HOME
> TIME-SHIFTING OF
> RESPONDENTS' PROGRAMS IS LEGITIMATE FAIR USE"
>
> Now, that is not a 3rd party interpretation of anything. That
> is a direct
> quote from the Supreme Court decision. Is that good enough?
>
> Shawn Asmussen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Tom Jaeger
> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 4:24 PM
> To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] recorded shows
>
> http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
> This covers fair use and is straight from the source.
> "Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the
> reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as
> criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship,
> and research.
> Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining
> whether or not a particular use is fair"
>
> Fair use does not protect home users from copyright infringement.
>
>  Your statement "This is different from the "fair use" that
> most people
> refer to when they talk
> about this subject." Is disproved by my link above to the govt page on
> fair use and proves your statement wrong
>
> 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.
>
> Tom J
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> > [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Monks
> > Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 5:03 PM
> > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] recorded shows
> >
> >
> >
> > > Fair use guidelines are offially known as "Guidelines for Off-Air
> > > Recording of Broadcast Programming for Educational Purposes"
> > > So fair use does not apply to you unless you are a teacher
> > and then does
> > > not apply to HBO or other special services.
> > > I have included a link for info on Fair use below.
> > > Tom J
> > >
> > >
> > http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/objectID/94F153
> 9D-B61C-41
> > 5B-BE3ED4F8BFE7F1F3/catID/2EB060FE-5A4B-4D81-883B0E540CC4CB1E
>
> >From the page you link to:
>
> "These guidelines (known officially as "Guidelines for
> Off-Air Recording
>
> of Broadcast Programming for Educational Purposes") do not have the
> force
> of law and have never been tested in the courts."
>
> They're just guidelines for non-commercial, educational use
> of recorded
> copyrighted programs, agreed to by teachers and media companies.  This
> is
> different from the "fair use" that most people refer to when
> they talk
> about this subject.
>
> Generic "fair use" exemptions in the 1976 Copyright Act were
> held by the
>
> Supreme Court to encompass personal non-commercial recording devices
> (originally the VCR, but presumably also DVRs) in 1984.  The
> ruling in
> that case includes the statement:
>
> "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."
>
> In other words, the Copyright Act does not make it illegal to make or
> use
> such devices for noncommercial, personal recordings.
>
>
>
>
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20040104/516b54e0/attachment.html