technical accustat "pirating" question

[enzo]

Whether the copyrighted material is available for purchase has absolutely no bearing on the case. The copyright law is clear....

"Thou shalt not copy...."

Pat is perfectly free to let the old matches fall into the mists of time.. And then charge out the buttocks for them in 20 years when he is ready to retire.

That's the perks of being the one to own intellectual property. You are free to manipulate supply as you see fit in order to increase demand..

Personally, if I were Pat, I would ditch the whole DVD thing and go straight to streaming subscriptions. $14.00 to download a match would make a heck of a lot more money than he is making right now. I'm sure there is a company that will provide hosting of his videos and will set up the whole deal for a reasonable fee. The only people who are buying Accu-Stats are the people who got a pretty decent amount of money, anyways. All of those people are more likely to have a high speed connection. People buy more videos when they can just put the order in online, go to bed, and have four matches ready to burn to a personal DVD..

Russ

Thanks for the reply, that does make sense.

Let me ask another question then, since i was wrong about that one. When you buy a DVD (or CD), and you want to have another copy of it to play in your car because you dont feel like looking for it in your 500 disc changer (or whatever the reason), is that illegal? That is, may one burn another copy for themselves for their own, personal use (according to the law i mean).

 

[Russ Chewning]

Thanks for the reply, that does make sense.

Let me ask another question then, since i was wrong about that one. When you buy a DVD (or CD), and you want to have another copy of it to play in your car because you dont feel like looking for it in your 500 disc changer (or whatever the reason), is that illegal? That is, may one burn another copy for themselves for their own, personal use (according to the law i mean).

I think this falls under some sort of Fair Use law. I think consumers ALWAYS have the right to back up their own legal purchases. But, the owner of the intellectual property also has the right to protect it's content from pirating, and this leads to Digital Rights Management (DRM). An example of this is how you can only play music purchased in Itunes on only 5 computers.

Even that is going away. Apple and another company I forgot the name of are doing away with DRM. Basically, for a little more than you normally pay thru Itunes, people are going to be able to download music and movies that has NO copying restrictions whatsoever.

The key to this is software or other protections put in to prevent piracy just DOES NOT WORK. Those who wish to pirate will find a way, so all DRM does is discourage honest consumers from purchasing the product.

Apple has proven that people will not resort to pirating as their first source if an "honest" alternative is given.

Back to your original question. "Fair Use" means you can make a backup copy, or you can change the format to a more convenient one for your own use. But, if you sell the content, you must destroy all copies, or sell them along with the original content.

Hence, you can backup your existing Accu-Stats videos to server or DVD, but if you sell either the digital version, or the DVD, or the VHS tape, you have to either destroy the formats you did not sell, or you have to pas them along to the seller.

Besides, that's the most honest way to do things anyways...

Hope this helps.

Russ

 

[Slider]

Post Deleted.

I think I just got that you were making a funny. I went off on a rant, thinking you were criticizing the authenticity of Accu-Stats ratings.

If you were, let me know so I can repost..

Good catch - it was humor. But, yeah... after posting it, I was thinking that it might have been a little too subtle.

Ken

 

[Slider]

The key to this is software or other protections put in to prevent piracy just DOES NOT WORK. Those who wish to pirate will find a way, so all DRM does is discourage honest consumers from purchasing the product.

Not only that, the studios have to pay to license these temporarily effective copy-protection schemes, so they actually end up losing out three ways.

Ken

 

[sixpack]

I think this falls under some sort of Fair Use law. I think consumers ALWAYS have the right to back up their own legal purchases. But, the owner of the intellectual property also has the right to protect it's content from pirating, and this leads to Digital Rights Management (DRM). An example of this is how you can only play music purchased in Itunes on only 5 computers.

Even that is going away. Apple and another company I forgot the name of are doing away with DRM. Basically, for a little more than you normally pay thru Itunes, people are going to be able to download music and movies that has NO copying restrictions whatsoever.

The key to this is software or other protections put in to prevent piracy just DOES NOT WORK. Those who wish to pirate will find a way, so all DRM does is discourage honest consumers from purchasing the product.

Apple has proven that people will not resort to pirating as their first source if an "honest" alternative is given.

Back to your original question. "Fair Use" means you can make a backup copy, or you can change the format to a more convenient one for your own use. But, if you sell the content, you must destroy all copies, or sell them along with the original content.

Hence, you can backup your existing Accu-Stats videos to server or DVD, but if you sell either the digital version, or the DVD, or the VHS tape, you have to either destroy the formats you did not sell, or you have to pas them along to the seller.

Besides, that's the most honest way to do things anyways...

Hope this helps.

Russ

First time I bumped into DRM I was able to figure out how to bypass it in less than 15 seconds...Not very effective in my book. I was just trying to play a slideshow DVD in my home DVD player and didn't want to add it to the list in order to hear the music. I don't believe in stealing music or images from the internet.

One dilemma I have though, is related. I'm a photographer and have an online studio where people can browse my photographs and possibly purchase them. Especially photographs of their wedding. If i want to legally use a protected song, there is no unambiguous way to accomplish this. You can subscribe by the year to BMI, and ASCAP but then you have to pay the RIAA for performance rights and it's still not clear if you have the rights and you still might not be able to use the songs you want to. Trying to do this legally could easily run thousands of $$ and dozens of hours and still you might not be legal. Just to play one stinkin' song.

People can't download the music easily, so I don't see it as much different than if people were to visit my in-home studio. We're talking dozens, not thousands of hits. So basically paying $100 or more per set of ears. Most of them will disable music anyway.

If there were an option where I could pay, $15 or $25 per song to license for use on my website for a year, I'd do it. But as of now, there doesn't seem to be any reasonable solution except to do what everyone else does, which is do it anyway and claim "fair use" later.

I don't consider the royalty free music I've heard to be a viable alternative. I do weddings and the emotional connection people make with a great love song or classic that they are familiar with is part of the attraction to my site (or would be, if I had music on it).

Cheers,
RC

 

[Slider]

I think this falls under some sort of Fair Use law. I think consumers ALWAYS have the right to back up their own legal purchases. But, the owner of the intellectual property also has the right to protect it's content from pirating, and this leads to Digital Rights Management (DRM). An example of this is how you can only play music purchased in Itunes on only 5 computers.

This is a thing that is in flux, and getting uglier all the time. Under the Fair Use clause, copying for backup purposes was generally accepted, however, since the RIAA and MPAA have been so successful in convincing the government that the very security of the country depends on DRM, laws have been passed that make it a crime to make or use any device or software to defeat copy protection. Thanks to that little coup, the act of copying protected content for any reason is a crime, and the concept of Fair Use has been effectively nullified,

The core problem I have with all of these money-grubbing bastards is that they want it both ways. For years they sold products to us. If you bought a LP, it was more or less yours to do with what you wanted. Same for cassettes and 8-tracks, then CDs. You were buying the tangible product. Remember how loudly they cried when cassette recorders became popular? "Gasp! Our customers might make a tape for one or two of their friends!" If they had only known what was coming...

Now, since copying and rapid dissemination of music files have become commonplace, the music industry has decided that they are no longer selling you a product, they are selling you a license to play the music, somewhat akin to the way software is sold. You buy a license to use Photoshop, and also to play a CD.

Now, if what I'm buying is really a license to play "I Can't Get No Satisfaction", then why have I had to buy the full rights to play that song three times? Where were the "New Media Licensing Upgrades" which allowed customers to trade their existing rights up to the new media? LP, 8-track, CD. Well, of course they couldn't do that, because the music industry has to be protected. They were, after all, quite busy re-selling the same content to their loyal customers multiple times, and getting rich doing it. Of course, this is when they preferred to look upon their wares as a product, not a licensing arrangment. How convenient. "Buy our new CD's - Perfect Sound, Forever"

Perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow was the eventual revelation that CDs, while more expensive at $12, were actually much cheaper to produce than an LP which still sold for around $7.

Is it any wonder that the world went absolutely bug-effin nuts when Napster emerged? It might have been the last real consumer revolution we will ever witness. Now, of course, file sharing is instantaneous and global, so predictably, the studios prefer to go with the licensing paradigm. But I still don't see those "New Media Upgrade" licensing discounts on the horizon.

Ken