Re: Re: Re: Video

From: Brett Lymn (blymn@awadi.com.au)
Date: Thu Mar 13 1997 - 01:14:17 PST


Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 19:44:17 +1030 (CST)
From: blymn@awadi.com.au (Brett Lymn)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg913$foo@default>
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Video

According to dave evans:
>
>Ok, now I understand the law. But, I do not know a single person
>and this includes police who follow this law. Rather ironic, no?

Yes it is :-) This is why you get the little bit of waffle in the
video recorder manual about taping things is illegal - it covers the
VCR manufacturer's arse. Even time jumping (taping a program to be
viewed a few hours later then overwritten) is not legal - you would
not, in all probability, get charged for doing this but you could in
theory.

This may be covering what other people have said (I have not read the
rest of this thread yet...) but if you publicly advocate pirating
anything then you could land yourself in some very interesting times.
I don't know about other places but here in Australia there are some
very strong measures that can be taken in the case of a breach of
copyright - from my failing memory the laws covering copyright do give
some pretty strong search & seizure powers to the police. Note: I am
not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV - just remembering the little
bit of this stuff I did back in Uni.

>"Tough to enforce," why I don't think the people who wrote said law
>even follow(ed) it.

The problem is that if you try and make an exception clause then it is
a loop hole that can be exploited. I am sure that you like being paid
for what you do - the same applies to others, this is the whole reason
for the copyright laws to make sure that the correct people benefit.

Here in Australia there was some talk of putting a surcharge on
cassette tapes to make up for the revenue that is lost by people
copying music tapes. I think it got dropped because there was this
implied assumption that if you are buying blank cassette tapes then
you are automatically going to pirate stuff which is not a good thing.

>
>Yeah, but then who would want to own books printed on xerox anyway?
>At that rate you'd end up paying an amount similar to the real thing
>after coping each page and probably cause the machine to breakdown too.
>

Ahhhh I have heard of people doing this - it sounds crazy but they had
access to a photocopier at work so they used it to pirate books.

-- 
Brett Lymn, Computer Systems Administrator, AWA Defence Industries
===============================================================================
  "Upgrading your memory gives you MORE RAM!" - ad in MacWAREHOUSE catalogue.



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