[BC] Arrested for just telling people wheretofindCopywrited material

Broadcast List Broadcast at fetrow.org
Mon Oct 22 19:42:06 CDT 2007


Where does anything say you can only have ONE copy?  You may make  
legitimate back-up and working copies.  SO, if you want to take a CD,  
copy it to a working copy for your car, put it on an iPod, make a  
copy for your off site storage, and safely store the original in your  
house, you are still good to go.

It's when you make six copies and give five to friends that you are  
cross threaded with the law.  You can make ONE copy and give it to a  
friend and you are in the wrong.  Also, if you make a backup, and  
your house burns down and ruins the original, I don't believe you  
need to destroy all copies.  You made your backup copy for a reason.   
I hope you made a copy of the receipt as well.  Still, I don't see  
how you have run afoul of the copyright law unless you are SHARING  
your music.

To THAT end, I lent my copy of Regina Spektor's _Begin_To_Hope_ to a  
friend.  I know he won't keep a copy.  He returned the disk.  No  
harm, no foul.  Someone else in the office asked to borrow it.  I  
know she plays fast and lose with downloaded music.  I kept  
sidestepping the question.  She finally confronted me, asking why I  
wouldn't lend her the disk like I did to the other person.  I had to  
explain at that point that I KNEW he wouldn't keep a copy, but I also  
KNEW she would.  I would rather give her the $14 to go buy a copy.   
Several days later she iniatiated a conversation about music and  
movie sharing.  After the conversation, I knew she knew my position,  
and while she MIGHT steal music from other sources, she would never  
steal mine.  One good first step.

"Fair Use" is mostly common sense.  Even if you have 15 houses and 30  
cars, if you are the only one using that music, you can have a copy  
of it in each place.  Once you have multiple people using it in  
different places, you are breaking the law.  Also, if you have 15,000  
of your closest friends over to watch a movie, and no one is charged  
admission, that DVD is just fine.

-chip

On Oct 22, 2007, at 6:32 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

> Message: 10
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:34:27 -0400
> From: "cldube" <cld at admin.umass.edu>
> Subject: [BC] Arrested for just telling people wheretofindCopywrited
> 	material
> To: <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Message-ID: <014701c814ea$f0a7a300$bad77780 at RESUO.ads.umass.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> 	reply-type=original
>
> Legal, as long as you still have the original CDs and have only  
> made one
> digital copy for your own personal use.
> Should you sell, lose or discard the source CD you must destroy the  
> copy.
>
> Chuck Dube
> Ministry of Ministerial Information
>
> From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>
> Subject: Re: [BC] Arrested for just telling people where
> tofindCopywrited material.
>
>
> I have 3757 cuts on my iPod and it's still not full. Do I win a
> prize? There's not a single downloaded cut among them. All are
> legitimate cuts ripped (at 192K) from my own CDs.
>
> Rich




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