Someone who probably can't count to a hundred

[evilclive]

What would you do for a friend for whom you had recorded a film off the telly, about a hundred minutes long, if the friend is too incompetent to install the DivX codec that you conveniently put on the CDR with the AVI file?

Transcode to XVCD on a CDR-80 at a very low bit-rate?

Transcode to VCD and burn to a CDR-99?

Upgrade to a more intelligent friend?

It seems a shame to author a DVD from a file that has already been squeezed down to 680MB, with all the DivX artifacts that implies.

[check]

I'd bundle the file with a copy of mplayer, and tell them to drag the video icon on top of the file called 'mplayer'. Then give them a sheet of paper with the important commands on it (volume, seek, play/pause) ;)

[foxyshadis]

http://mulder.brhack.net/public/downloads/InstantPlayer.2006-11-10.exe

It's a program that'll turn a video into a self-contained win32 mplayer/mpui instance. All you have to do is have them double-click, or better yet add an autorun.inf that'll open it automatically. If you use autorun, I guess it probably won't be any harder to run a normal instance of mplayer/mpui pointed to the video, but test first to make sure it picks up the current folder properly.

[jggimi]

I don't know if you've noticed, but the sharing of licensed broadcast content is not Fair Use by our definitions.

See: Rule 6, the announcement in the Newbies forum section, and the Piracy and Copyright section of Doom9's disclaimer.

Thanks.

[bb]

Upgrade to a more intelligent friend?
I'd vote for that option :)

@jggimi:
Giving self-recorded broadcast content to a friend is considered legal in many countries. Sharing across a P2P network is another story, though.

bb

[jggimi]

@bb:

To clarify, since your post may have possibly caused some confusion:

As you mentioned, copyright laws vary from country to country. So do related regulations, treaties and their interpretations, as well as enforcement. Almost any backup or other personal use we make of copyrighted intellectual property may be considered illegal or considered legal, considered tortious interference or considered perfectly acceptable -- depending on our country. In addition, there are many "grey areas" where the laws and court systems may still not provide clear rules.

This international mess includes personal use, as well as forms of "sharing" -- which as you noted may have different legal application depending on whether the content moves over a network or is placed on optical or magnetic media.

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Doom9 and the mod team have tried to develop and implement a single global standard for addressing intellectual property issues on our forum which is both understandable and ethically defensible. Rule 6 and Doom9's published definition of Fair Use is what we have as that single standard, to date. It isn't perfect, but it does meet those overarching requirements. IP "sharing" in some forms may be legal in some jurisdictions, but that does not necessarily mean that we condone or support it, or even that we should.

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We're all human, and each moderator approaches IP problems that arise on the forum from our unique perspectives, with R6 and Fair Use as our overarching guidelines.

[evilclive]

I don't know if you've noticed, but the sharing of licensed broadcast content is not Fair Use by our definitions.

In my defence, I'll say that I have a TV licence, as does my friend; this entitles us, under English law, to watch and/or record any TV programme shown on Freeview, and to retain the recording for up to 28 days from the transmission date.

(Actually, the TV licence allows us to install and/or use equipment for the purpose of receiving TV broadcasts, but the definition above will suffice.)

Giving away (not even sharing) a single recording on an optical or magnetic medium is very different from sharing copyrighted material on a P2P network: the latter provides an immeasurably greater opportunity for the material to proliferate.

[Wilbert]

Doom9 and the mod team have tried to develop and implement a single global standard for addressing intellectual property issues on our forum which is both understandable and ethically defensible. Rule 6 and Doom9's published definition of Fair Use is what we have as that single standard, to date. It isn't perfect, but it does meet those overarching requirements. IP "sharing" in some forms may be legal in some jurisdictions, but that does not necessarily mean that we condone or support it, or even that we should.
Regardless whether it is legal under English law or not, the policy of this board is to not help with situations like this. Therefore i've closed this thread.