Some copyright discussion

[vlada]

Zhelkus> What was your original question/problem?

others> In most countries (except USA and maybe few others) it is completely legal to download movies or music. For example in my country (and I believe it is similar in the rest of EU) it is legal to download a movie but it is illegal to make a DVD-rip (even if you own the original DVD). So basically it is very difficult to judge what is and what isn't legal. And I think it is very unfair to say somebody did a crime unless you have a proof. We should obey the presumption of innocence.

[vlada]

I think you talk about rule 6:
6) No warez, cracks, serials or illegally obtained copyrighted content! Links to content of a questionable nature, asking for, offering, or asking for help/helping to process such content in any way or form is not tolerated.

As I already said I can legally download a DVD-rip. So I think it is not against the rules to ask for help with such material. I had similar discussion here before and I respect the wish of moderators and doom9 not to discuss such material here even if it doesn't explicitly break the rule #6. But at the same time I think it is very unfair to call somebody a criminal if you have no proof for it.

I think we all dislike the fact that U.S. police can search in your notebooks, cellphones or portable players for illegal material even if they have no proof. They can take away your computer with all your precious data for weeks. Without any proof. And I think we are acting similarly here.

Sorry for the O.T. Please neuron2 or any other moderator split these posts to a new thread.

[foxyshadis]

vlada, you might be interested in this Berne Convention list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties) - it's illegal to download copyrighted movies or music in any of the nations listed. Including yours, despite your protestations.

Not only that, but the founding members live in nations that have repeatedly taken down and prosecuted pirate boards. Look at what happened to Blutach already. This is how we try to protect ourselves, and that's the final word.

[vlada]

I see Czech Republic in the list but I'm absolutely sure (confirmed by many lawyers and I studied the law myself) that downloading music or movies is legal here. The law says that making a copy for personal use is not copyright infringement. It is illegal to share music or movies though.

[martino]

I see Czech Republic in the list but I'm absolutely sure (confirmed by many lawyers and I studied the law myself) that downloading music or movies is legal here. The law says that making a copy for personal use is not copyright infringement. It is illegal to share music or movies though.
Share music < -> download music. See some pattern there?

You are surely wrong. I never remember downloading music and movies being legal in Slovakia, and they're not really that apart. Perhaps you should drop down to your nearest store and watch some of the copyright stuff and warnings before the actual movies (errmmm no, I'm sure you won't find them on all those rips floating on BT trackers). It may prove to be quite informational for you...

*apologises to Myr for hijacking the thread

[TheFluff]

vlada, you might be interested in this Berne Convention list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties) - it's illegal to download copyrighted movies or music in any of the nations listed. Including yours, despite your protestations.

This again? Seriously, what does it take for people to get this stuff? THE BERNE CONVENTION IS NOT A LAW. Maybe in your imagination it is, but in reality no it is not, not in the signatory countries, nor anywhere else. The Berne Convention is an international agreement that the signatory countries should implement certain (rather broadly specified; there is absolutely nothing that mentions downloading) provisions in their respective copyright laws. How exactly these provisions are implemented is up to the country itself and there is nothing that says that they can't make pretty much any exceptions they like. There are also no specific punishments for not implementing parts of the convention despite having signed it (the United Kingdom for example signed the convention in the 1800's but didn't implement most of it until the late 1980's) so there's absolutely nothing that guarantees that downloading is illegal in all the signatory countries.

For example, in Sweden (a signatory country since god knows how long) it was until very recently quite legal to make single copies for your own personal use (including downloading them from the internet); to compensate for this there was (and is) a tax on recordable media such as tapes, CD-R's and iPods. Uploading is however illegal but that's not relevant in this case.

TL;DR: you're wrong and everyone thinking the Berne Convention actually means anything is also wrong. Local copyright laws is what matters.


Edit: this does not mean I object to the rules about this case. I think the rules are dumb, but it's not my forum and not my call to make. AFAIK the servers are based in the US which means the owner(s) could quite possibly get in legal trouble because lol the US. What I do object to is the annoyingly widespread misconceptions about the Berne Convention and the related hurfing and blurfing about it.

[vlada]

martino
Many of my relatives and good friends are lawyers. I have quite a good knowledge of law from them. You might be especially interested in §30:

Volná užití
§ 30
(1) Za užití díla podle tohoto zákona se nepovažuje užití pro osobní potřebu; to neplatí pro zhotovení rozmnoženiny počítačového programu či elektronické databáze nebo rozmnoženiny či napodobeniny díla architektonického stavbou.

(2) Do práva autorského tak nezasahuje ten, kdo

a)
pro svou osobní potřebu zhotoví záznam, rozmnoženinu nebo napodobeninu díla; rozmnoženina nebo napodobenina díla výtvarného musí být jako taková zřetelně označena,

A short and dirty translation:

Free use
§ 30
(1) Usage for personal purposes is not a use of copyrighted material according to law; this excludes computer programs, databases and architectonics.

(2) Copyright law doesn't infringe the one, who

a)
for his personal use produces a duplicate or imitation of creation; duplicate of art must be marked,

Sorry, my English is not good enough to translate it exactly. But it should have the same purport. As you can see, I can copy or download any copyrighted material as long as it is for my personal use. To compensate this, we pay quite high fees for every storage media as TheFluff already wrote. And you pay the fees even if you put your home video on the DVDs.

Any warnings in the beginning of commercial DVDs have no legal impact. Nobody can bypass a law like this. If I put up a sign "I can kill you if you trespass my fence", you can't kill anybody anyway (except of USA). In a pub, if they have there a notice that they are not responsible for your cloth on rack, they are responsible still, because the law says it.

As I already wrote I respect the rules and wishes of doom9 and other moderators. I write this to clear up some wide spread misinformation about copyright law.

[Sharktooth]

As I already said I can legally download a DVD-rip. So I think it is not against the rules to ask for help with such material.
just one note. i agree on the berne convention... it's pure ***... but this forum is owned by a person. he decided to place some rules.
this is not democracy where you have rights... and it will never be. this is a forum owned by someone. so if you dont like the rules, why did you accepted them? if you dont like them there im am sure there are other places to discuss such things.

[mpucoder]

And you are also misinterpretting the meaning (not the words). It is talking about copying something you own for your own purposes, not downloading or copying someone else's

[Sharktooth]

oh sorry i didnt quote the message. i was replying to this:
As I already said I can legally download a DVD-rip. So I think it is not against the rules to ask for help with such material.
i also edited my previous post to make it clearer.

to add something, here in italy it is basically the same (or even more "relaxed" since the latest law revision... for example, for didactical or scientifical use, we can publish the whole copyrighted thing even in a pubblic access website...) as in czech republic but i never asked for help in this forum for downloaded material (not that i download copyrighted stuff... but sometimes it may happen), even when i was a n00b.

[clsid]

In the UK there are plans/ideas to implement a download tax, allowing citizens to legally download music. Pretty good idea imo, if the tax is reasonable.

In some EU countries, like the Netherlands, there are special fees on recordable media that are used to compensate the entertainment industry for 'illegal' copies. In return it is fully legalized to backup your originals. It is also legal to download a backup of movies/music, even when you don't own an original! Uploading or selling copyrighted material is not allowed.

[Sharktooth]

yep, here too... not only on media but even on every devices that may be used to copy or store media files like burners, readers, hard drives, portable devices (mp3 players), memory cards... etc.

[fibbingbear]

It is also legal to download a backup of movies/music, even when you don't own an original!

Seems an awful stretch to call it a "backup" when you don't own an original....

[Ranguvar]

My view is that copyrights are pretty much entirely evil...

I believe in the free sharing of culture.

However, in order to have a place to discuss methods of ripping DVDs, etc., which may facilitate the sharing of culture, we must abide by the ridiculous conventions and laws currently in place...


In other words, these restrictions are ridiculous, and I'm sure that Doom9's hosts will err on the side of caution when deciding if they should pull the plug on the site. So, regardless of whether Berne is a law or not, or anything else, we sadly must act like good little mind-slaves :)

[setarip_old]

@Sharktooth

Hi!yep, here too...not only on media but even on every devices... Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Haddonfield, ILI'm not aware of any such tax or "plans" for such a tax in the U.S.

What is your source of information?

[clsid]

Seems an awful stretch to call it a "backup" when you don't own an original....
The fees on recordable media were introduced to compensate the industry for people that burned their downloaded music and movies. Because of those fees downloading is no longer considered an illegal activity.

[EPiPH0NE]

@Sharktooth

Hi!I'm not aware of any such tax or "plans" for such a tax in the U.S.

What is your source of information?

LOL....Haddonfield, IL doesn't exist...I think he's from the EU area. Haddonfield, NJ...now that exists ;)

[fibbingbear]

The fees on recordable media were introduced to compensate the industry for people that burned their downloaded music and movies. Because of those fees downloading is no longer considered an illegal activity.

I was criticizing the terminology. Even if it's legal to download, you can't call it a backup since it's not backing up anything you originally owned.

[clsid]

It is a backup that someone else made.

[manolito]

I just cannot resist to offer my 2 cents :

The wording of rule 6 is very broad and open to interpretation. Plus this forum is international, and copyright laws are very different in different countries.

But this forum is owned by Mr. Doom9, and he decides what is allowed here and what is not. No free speech issue ...

I do remember an older discussion about "downloaded" sources in this forum. If a user states that he needs help for this clip he downloaded from the web, then the mods automatically assume that this was an illegal download. The general agreement in this discussion was that we all know that a downloaded clip can very well be from a legal source, but the mods simply do not have the time to check the legality of any specific clip. So the advice was: Do not mention "downloaded". Some kind of a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. And it was also concluded that "fishing" is also not appropriate (like asking: where did you get this clip from).

I believe that such a policy is something we can all live with. After all this is not about if we agree with some laws or if we don't, it is about protecting this forum.

What is disturbing for me is that some mods interpret this rule 6 in a very broad way. Quite recently neuron2 closed a thread with this justification:
Closed for rule 6. Your post makes it clear that you didn't encode it.
Out of curiosity I downloaded the clip in question, and to me it looked a lot like a captured TV broadcast (it was a TS file).

I do use my PC as a VCR all the time, and IMO nothing could be more legal. Even in the US I do recall this very old Surpreme Court ruling about the legality of VCRs. If I capture TV broadcasts from satellite or from a terrestrial source, I am entitled to convert this captured file to DVD and reencoding this clip to improve quality as long as I don't to it commercially. So "you did not encode it yourself, so it must be illegal" seems way out of line to me.

Maybe it is time that Mr. Doom9 himself gets together with the mods and come up with some clear guidelines what is tolerated in this forum and what is not...


Cheers
manolito

[jeffy]

If it is a legal download, what is so difficult? Just write something like "Hey, guys. I need your help. I downloaded this file: ..." "The file was made available by its author, the proof is here: ..."

Everything is clear then.

[EPiPH0NE]

I am all for a 'don't ask, don't tell' type of modification to rule 6. I think if the poster is silly enough to mention where he/she obtains their material then they get struck. If they ask broad questions about their media, without mentioning it's source, I don't think it's right for the mods or others to 'phish' it out of them. I was a mod of a board for a short while and left because of this very issue. I had set up a rule that allowed people to talk about their files in a safe way, or at least I thought, until just about everybody including other mods started breaking the rule which could of potentially put me at personal legal risk so I high tailed it out of there cause I don't need that kind of stress so I can see where Doom9 and other mods are coming from. Just my 2 cents.

[Shinigami-Sama]

In the UK there are plans/ideas to implement a download tax, allowing citizens to legally download music. Pretty good idea imo, if the tax is reasonable.

In some EU countries, like the Netherlands, there are special fees on recordable media that are used to compensate the entertainment industry for 'illegal' copies. In return it is fully legalized to backup your originals. It is also legal to download a backup of movies/music, even when you don't own an original! Uploading or selling copyrighted material is not allowed.

why does everyone forget about Canada too?
we've had those levies and fees forever now
hence is not illegal to download so long as you do not make available as well

[vlada]

Sharktooth
As I said I fully respect (or at least try to) the rules. But if I can legally download a DVD-rip, then discussing it isn't violation of rule #6. Nevertheless if I'm not mistaken I never discussed such material here. But I think the rule should be either changed or the moderators should be lenient to new users. Deleting a whole post just because somebody might have broken a rule isn't fair IMO. If I'm discussing an original DVD, how do you know I didn't shoplifted it? So would you delete my post too?

mpucoder
As I wrote my English is not good enough to express the law correctly. Also to fully understand it you would also need to know the rest of the paragraph. Anyway do believe me that obtaining a copyrighted material for personal use from ANY source (web, P2P, friend, distributors) is legal here. And I can make as many copies as I want as long as they are for personal use.

clsid
Paradoxically it is illegal to make a DVD backup in Czech Republic because breaking CSS (or any other protection) is forbidden.

manolito
I have the same opinion on this matter. I didn't see the deleted post, which started all this discussion, but AFAIK the author didn't mention where did he get the clip from. I think the rule #6 should be changed to make it clear what is and what isn't allowed to discuss.

[jeffy]

@vlada (manolito's post): the thread was not deleted:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=139993&highlight=closed

[Guest]

In the cited thread the reference to "may even be the result of resizing interlaced frames" makes it obvious that the OP did not encode it or capture it. He has not objected to the closing of the thread.

The policy is that we do not want downloaded files to be discussed. It is clearly stated in the announcement in the Newbies forum. If it is not clear from a post that such material is NOT involved, then we assume the worst. The onus is on the poster to clearly state the provenance of the files. If the OP says something like "this is a legal trailer that I downloaded here", then there is no presumption possible and the thread can proceed. In some cases I ask for clarification when needed.

Our policy is NOT "we want you to hide the origin of your files so that you can discuss it here". I understand that a lot of you want that to be the policy. But that is not the policy and I haven't seen any indications that Doom9 is interested in revising it.

[blutach]

The policy is that we do not want downloaded files to be discussed. It is clearly stated in the announcement in the Newbies forum. If it is not clear from a post that such material is NOT involved, then we assume the worst. The onus is on the poster to clearly state the provenance of the files. If the OP says something like "this is a legal trailer that I downloaded here", then there is no presumption possible and the thread can proceed. In some cases I ask for clarification when needed.

Our policy is NOT "we want you to hide the origin of your files so that you can discuss it here". I understand that a lot of you want that to be the policy. But that is not the policy and I haven't seen any indications that Doom9 is interested in revising it.

If it is a legal download, what is so difficult? Just write something like "Hey, guys. I need your help. I downloaded this file: ..." "The file was made available by its author, the proof is here: ..."

Everything is clear then.
Well put x2.

And sorry, manolito, I think the rules (taken together with the announcement in Newbies) are very clear.

Regards

[blutach]

Sharktooth
But if I can legally download a DVD-rip, then discussing it isn't violation of rule #6.
You bet your sweet bippy it is. Make no mistake about that.

Regards

[vlada]

blutach
I don't understand your logic. Lets cite the rule #6: No warez, cracks, serials or illegally obtained copyrighted content!. How can I violate the rule if I obtained the copyrighted content legally?

[blutach]

vlada - please see here (http://forum.doom9.org/announcement.php?f=6) (especially point 2) as it is also pertinent and helps clarify rule 6.

Please try to remember that this is not a democracy. It does not run under the laws of any land and there is no "free speech". It is owned by a single person (Doom9) and runs under his rules. And rule 6, in combination with that thread in Newbies (and another one here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=50765) in IFO/VOB Editors) is how we operate. I do hope you can understand and abide by this.

Also, try to remember that irrespective of whether you obtained the file legally in your country, certain laws in certain other countries prohibit giving advice on them.

Regards

[komarovsky]

As I said I fully respect (or at least try to) the rules. But if I can legally download a DVD-rip, then discussing it isn't violation of rule #6.

your argument does make sense, but it doesn't matter because you don't decide what breaks a rule and what doesnt, that's the job of the admins.

[Sharktooth]

@Sharktooth

Hi!I'm not aware of any such tax or "plans" for such a tax in the U.S.

What is your source of information?
LOL....Haddonfield, IL doesn't exist...I think he's from the EU area. Haddonfield, NJ...now that exists ;)
the location under my avatar is a fake,.. never watched Halloween the movie? im from italy.

@vlada: this website/forum is hosted somewhere... so the "somewhere" laws have to be respected on the website/forums too.
also as i said in my first reply. this is a forum owned by a private person. this is not a democratic place where your opinion counts as everyone else. the admin decides, the mods make sure users respect the admin decisions. see it like a sort of dictatorship but you're still free to discuss in other places what it's not allowed to be discusse here.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Personally, I'd like to see the forum rules and announcements amalgamated, so everything is in one nice neat location...

[setarip_old]

@SeeMoreDigital

Hi!Personally, I'd like to see the forum rules and announcements amalgamated, so everything is in one nice neat location...If I remember correctly, I made the same suggestion the last time this topic was discussed (Seems to rise from the ashes every year or so - and nothing changes) ;>}

[EPiPH0NE]

the location under my avatar is a fake,.. never watched Halloween the movie? im from italy.


I know that...Halloween was supposed to be based in Haddonfield, NJ (where I grew up and where the writer lived)) but the town wouldn't let them film it there. Very old type conservative kind of place. Lots of lawyers and doctors and bankers ;)

[Sharktooth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_(1978_film)
Haddonfield... IL... :)

about the forum rules...
they need to be short, so ppl wont even have a rapid look at the them (that's actually already happens... though).
maybe links under the forum rules page for detailed explanations would be usefull.