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Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment? Because that'

Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment? Because that's the situation that a lot of site operators and web developers have been upset about here. Not all video served from web sites is freely available. Some of it you have to pay for, and it's provided on a certain basis in return.

pdkl95 10y ago
> Which Betamax case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. > temporary basis ...which can be time shifted without violating copyright. > explicitly agreed As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. It isn't Google's job to enforce terms to a contract between two other unrelated parties.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. (a) Time-shifting doesn't imply a permanent copy that can be rewatched multiple times. (b) Not everywhere has the same legal framework for copyright as the United States. As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. No, it isn't. The default position in most jurisdictions is that any copy of a protected work is infringing unless an explicit licence has been granted by the rightsholder. Lacking such a licence, there might be an argument about some implicit permission, or there might be some affirmative defence or the equivalent depending on your legal jurisdiction, but typically that only becomes relevant when the act of copying was infringing by default.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > Time-shifting doesn't imply a permanent copy Such as a video tape? Perhaps in Sony Betamax format? That's exactly what "time shifting" means. > that can be rewatched multiple times Yes, tools can be used in improper ways. > Not everywhere has the same legal framework for copyright as the United States. You can assume my comments are limited to US jurisdiction. I make no claim about other jurisdictions that are outside my knowledge, experience, and legal liability.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      That's exactly what "time shifting" means. Technically, you might be entitled to retain that copy only for long enough to watch the programme at a different time, after which keeping it would be an infringement. I haven't checked whether US law follows that pattern, but it's essentially what a lot of jurisdictions seem to have settled on for that particular case. Yes, tools can be used in improper ways. Yes, and doing so may be illegal, and Google's actions here actively invited people to do so. Do you see the problem now? You can assume my comments are limited to US jurisdiction. OK, but even in the US it's not clear that Google's actions here were legal.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        > Yes, and doing so may be illegal, and Google's actions here actively invited people to do so. Do you see the problem now? A Betamax machine shows you a record button at all times. This invites people to record. This does not invite people to perform illegal actions. I don't see the problem.
        Silhouette 10y ago
        Actually it probably did invite people to perform actions that were illegal in some places, but at that time I doubt the law anywhere was settled in that respect and presumably broadcasters or whoever held the rights didn't feel like bringing a case. The current situation is different anyway because Google suddenly added this new button where it wasn't there before. In practice, this demonstrably left a lot of users assuming that it was a new feature of the sites they were using and not realising that it was their browser updating that had caused the difference. And that in turn meant users thinking it was now OK to download and keep stuff where previously it hadn't been. I have personally seen messages from users that demonstrate this, and if you look at the numerous comments on the browser issues that were raised, it's clear that many others have observed that result as well. I don't blame the users for having that reaction. Most of them probably have no idea how to tell the difference between what their browser does and what a site does, and many probably don't even realise that Chrome updates itself without telling them in the first place. Google, on the other hand, should have known better. The consequences of doing this were predictable, and unlike users it's not as if the Chrome dev team don't know how online video serving works. It's bad enough for web developers that there is little consistency among browsers in how video controls appear and the browsers keep moving them around in updates, but adding something like this was obviously going to lead to confusion and be a concern for a lot of sites serving video content.

pdkl95 10y ago

> Which Betamax case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. > temporary basis ...which can be time shifted without violating copyright. > explicitly agreed As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. It isn't Google's job to enforce terms to a contract between two other unrelated parties.

Silhouette 10y ago
Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. (a) Time-shifting doesn't imply a permanent copy that can be rewatched multiple times. (b) Not everywhere has the same legal framework for copyright as the United States. As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. No, it isn't. The default position in most jurisdictions is that any copy of a protected work is infringing unless an explicit licence has been granted by the rightsholder. Lacking such a licence, there might be an argument about some implicit permission, or there might be some affirmative defence or the equivalent depending on your legal jurisdiction, but typically that only becomes relevant when the act of copying was infringing by default.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > Time-shifting doesn't imply a permanent copy Such as a video tape? Perhaps in Sony Betamax format? That's exactly what "time shifting" means. > that can be rewatched multiple times Yes, tools can be used in improper ways. > Not everywhere has the same legal framework for copyright as the United States. You can assume my comments are limited to US jurisdiction. I make no claim about other jurisdictions that are outside my knowledge, experience, and legal liability.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    That's exactly what "time shifting" means. Technically, you might be entitled to retain that copy only for long enough to watch the programme at a different time, after which keeping it would be an infringement. I haven't checked whether US law follows that pattern, but it's essentially what a lot of jurisdictions seem to have settled on for that particular case. Yes, tools can be used in improper ways. Yes, and doing so may be illegal, and Google's actions here actively invited people to do so. Do you see the problem now? You can assume my comments are limited to US jurisdiction. OK, but even in the US it's not clear that Google's actions here were legal.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      > Yes, and doing so may be illegal, and Google's actions here actively invited people to do so. Do you see the problem now? A Betamax machine shows you a record button at all times. This invites people to record. This does not invite people to perform illegal actions. I don't see the problem.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        Actually it probably did invite people to perform actions that were illegal in some places, but at that time I doubt the law anywhere was settled in that respect and presumably broadcasters or whoever held the rights didn't feel like bringing a case. The current situation is different anyway because Google suddenly added this new button where it wasn't there before. In practice, this demonstrably left a lot of users assuming that it was a new feature of the sites they were using and not realising that it was their browser updating that had caused the difference. And that in turn meant users thinking it was now OK to download and keep stuff where previously it hadn't been. I have personally seen messages from users that demonstrate this, and if you look at the numerous comments on the browser issues that were raised, it's clear that many others have observed that result as well. I don't blame the users for having that reaction. Most of them probably have no idea how to tell the difference between what their browser does and what a site does, and many probably don't even realise that Chrome updates itself without telling them in the first place. Google, on the other hand, should have known better. The consequences of doing this were predictable, and unlike users it's not as if the Chrome dev team don't know how online video serving works. It's bad enough for web developers that there is little consistency among browsers in how video controls appear and the browsers keep moving them around in updates, but adding something like this was obviously going to lead to confusion and be a concern for a lot of sites serving video content.