3 ms·

I'm well aware of the distinction between civil and criminal law. The word illegal literally just means "prohibited by law" and does not require a criminal act.

I'm well aware of the distinction between civil and criminal law. The word illegal literally just means "prohibited by law" and does not require a criminal act. If it has some more specific technical meaning where you are, that's your concern. I'm also well aware of the landmark Betamax case. Leaving aside that it is specifically about US law, there were multiple fundamental details in that case that do not apply in this context, such as there being no likelihood of causing nonminimal harm to the potential market or value of the protected works, the time-shifting being described being used to watch a programme that could not be viewed live just once at a later time, and a significant likelihood of a substantial number of copyright holders not objecting to the action. None of these seem to fit my original question from the start of this discussion, which was simply "Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment?" So the case you keep talking about does not appear to be relevant to the present discussion. As for businesses knowing better, now a lot of them do, and the result is that they have redesigned their systems to prevent the undesired behaviour. However, I don't think it's reasonable to expect businesses to predict all possible future changes in browsers and to then expend resources dealing with changes that will predictably cause trouble. And again, I would refer you to the issue trackers for the browser, where it's clear that many other people take the same view.

Dylan16807 10y ago
> "Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment?" Copies on a hard drive are no more permanent than copies on a Betamax tape. The browser has no idea if the content was intended to be temporary, or if there was payment. Plus something like cable TV fits that description too, and you're still allowed to record it. And the potential for harm is pretty similar.
- DanBC 10y ago
  In England there are strict limitations on time-shifting. You're allowed to timeshift broadcast tv programmes, but only for a limited amount of time. (I think two weeks). I don't think people time shifting at home was ever enforced in courts. (I welcome any corrections. English copyright law isn't straight-forward).
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Copies on a hard drive are no more permanent than copies on a Betamax tape. And both are effectively permanent copies, at least until deleted, and as such both are potentially in violation of copyright law in many jurisdictions. The browser has no idea if the content was intended to be temporary Then maybe it shouldn't be actively inviting a user to download a permanent copy? In many -- perhaps most -- jurisdictions, downloading and saving content off the Web will be an infringement of someone's copyright if not explicitly authorised, so the argument that the browser doesn't know the situation is weak. And the potential for harm is pretty similar. Do you really not see any potential for harm in inviting someone who agreed to temporary listening or viewing to save a permanent copy, in a way that is both highly visible and potentially confused with a facility provided by the site operator? The only solution for site operators if that's the approach you want to take is to lock everything down as tight as possible with TPMs, causing extra work and costs for the site operator, potentially increasing security risks for the viewer, and removing any possibility of trust or turning a blind eye to minor cases that might have been useful for the viewer and tolerable for the site operator. As I've asked elsewhere in this discussion, how is any of that helping anyone?
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    The level of invitation, the level of harm, it's not that I don't see them, it's that they look exactly the same as you get with a Betamax machine. Insisting that a possibility of harm exists does not affect my point at all. And it's not a big risk, there's really no need to lock things down. Home taping never killed anything. If I had my way DRM on videos would be banned. It's not like it prevents piracy.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      When Google introduced that button, I'm aware of some commercial sites that didn't use DRM and saw in the region of a 500% increase in the number of paying users grabbing whatever they could rather than paying for further views, continuing subscriptions, etc. Typically they soon implemented alternative methods of serving their videos, and the problem then disappeared again. It's a myth that such measures don't reduce piracy. They may or may not eliminate it completely, but piracy is not a binary problem and even eliminating a large amount of the casual piracy can be highly beneficial. Equally, even a significant incentive inviting casual piracy that was already possible but was not actually happening can be very damaging.

Dylan16807 10y ago

> "Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment?" Copies on a hard drive are no more permanent than copies on a Betamax tape. The browser has no idea if the content was intended to be temporary, or if there was payment. Plus something like cable TV fits that description too, and you're still allowed to record it. And the potential for harm is pretty similar.

DanBC 10y ago
In England there are strict limitations on time-shifting. You're allowed to timeshift broadcast tv programmes, but only for a limited amount of time. (I think two weeks). I don't think people time shifting at home was ever enforced in courts. (I welcome any corrections. English copyright law isn't straight-forward).
Silhouette 10y ago
Copies on a hard drive are no more permanent than copies on a Betamax tape. And both are effectively permanent copies, at least until deleted, and as such both are potentially in violation of copyright law in many jurisdictions. The browser has no idea if the content was intended to be temporary Then maybe it shouldn't be actively inviting a user to download a permanent copy? In many -- perhaps most -- jurisdictions, downloading and saving content off the Web will be an infringement of someone's copyright if not explicitly authorised, so the argument that the browser doesn't know the situation is weak. And the potential for harm is pretty similar. Do you really not see any potential for harm in inviting someone who agreed to temporary listening or viewing to save a permanent copy, in a way that is both highly visible and potentially confused with a facility provided by the site operator? The only solution for site operators if that's the approach you want to take is to lock everything down as tight as possible with TPMs, causing extra work and costs for the site operator, potentially increasing security risks for the viewer, and removing any possibility of trust or turning a blind eye to minor cases that might have been useful for the viewer and tolerable for the site operator. As I've asked elsewhere in this discussion, how is any of that helping anyone?
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  The level of invitation, the level of harm, it's not that I don't see them, it's that they look exactly the same as you get with a Betamax machine. Insisting that a possibility of harm exists does not affect my point at all. And it's not a big risk, there's really no need to lock things down. Home taping never killed anything. If I had my way DRM on videos would be banned. It's not like it prevents piracy.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    When Google introduced that button, I'm aware of some commercial sites that didn't use DRM and saw in the region of a 500% increase in the number of paying users grabbing whatever they could rather than paying for further views, continuing subscriptions, etc. Typically they soon implemented alternative methods of serving their videos, and the problem then disappeared again. It's a myth that such measures don't reduce piracy. They may or may not eliminate it completely, but piracy is not a binary problem and even eliminating a large amount of the casual piracy can be highly beneficial. Equally, even a significant incentive inviting casual piracy that was already possible but was not actually happening can be very damaging.