in article , Richard C. at
wrote on 1/4/04 9:37 AM:


"MR_ED_of_Course" wrote in message
...
:
: Unless you can cite a precedent for any of this, the fact of the matter is
: that much of this is untested in the courts.
:
: In regards to time-shifting a copy of a rented VHS tape, I'd really like to
: know under what basis this would be considered illegal. Specifically where
: do you draw the line under what constitutes time-shifting.
:
=====================
"time-shifting" applies ONLY to broadcasts of TV signals.

It absolutely does NOT apply ONLY to broadcasts of TV signals. I believe
you're confusing two different arguments that Sony used in its defense.
Sony's Akio Morita is credited with coining the phrase time-shifting and the
court accepted it (then lost on appeal, then won in the Supreme Court). The
two defenses we

1) Time-shifting: "The basic concept behind the home-use VCR is to free the
public from the constraints of television scheduling, in other words, to
allow people to watch programs at their own convenience." Note that this
does *not* use the word broadcast. This is a very important omission
because there is a HUGE difference between cable and broadcast and Sony
wanted to win based on the ability to time-shift *any* content.

This leads to the second (less central) defense:

2) Broadcast is public domain: "The huge volume of information transmitted
over the airwaves by television stations is in the public domain." This
argument had been used several times in other situations and has never
really been fully resolved...it probably never will be due to digital
encryption make the issue moot.

The fact that it *is* legal to record *cable* television is a result of Sony
winning the case based on the first argument and not the second. Had the
courts ruled that you could time-shift broadcast-only content because
broadcasting it over the airwaves put it in the public domain, it would've
meant that you could not record cable television. Not only that, but it
would've meant that you could do whatever you wanted with any content that
was ever broadcasted...as in make copies and sell them.

In other words, the courts agreed (based on surveys) that time-shifting of
content had no financial effect on the copyright holders, it simply
facilitated the watching of the content. They won only on the first
argument.

This is why it is legal to time-shift any content whether it be broadcast,
cable, satellite, Pay-Per-View, or video rental.

DarkMatter wrote:

Time shifting is record now, watch later. It is for broadcast
media. It is not for snaggin' a copy of a rental.

Right, building a library of copies of rentals is by definition illegal,
though very tough to prove in court.

Renting a DVD and then claiming that you needed to time shift a copy
would get laughed at in the courts. It is not a reasonable
application of fair use.

It would never make it to the courts since the burden of proof would be on
the copyright holder that the consumer deprived the copyright holder of
income.

I'll take my boat out for a week or two at a time and often
time-shift/space-shift content to disc for viewing. If I were to rent a
video and do the same thing it would be legal and reasonable as long as it
was about viewing the content once and not depriving the copyright holder of
income. It would be both legal and ethical. In fact, it would actually
benefit copyright holders since they would be getting 1 rental for 1 viewing
for 10 or so movies as opposed to no rentals for a two week period.

Now if you want to turn this into an argument based on someone building a
library of copied DVDs they've rented, that's totally different. That is
not a reasonable application of fair use.