Copyright Loophole?

Rym

I wonder if this would work...

1. Do I have the absolute right to modify a work, on my own, for my own personal use, without any distribution or exhibition in any form outside of my own personal viewing?

2. Do I have the absolute right to modify a work, with the assistance of one other person, for our own personal use, without any distribution or exhibition in any form outside of our own personal, individual viewing?

3. Do I have the absolute right to modify a work, with the assistance of n people, for our own personal use, without any distribution or exhibition in any form outside of our own personal, individual viewing?



If item #1 is not true, then it is illegal for me to remove commercials or alter any content in movies I own personally for any purpose, let alone to time shift or perform other basic functions of modern media (such as changing the volume while listening to a song). The law is ludicrous if #1 is not true, so I'm going to assume that, outside of specific DMCA concerns, it is.

Item #2 is trickier. Is it legal or not for me to, with a friend, make a Mickey Mouse cartoon that we never share with anyone else? I'm not asking moral or practical concerns: I want to know specifically whether or not that is against the current law in the United States.

I hope you can see where I'm going with this.

Nuri

Untrue premise. You're dealing in absolutes. You are saying that you either have ALL rights to modify content, or you have none. You're assuming that no rights were granted to you by the owners of the TV programs or the songs. When buying music, you are granted the right to play it, change the volume, etc. That doesn't mean you have the absolute right to modify it any way you want.

I think technically, you do NOT have the right to modify a work, on your own, for your own personal use, without any distribution or exhibition in any form outside of my own personal viewing. Not unless you are granted that right by the copyright holder. That's why movies have an FBI warning that says you can't copy it even for personal, non-commercial use. By allowing their content to be broadcast on TV, content creators are agreeing to certain terms of use, which is how time-shifting and such are legal. Removing the commercials is probably NOT part of those terms of use, and is a gray area. As far as I know, no one has been sued for it, so we don't know if it's considered fair use.

Also, copyright isn't an absolute. There are certain specifics that are spelled out as fair use, but ultimately the tricky cases are decided by a judge. It's up to the judge to decide if it breaks copyright if it is not completely obvious...so it's impossible to say for sure whether this would definitely work unless it's covered explicitly by fair use.

Item #2 MIGHT be against the law. If it can be considered parody, then it's fine. If it is not covered by any of the fair use definitions, then I'm pretty sure that making that cartoon is illegal. That said, who the frack is gonna catch you? As a matter of procedure, the only person that can bring suit against you for copyright violation is the content owner. If the content owner never finds out, then it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be punished for it.

Apreche

Actually, Rym is correct. You do have the right to modify a work with the help of n people. The limitation is that you can't ever distribute that work. If you can find some way to work ok the project with n people, yet never distribute the work, good luck with that.

Luke Burrage

what you need is automatic property altered. You buy a Micky Mouse DVD box set, then download computer program. That program will rip all the DVDs, clip out the relevant data, perform various transformations of that data, and finally spit out the result.

To view the final result you need the original, and you are only modifying it for personal use. No distribution needed, as everyone will go through the same process.

Nuri

I wanted to add that making your own Mickey Mouse cartoon isn't the same as modifying an existing video...it is using a character that is trademarked, which is a whole different can of worms.

Actually, Rym is correct. You do have the right to modify a work with the help of n people.

I'm curious where this comes from. Is there something in the law that actually says this (fair use definitions)? Everything I have seen/read/heard says that the creator by default retains all rights to the work and it cannot be used, modified, or reproduced without their authorization. You cannot modify anything digital without making a reproduction, which is an issue that copyright law hasn't caught up to yet.

I think there's also some ambiguity about the term "distribute." What exactly constitutes distribution?

HMTKSteve

What about derivative works? How much has to change to avoid a copyright lawsuit?

Apreche

I think there's also some ambiguity about the term "distribute." What exactly constitutes distribution?

Giving a copy to someone else.

Andrew

I think there's also some ambiguity about the term "distribute." What exactly constitutes distribution?

Giving a copy to someone else.

You mean actively giving someone a copy? What about making available for other people to grab a copy?

Nuri

I think there's also some ambiguity about the term "distribute." What exactly constitutes distribution?

Giving a copy to someone else.

You mean actively giving someone a copy? What about making available for other people to grab a copy?

And if you work on a project with n people, does giving each of those people a copy of the final product count as distribution?

Apreche

And if you work on a project with n people, does giving each of those people a copy of the final product count as distribution?

As long as it is private, not public. This is why it is OK for grandma to make you a scarf with Mickey Mouse on it, but it's not ok to put one on etsy.

HMTKSteve

And if you work on a project with n people, does giving each of those people a copy of the final product count as distribution?

As long as it is private, not public. This is why it is OK for grandma to make you a scarf with Mickey Mouse on it, but it's not ok to put one on etsy.

Are you suggesting that as long as the means used to distribute the final product is private it should be OK? So that if you used a private P2P network it would be OK but if you used a public one it would not?

Don't you have to distribute the original for all of them to work on it? Wouldn't that distribution break copyright?

Apreche

Are you suggesting that as long as the means used to distribute the final product is private it should be OK? So that if you used a private P2P network it would be OK but if you used a public one it would not?

Don't you have todistributethe original for all of them to work on it? Wouldn't that distribution break copyright?

First of all, this thread is about legality, not about morality. IANAL. I do know that private sharing is fair use and public sharing is not. However, the legal definitions of public and private aren't the same as the every day definitions. For example, if you have a few friends in your living room to watch a DVD, that's a private viewing. If you invite to many people, even if they are all legitimately your friends, then that is no longer a private viewing. If you wanted to show a DVD to over 100 people at your wedding, for example, it would probably be illegal even though it is a private event.

Also, private sharing doesn't usually involve copying, but that doesn't mean that all private copying is disallowed. You can make backup copies of things you have bought, and that's legal. DVRs are also perfectly legal, even though they make copies.

Rym

As long as it is private, not public. This is why it is OK for grandma to make you a scarf with Mickey Mouse on it, but it's not ok to put one on etsy.

Now, is that really ok? We need to know the exact line specified by the body of relevant law. Basically, either many, many commonly done things are technically illegal, or there are massive, unexploited loopholes in copyright law.

Apreche

Now, is that really ok? We need to know the exact line specified by the body of relevant law. Basically, either many, many commonly done things are technically illegal, or there are massive, unexploited loopholes in copyright law.

I can tell you that there are definitely many commonly done things that are technically illegal. I am willing to bet, with no exaggeration, that over 99% of the people in modern society are copyright violators, whether they know it or not. Technically, drawing a birthday card with a licensed character is copyright infringement. A kid drawing a picture of Big Bird, and giving it to a friend is copyright infringement. When the grocery store decorates a cake with licensed characters, that's copyright infringement.

This is what Lawrence Lessig is always talking about. By having a society where kids grow up routinely breaking the law, and not just copyright, but also driving laws, respect for the law is lost. It's really not good for a society to have most people routinely breaking the law and getting away with it. It is much better to have a society where there are fewer laws that are rarely broken, and almost never broken without getting caught. Thus, breaking the law carries much more weight, and people care a lot more.

Nuri

§ 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Scott, permissions to make those backup copies are expressly granted in the EULA of the software. It's not a default right.

You can use the copyrighted work privately. That doesn't mean you're allowed to modify it, even for private use. Sharing via a shared viewing and sharing via distributing copies are two very different things in copyright law. Grandma can get away with making a mickey mouse scarf, but that doesn't mean it's legal. I'm not saying that it is expressly illegal, but just because you can get away with something doesn't mean it's legal.

The question of fair use is really, REALLY complicated. If you want to, you can read about all of the fair use exceptions and their conditions here. This is a link to the actual text of the law. The relevant sections for fair use are:

# 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
# 108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives
# 109. Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord
# 110. Limitations on exclusive rights: Exemption of certain performances and displays
# 111. Limitations on exclusive rights: Secondary transmissions
# 112. Limitations on exclusive rights: Ephemeral recordings

Nuri

...many, many commonly done things are technically illegal...

This one. Just like traffic law.