I may not be the only one of us to face this issue so I guess it's worthwhile discussing it.
In this country copyright as far as I know means just that, the right to copy. If you don't own the copyright you have no right to copy it, you buy a CD and you want to play it in your cars cassette player, tough, buy it on a cassette or you're breaking the law. Outside of academic issues there's no argy bargy with fair use provisions etc.
Now I derive some income copying old 8mm film to video, VHS or more and more DVD. Mostly it's just hame movies so no issues here. But from time to time it'll be some ancient travel movie grandpa bought on his travels i.e. a commercial production that is copyright. Probably the people who made it are all long gone by now. maybe not. Either way I doubt they'll care much about one one copy being made onto VHS or DVD.
But even so, technically I'm potentially breaking the law. The only saving grace is there's several levels of much bigger businesses between me and the client and if anyone's going to get a nasty knock on the door it'll be them not me. Still that's no excuse.
Now I could just send it back with a note saying 'Sorry we don't break the law'. One downside would be the business that gives me the work will find someone else to do it who doesn't give them grief with their customers and secondly I still feel that people who did pay for the right to view something shouldn't be penalised because the technology to play it has vanished.
I know this ultimatley is something I have to decide for myself but I can see it becoming quite an issue as say VHS heads for oblivion over the next deacde. I'm not talking about copying big name releases where for sure they'll be released on DVD. But there is probably 100,00s of hours of footage that is perhaps precious to someone or their next generation, of zero commercial value that technically is going to be lost without the law being broken. Either way there's no clear path to doing the right thing.
I'll give you a simple example, our national broadcaster makes lots of docos of local interest. They own the copyright but for a small fee they'll make a you a copy for personal viewing, maybe it's about your famous parents or your son winning a grand final. Twenty years down the track that family would like to pass those image on but the media it's recorded on is fading fast. I'd imagine in the USA community TV stations are much the same.
Perhaps this issue is better discussed on some other forum, it seems to me a pretty significant one that I haven't heard aired much, if at all. There's so much noise about what is truly piracy (read theft) that these issues are being drowned out.
In this country copyright as far as I know means just that, the right to copy. If you don't own the copyright you have no right to copy it, you buy a CD and you want to play it in your cars cassette player, tough, buy it on a cassette or you're breaking the law. Outside of academic issues there's no argy bargy with fair use provisions etc.
Now I derive some income copying old 8mm film to video, VHS or more and more DVD. Mostly it's just hame movies so no issues here. But from time to time it'll be some ancient travel movie grandpa bought on his travels i.e. a commercial production that is copyright. Probably the people who made it are all long gone by now. maybe not. Either way I doubt they'll care much about one one copy being made onto VHS or DVD.
But even so, technically I'm potentially breaking the law. The only saving grace is there's several levels of much bigger businesses between me and the client and if anyone's going to get a nasty knock on the door it'll be them not me. Still that's no excuse.
Now I could just send it back with a note saying 'Sorry we don't break the law'. One downside would be the business that gives me the work will find someone else to do it who doesn't give them grief with their customers and secondly I still feel that people who did pay for the right to view something shouldn't be penalised because the technology to play it has vanished.
I know this ultimatley is something I have to decide for myself but I can see it becoming quite an issue as say VHS heads for oblivion over the next deacde. I'm not talking about copying big name releases where for sure they'll be released on DVD. But there is probably 100,00s of hours of footage that is perhaps precious to someone or their next generation, of zero commercial value that technically is going to be lost without the law being broken. Either way there's no clear path to doing the right thing.
I'll give you a simple example, our national broadcaster makes lots of docos of local interest. They own the copyright but for a small fee they'll make a you a copy for personal viewing, maybe it's about your famous parents or your son winning a grand final. Twenty years down the track that family would like to pass those image on but the media it's recorded on is fading fast. I'd imagine in the USA community TV stations are much the same.
Perhaps this issue is better discussed on some other forum, it seems to me a pretty significant one that I haven't heard aired much, if at all. There's so much noise about what is truly piracy (read theft) that these issues are being drowned out.