Forum - View topicThink you understand how US Copyright law applies to anime?
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daxomni
 Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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The legal ignorance in this forum is sometimes deafening. I'm no legal expert, but even I can see gaping holes in the majority of posts about the legality of viewing copyrighted anime. Recording, downloading, or even just playing anything you don't own the rights to or have a license to use is technically illegal in the US. Yes, that's right, even just playing protected content can open you up to legal liabilities in the US if you're not following the letter of the law.
On one recent anime DVD's back cover I was perusing I noticed the lines "Authorized for private home use only" and "Licensed only for use in the USA in Canada." Merely playing that disc anywhere outside of a private US or Canadian home can now have you facing multiple potential violations right off the bat (most likely EULA and DMCA for starters), regardless if you paid for everything involved through 100% legitimate means or not. The various exceptions that once existed (including content lacking an explicit domestic copyright and potential fair use situations such as educational use, material accompanying a consumer review, parody usage, personal backups, time-shifting, etc.) are all being superseded by more recent intellectual property laws that make circumventing any technology which is intended to limit access a crime, regardless if the primary goal or result is otherwise legal. Also, the previous restrictions on potential damages for actions which were free of monetary gain or operated at a net financial loss have largely been removed. At this point there is surprisingly little difference between offering protected content for free or for a substantial profit in the case of US law. The US Supreme Court's VCR ruling has been circumvented by other newer laws and hasn't been substantially reaffirmed since the 1980's, which is ancient history in the world of protected digital content. America is slowly becoming a very restrictive country in the case of protected content, which is now considered an automatic event at the moment of inception. Just because individual American consumers continue to throw caution to the wind and ignore the laws of their own country doesn't mean they'll continue to get away with it forever. At least one prominent industry lobbyist has even gone on the record stating that they intend to push for consumer-level copyright violations to be considered as serious as rape in the eyes of the law. As ludicrous as that may sound, you really have to take them at their word for the most part. After all, who do you think is other side of this battle? Why, millions of naive and apathetic American consumers who couldn't even be bothered to learn what their own country's laws are in the first place. Which side do you think will be the de facto winner and which side do you think will simply forfeit this battle? Personally, I think blatant copyright violations should be punished without hesitation, but I'm also staunchly against ever-longer effective copyright periods (no protected content created since the 1920's has ever passed into the public domain without expressed permission by the copyright holder) and a near total lack of practical and legal access to fair use material at the consumer level. Our current copyright laws allow copyright owners to sue schools and non-profit clubs for performing a copyrighted play or even just singing Happy Birthday without paying royalties to the copyright holder. That goes much too far in my view, but so long as Americans continue to ignore the problem instead of dealing with it we can be assured it wont get any better. Pirates will continue to pillage and pass along anime without fear of effective prosecution while average Americans will continue to face the prospect of being brought up on charges for using content which they assumed they owned and were using legally. [EDIT: I'm letting this thread stand for a while because the forums have been mostly crap as of late, so have at it while you can. Just don't flame. -TK] |
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beezis
 Posts: 76 Location: BC Canada Eh? |
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For some reason I thought that a profit had to have been made on the copywritten material before it was being infringed upon if there was no written consent for its use. Frankly it really doesn't matter to me whether i am breaking the law by downloading anime or whatever i could really care less. If i one day need to pay the consequences so be it, but torrents, limewire and other file sharing methods are on the increase if anything and not a single case has been taken to court successfully to my knowledge.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6900 Location: Kazune City |
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A friend of mine owns the first season of Saiyuuki. Since borrowing it from him and watching it would be illegal, I shouldn't feel any guiltier if I were to download it, right? It's called "Atomization," the effort by corporations to defeat any collective or sharing instincts/behaviors among consumers, forcing every last person to buy their products, thus maximizing profits.
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Ilikeulikeme
 Posts: 46 Location: Goose Creek, South Carolina |
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(I do not have much knowledge in the coptright laws, thought I would say that so no one flames for what I right next.) Wouldn't that be the same thing as renting, then the rental companies would be pirates. If it isn't copy right infringement then one could give their friend 50 cents and then say all is well with the world, Serving jail for copy right infringement, unless it is on a massive scale (massive=1 person distribuiting in excess of 25,000 full copies of said product), even the politics think that serving jail time for drug users is asinine because they take up all the space they would use for the molesters, rapers, pedophiles, and last but not least murders. Seriously though does it matter? I honestly do not understand the reason for this post, all you've done is inform everyone of some laws everyone probably already knew about, and probably started another debate about fansubs. |
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daxomni
Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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I've been reading that there have been several judgments against defendants, often in excess of $10,000 along with thousands of out-of-court settlements averaging thousands of dollars each and the owners of Kazaa just agreed to pay $100,000,000. Where are you getting your news? Even if you are willing to challenge the RIAA and win, you'll spend far more than their settlement minimum just trying to defend yourself. The US legal system is a lot like the US healthcare system; we only bother to learn about how screwed up it is AFTER we already need serious help.
So far as I'm aware, borrowing a DVD doesn't automatically open you up to personal liability unless it explicitly states that this is against the EULA.
Close, but no cigar. The Region code is still a form of technological protection in the view of US law. Playing an unencrypted DVD outside of the Region it's flagged and licensed for is still a crime according to US law.
First of all, if the DVD says it's licensed 'for sale or rental' then you can rent it if you wish. From what I understand, Blockbuster and Netflix have separate license agreements that allow them to rent DVD's that would otherwise be unlawful to rent out if you bought them at a retail store. Second, if you think most politicians are against putting drug users in jail, then please explain to me who you think was pushing for all these "three strikes you're out" laws and minimum sentences in the first place? As for the purpose of my thread, I'm just trying to explain to folks in the US that IP law is really starting to get out of hand here. I think our laws should reflect our values, and right now I believe that IP laws do not currently reflect what most Americans feel is an honest balance between the copyright holders and consumers. The fact that so many Americans are openly flouting our own laws seems to say as much. What they should be doing instead, in my view, is working to get the laws balanced again. |
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selenta
 Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Well... for one, I'd hardly call it "deafening". Anyone of any reputation here knows the laws, if only because we've had numerous arguments about them; and those without such a reputation or who spew ignorance are essentially ignored by most people. Yes yes, of course you're doing something illegal if you don't follow the law to the letter. Then again, there's a lot of laws that are there for rather inexplicable reasons if you ask me. They were either created with some other purpose in mind, or only as an excuse to punish major offenders. For example, I don't know where you live, but any form of sodomy is illegal in my state (Washington State); and it has been for over 100 years, wanna take a guess as to how many cases have been brought to court in that time? 
As I've said before, there's two parts to laws: the wording of the law, and the spirit of the law. Although it is illegal to let your friend borrow your DVD set, I believe it is illegal (even if it's not, let's assume it is as an example of a stupid technicality) for him to even watch it in your house without you actually being there 'supervising' the action. Somehow though, if some assanine person insisted on taking this to court, there is absolutely no way a judge would allow such a ridiculous offense be brought to court. The purpose of the laws is to protect companies, not to punish people. |
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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if you wanted to get techinal almost all our avitars are copyright violation since we didn't get permission from the original artists.
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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Not to mention most parts of the Encyclopedia here on ANN. But do the Anime companies (or their reps) do anything about it? Nope. You want a bigger violator of Copyrights? Look no further than eBay. Hundred upon thousands of listings for bootleg Anime, and eBay directly profits from it thru listing fees and FVF's. |
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Nerv
 Posts: 22 Location: gvine, Tejas |
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Any sources for that? Because I would like to see what you are exactly reading there. |
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Johnni86
Posts: 23 |
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Kazaa has nothing to do with this in any way, they are getting sued for the same reason Napster did originally. As for intividuals being sued over sharing it is only in such large mass and only when you can be easily tracked, bittorrent is much more difficult to track than file sharing networks.
As for the fine print on the cases, they are not legal documents so they will almost certainly not hold up in a court of law, the only time they would be relivent is if someone copied the material and distributed in mass or started showing it like a movie theater. As for special licencing agreements to rentals, i highly doute that Netflix or Blockbuster have a special agreement just to rent in mass, if they do have a special agreement it is probubly geared at purchasing the material in mass. |
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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As the son of a lawyer, and as someone planning to become one himself, let me tell you something about judges. They can and will do anything they darn well please. Do not ever assume that they will or will not do something because of the "letter of the law" or "spirit of the law." Sometimes judges just do things because they feel like it. Judge Kristine Cecava in Nebraska sentenced a man to probation rather than prison time for raping a 12-year-old girl. In her sentencing, the judge said she didn't think he could survive in prison, partly because he's only 5 feet 1 inch tall. Judges can do some insane things and this is proof. Hopefully, this madness will be corrected. Besides, regardless of what a law's original intent is, it can always be re-interpreted to mean something completely different. The political debate on the second ammendment is a good example. Anyway, I'm personally baffled about the way the copyright laws are applied. It seems like prosecutory efforts are aimed at individual consumers like us rather than the bootlegers who are the top tier of the copyright criminal foodchain. |
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Azathrael
 Posts: 745 |
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Honestly, this post serves no purpose except for people to argue "it's illegal, period" and "omg, look at ebay and my avatar, so sue me" arguments.
As someone already said, many of us here know what's illegal and what's not; most will agree nobody cares enough to remove their avatars and stop all similar "illegal" activities. The average ignorant forum user will be corrected, the few children with no concept of law (like the idiot who thought Naruto/Bleach/whatever anime fansub was completely legal for him) are flamed. Maybe if the thread starter was an actual legal expert than the story might be different; apparently the thread starter doesn't really understand everything himself anyway. Why bother preaching? [quote=Richard J.]Anyway, I'm personally baffled about the way the copyright laws are applied. It seems like prosecutory efforts are aimed at individual consumers like us rather than the bootlegers who are the top tier of the copyright criminal foodchain.[/quote] I see all these stupid articles about grandmothers who can't use a computer being sued by RIAA but I don't see bootleggers being brought down. In my opinion it's just a scare tactic to prevent individuals because they know they can't stop the bootleggers. |
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angel_lover
 Posts: 645 Location: UK |
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Without wishing in any way to justify the existence of child pornography, can someone explain to me why distributing free unauthorised copies of legal CDs and DVDs is destroying the industry, but distributing free child pornography is encouraging its production? Seems to me that you can't have it both ways.
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Ragg
Posts: 144 |
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What I really think is that why is it that the companies complain about losing their business like this. I don't know, but I don't think your supposed to come out positive on every production. In America the amount of effort put into movies have dwindled. It is almost throw-darts-at-a-board-to-see-which-part-is-next. Mix that with some big name actor, and spend more money into advertising than the actual movie, and bam your at a billion dollars on your opening weekend.
That's my view on what's happening for America's movies, and is the main reason I choose to watch Anime. Anime has not been butchered yet by this, although funimation + some other companies are advancing toward it. Why is it these companies who already make billions of dollars complain when 14 year old kids want one of their productions for no cost? Why is it the media emphasizes this so much, and more money is directed at this than Rape situations, kidnappings, and murders? More and more people now are turning against the MPAA. Recently (I forget who) a man was sued by the MPAA for downloading "Meet the Fockers," off a torrent site. However, he claims that he already had owned the DVD, just he lost it. Now this multi-millionaire has stated publically that he is well prepared to spend into the millions to win this case and expose the MPAA. I honestly hope that anime doesn't become this, and that the quality in most of the animes currently will be retained in the future. |
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selenta
Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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First paragraph:I know, and it's unfortunate that judges do things like that sometimes. Although I'm all for capricious judges who may be willing to really understand the situation, the power they have does kind of scare me at times knowing that what is required to become a judge is not nearly enough to weed out people who might abuse the system. 2nd: Very very true, and often very very unfortunate. 3rd: Exactly the problem I have with it. All that is current happening is that they industry is trying to scare individual people into not stealing their property rather than attack the much larger sources of such stealing. I see the benefits of the "scaring" but shouldn't it part of a much larger effort to kill both demand and supply? (not to mention the inherent inequality of finding scapegoats) |
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