Legality of sharing tapes and such?

[pkbab5]

I was just curious if anyone knew about the legality of sharing/giving/selling/ whatever homemade copies of VHS/VCD/DVD versions of B5LR to fans in other countries who are dying to see it but can't. I know region encoding can easily be removed, at least on a DVD, so that isn't really an issue. Is there a legal way to share the movie with the international fans?

Thanks for your help.

------------------
Pam Kanik
pkbab5@aol.com

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this ..
all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
-Sinclair, Babylon 5: Infection

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Technically, no. AFAIK, U.S. copyright law lets you time-shift (but not archive) off-the-air material, and make "back-up copies" of prerecorded commercial material. Any permanent archiving of something you don't already have a license for and any distribution of copyrighted material that you didn't pay for is technically illegal.

So, if you send a copy of Rangers to your best friend in Surrey, is the FBI going to knock down your door and haul you off to federal prison? No. Not even if somebody decides to drop a dime on you and your friend and turn you in. That isn't the kind of thing anybody would bother about, and the FBI has bigger fish to fry - especially at the moment. (But if Osama Bin Laden is a buddy of yours and a closet B5 fan, the FBI will probably take an interest if they get wind of it.

)

But if you start publicly offering copies for sale, or even offer to dupe copies for anyone who sends you a tape, you're apt to hear from the Warner Bros. lawyers if they find out about it. (Even giving away copies counts as "distribution" and is therefore illegal, but obviously they go after the profiteers first. And many companies pay people to look for this kind of stuff on the web, so it tends to be found, eventually.)

Same situation with the copyrighted scripts and stories. There was one site that had the short stories available for download, and certain people seem to have turned a blind eye to it, given that the authors could no longer profit from them and they weren't available except in back issues selling for inflated prices. But when the scripts, which the writers can sell at conventions, turned up on the same site, it was shut down in short order.

I'm sure this sort of thing is going on (hell, I'm sure someone has the whole thing up for download on several "napster"-style filing sharing systems), but it is probably being done discreetly and it is illegal.

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[Kribu]

IIRC the legality of sharing tapes was discussed quite seriously some time ago here... unless I'm completely mistaken, the conclusion was that while it's unlikely that people would in practice get into trouble for this, it's not exactly & fully legal either.

So the board policy is to steer clear of any sharing of any kind. Just to be on the safe side.

As for 'region coding' - strictly speaking there isn't such a thing as region coding with VHS. The issue is a bit different, since it concerns the different image resolutions of NTSC (the North American standard) and PAL (most of the rest of the world).

Unlike the region coding of DVD which can be avoided with the help of a regionfree/hacked player, you can't really do that with a videotape - you have to have a VCR that can handle both types. While these have become increasingly popular over the last few years, not all VCRs (esp. the older ones) have this ability.

Heh, if it were as easy as that, I may well have begged someone to send me a tape (off-board, of course) long ago.

Edit note: well, Joe beat me to it.

------------------
"Isn't the universe an amazing place? I wouldn't live anywhere else." - G'Kar, B5: Rangers
Kribu's Lounge | kribu@ranger.b5lr.com | Kribu.net

[This message has been edited by Kribu (edited January 30, 2002).]

 

[pkbab5]

Thank you so much for your fast, friendly, and VERY informative reply. I feel quite honored

as this was my first post. You guys have a great community here. So, I guess I'll just have to keep my backup copies all to myself! (However, if anyone feels like flying to America and visiting my humble little home, we might just have to watch one of my back-up tapes of commercials that just happen to have little snippets of movie in between them!)

------------------
Pam Kanik
pkbab5@aol.com

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this ..
all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
-Sinclair, Babylon 5: Infection

[This message has been edited by pkbab5 (edited January 30, 2002).]

 

[Deviot]

Well welcome pkbab5 to www.b5lr.com

I hope you enjoy your stay and also make some friends here!

I am going to close this thread as it has been answered above...And because well we do not allow tape swapping etc on this board.


------------------
Deviot
Lincbot@yahoo.com.au