Copyright?

[wonshu]

One thought that makes (or should make) this consideration pretty clear for everybody is:

Switch places!

Imagine what happens if you're the rights holder and the result of a mashup is being used to promote something you have nothing to do with. First "for free", suddenly surrounded by advertisement, eventually sold as a track and then ends up in a long running campaign for (insert your favorite energy drink/car/alcoholic beverage here).

Perspective is a big part of copyright law.

Best,
Hans

[aciddose]

Obvious samples, obviously no clearance

How come you're so sure the samples aren't cleared? Sample clearance is a private contract, it doesn't need to be printed on the liner notes of the track. There's no way for you to know, unless you have contact with either the sampled or the sampling artist. And even then, it could be their management or label handles that kind of stuff.

The law is that you cannot use it for your own personal tracks??

Nope, private usage is not forbidden by any law. Publication (with or without charging money) however is.

Actually you might find this surprising but this is not at all true.

Otherwise all this "license" business wouldn't make any sense regarding format conversion and so on. Unfortunately, it does.

In the United States there have been many cases with arguments presented along the lines of "...but my client only made these copies available for his/her own personal use. If any other party accessed these shares without permission/license this fact does not make my client liable."

That is not how the cases turned out however, with the result being "Making available a work for the purposes of copying that work is considered infringement regardless of whether the original copy was licensed."

"...but my client only downloaded this copy for their personal use and did not make it available to others or distribute this copy. Therefore they have not infringed."

Also turned out that this didn't work, and several notable cases occurred with this argument shot down and the result being that the maximum statutory (for commercial infringement) damages were awarded.

In Canada this used to be fine. Personal use, making your own copies and even lending/trading them to friends was entirely legal. Not any more since changes made by the conservative party.

[sjm]

I don't know if you're misinterpreting the posts in this thread - or maybe I'm misinterpreting your posts or indeed other people posts, but anyway:

In the United States there have been many cases with arguments presented along the lines of "...but my client only made these copies available for his/her own personal use. If any other party accessed these shares without permission/license this fact does not make my client liable."

Not sure what this has to do with what Bert wrote, but surely if you're making copies available to other people, you can't claim it's just for your own personal use. So unless you're talking about someone hacking your computer and downloading your legit digital downloads without your permission, and then you getting busted for copyright infringement, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. If that is indeed what happened, that's a shocking ruling.

"...but my client only downloaded this copy for their personal use and did not make it available to others or distribute this copy. Therefore they have not infringed."

Again, I may be misreading your posts (you talk about "cases" without any specifics so my guess is a good as anyone's what you really mean), but I don't see how this relates either. Either you purchased a digital download, in which case you can obviously download it, or you didn't in which case it's copyright infringement.

I'm not sure what this has to do with me taking a CD/legit digital download/whatever and making a mashup on my PC for my own personal use without ever making it available to anyone else. I'm pretty sure Bert wasn't talking about downloading random stuff from piracy sites when talking about "personal use".


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Maybe you can provide some specifics on what actual cases you are referring to and how they tie in with the other posts in this thread.

[aciddose]

I'm not arguing what "is not" infringement, I'm saying BertKoor was wrong to say there is an exemption "for personal use".

That just isn't true, case-law in the United States exists for nearly every variation of the "personal use" argument that yes, you require a license.

As you said:

Either you purchased a digital download, in which case you can obviously download it, or you didn't in which case it's copyright infringement.

(Although this isn't true either. If you 'purchase a license' from a party that doesn't have rights to sub-license in the first place, your copy is infringing regardless.)

How do you make this leap then from "downloading is bad" to "copying is okay" ?

What is the difference? Can you quote some case-law on this? I've never seen any finding that would differentiate "copying" from "copying".

In Canada, in the most recent copyright act there is a very limited and very specific exception "making a copy for personal use to an audio recording medium". However, computer memories do not count as an "audio recording medium" regardless of the format.

So what I said about playing a CD in your car applies in Canada as well, even though you can legally make a copy of that CD to another CD, just not actually play it.

[Numanoid]

Imagine what happens if you're the rights holder and the result of a mashup is being used to promote something you have nothing to do with. First "for free", suddenly surrounded by advertisement, eventually sold as a track and then ends up in a long running campaign for (insert your favorite energy drink/car/alcoholic beverage here).

Use an alias when making 'choons

That way those tasteless promotions will not lead back to you, only the money will

[aciddose]

Actually in that situation you have "moral rights" under the berne convention, unless you've signed them away.

You have a right to control that your works are attributed to you in the format you wish, you have a right to control the use of your works in association with different causes, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

[sjm]

I must admit to being even more confused now.

As you said:

Either you purchased a digital download, in which case you can obviously download it, or you didn't in which case it's copyright infringement.

How do you make this leap then from "downloading is bad" to "copying is okay" ?

If what I said is indeed what you meant, then I struggle to see how you can't see the difference between downloading a pirated copy of something I haven't paid for off the internet or making a backup copy of something I have bought.

Of course everything is complicated terribly by copyright law being different in every country. Where I live, I definitely can make a copy of my CDs and play them (even in my car, were I to have one).

[aciddose]

It isn't me you have to worry about, it is the courts.

Suck it up, buddy.

Although if you don't understand that copying is copying regardless of where you make it from, to, or why, or when, or how, I don't understand how you manage to construct complete sentences without spit bubbles coming out between your lips.

[sjm]

It isn't me you have to worry about, it is the courts.

Suck it up, buddy.

Although if you don't understand that copying is copying regardless of where you make it from, to, or why, or when, or how, I don't understand how you manage to construct complete sentences without spit bubbles coming out between your lips.

So you are basically saying that yes, I was right when I suspected that you were intentionally being obtuse.

[aciddose]

In what way am I being obtuse? You are claiming there is a difference between "copying a" vs. "copying b", while I say the only difference is you've tacked on a little extra bit "a" and "b" there and if you snip that off you end up with the same thing.

This is a concept that perhaps an infant might have trouble with but one which otherwise should be intuitive.

Also, the law agrees with my point of view, not yours.

No, I will not serve you with 100s of links that you won't bother to read. If you are interested in reading about copyright history and case law around the world you can do that on your own.

[sjm]

I have no idea what Canadian copyright law says, but I can assure you that the local laws where I live indeed make a difference between "piracy" and "personal backups". The former is copyright infringement and against the law, the latter is perfectly legal.

So it's not me saying that one type of copying is legal and another - that's actually the whole point of copyright law. It determines who may and who may not make a copy.

If every act of copying were the same, then even the copyright holder could not make a copy because there's no difference between different acts of copying. That's so obviously untrue, hence the only explanation being that you're being intentionally obtuse.

[aciddose]

It doesn't matter whether the copy is a download or otherwise though. You are only differentiating between "licensed" vs. "unlicensed" while I've been saying "personal use" doesn't have any influence on this.

You must just not have understood what I was saying in the first place.

Every copy is the same, it is a copy. The only issue is whether you have a right to make that copy, "copy right".

It doesn't matter if you do this in secret and don't publish or distribute the result, it is still a copy and whether you make it or not depends only upon whether you have a license granting that right.

[sjm]

It doesn't matter whether the copy is a download or otherwise though. You are only differentiating between "licensed" vs. "unlicensed" while I've been saying "personal use" doesn't have any influence on this.

Every copy is the same, it is a copy. The only issue is whether you have a right to make that copy, "copy right".

It doesn't matter if you do this in secret and don't publish or distribute the result, it is still a copy and whether you make it or not depends only upon whether you have a license granting that right.

Exactly my point - you seemed to have been confusing "having the right to make a copy" with "every copy is illegal".

All (I believe) Bert was saying that you have the right to make a personal copy of something you have licensed (assuming that local laws grant you this right of course). Even if Canada doesn't allow you to do it doesn't mean that Canadian law applies to the rest of the world. You somehow conflated the right to make a copy for personal use with downloading media illegally and/or distributing others' works. That's a strange non-sequiteur and I still don't see how one relates to the other (and not the first of your posts to have a strange disconnect with what other people are actually discussing AFAICT).

Edit: grammar

[herodotus]

In what way am I being obtuse? You are claiming there is a difference between "copying a" vs. "copying b", while I say the only difference is you've tacked on a little extra bit "a" and "b" there and if you snip that off you end up with the same thing.

This is a concept that perhaps an infant might have trouble with but one which otherwise should be intuitive.

Also, the law agrees with my point of view, not yours.

No, I will not serve you with 100s of links that you won't bother to read. If you are interested in reading about copyright history and case law around the world you can do that on your own.

So what is the case law regarding people being prosecuted for making backup copies of musical recordings that they purchased legally? Because I have read about a lot of copyright infringement cases and they all center not on making copies but on distributing copies.

I don't require links to Westlaw or anything, just the names of a case or two.

Thanks

[Uncle E]

And here I thought this topic couldn't get any more boring...