On 25 Jan 2006 at 11:55, Wayne Johnson wrote:
> At 11:41 AM 1/25/2006, Bernie Cosell typed:
> >I figure I'll vote with my pocketbook and not buy things
> >I'm not happy with.
>
> Ah but they want to make my analog HDTV completely obsolete & it's
> only 2yrs old in the name of copyright protection.
I don't exactly understand. What will _totally_ obsolete your HDTV and
how does copyright figure in? There are folk that invested in Betamax
players and Pioneer laser-disk players that got orphaned, but that's the
breaks [and still, IMO, not justification for claiming that you have some
right to the material and so can go ahead and take what you want, any
more than I should be able to pirate PS/2 games because they're not out
for the PC and I'm pissed about that because my investment in my fancy
gaming system is now largely wasted].
> > My view is that if you feel a Rolex watch is grossly
> >overpriced, the recourse is to not buy one and not just to steal one
>
> Agreed but then they came up with fair use & that muddied the waters.
Who "came up with"? But yes, the waters about fair use and copyright are
all a bit muddied, and generally need to be sorted out by courts. For
example, the question of fair use for *BROADCAST* material is largely
settled[*] The situation for other types of media and channels isn't so
clear. But if the copyright holders make their intentions clear, I'm not
sure the consumer just gets to decide to ignore those intentions [that
is, I'd say that the ethical default is to observe the copyright holder's
wishes, rather than to take-what-you-think-you-deserve]. If you bought a
VHS player and your favorite movie ONLY came out on beta, I'd say that
you lose [rather than that being an argument for you to pirate a copy to
beta]. I have run into that several times --- getting video tapes that
are in PAL format which I can't play [and what I've done is written the
copyright holder and asked for permission to convert my copy to VHS...
and I've never been turned down]
[*] but it is a bit tricky [the case in question is Sony v Universal
studios, and most folk assume that decision makes it "fair use" to
build huge personal libraries of broadcast shows, although the
actual decision is rather more narrow:
Private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home satisfies this
standard of noninfringing uses ...and ... the District Court's
findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of
respondents' programs is legitimate fair use
Does that mean you can make a personal library of every episode of
Friends and Seinfeld? Not to my reading, but....
> I'm not sure that one making a DVD so they can watch it on the road
> while the wife watched it at home is a copyright violation because if
> he could he would'be watched at home.
Well, I can tell you that sure doesn't sound like fair use to me.
Fair use encompasses a lot of things, but doing the equivalent of having
the convenience of two copies of the work-in-question without the bother
of having to BUY a second copy doesn't sound like it'll cut it...
> ... Heck I only pay $1/mo for my
> DVR provided to me by my cable company & I'm sure the MPAA isn't
> getting rich off of that. So who is violating the copyright when I
> use the DVR, the cable company or me? </rhetorical>.
Of course rhetorical, but the question there is: how many copies of the
work exist? Only one [on your DVR]. Now, if you started burning DVD
copies for all your friends that'd be different. I assume you agree that
having the ability to store a show on your DVR doesn't give you the right
to bang out copies at your whim and convenience?
> So you see I've may not have bought the Rolex of HDTVs but I did buy
> an HDTV & why should I be punished after the fact is my point.
You're not being "punished" -- you made some assumptions about longevity
and other such things that no one promised you. My wife got bagged that
way: she got one of those little handheld-game things [to help pass the
time during lambing a fistful of years back] and almost the very next
week they came out with a fancy, *incompatible* color-version and there
were essentially no interesting games for the old one...
> ... I
> don't know about you but I can't afford to throw a grand away every 2 years.
I can't either, but that's not the copyright holder's fault. I didn't
realize that your buying a particular bit of hardware *obligated* the
world to make programming available to you for some [unspecified?] period
of time. At the outside, IMO that's one of the dangers of being an early
adopter, no?
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
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