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Re: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights




----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Ballowe" <hangman@steelballs.org>
To: <dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights


> On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 11:53:38AM -0500, Ernest Miller wrote:
> > Space shifting is generally legal and if you subtitled a movie that you
used
> > yourself you probably would be fine.  However, distribute that movie and
you
> > will get in trouble (having violated both copying and distribution
rights).
> >
> What about something that offers the subtitling as a service? If I was a
> retailer who sold copies of a movie, which would be legal by contracts
> with the copyright holder etc -- even then they make the copies, not me,
> and also run a service that allows people to send me copies of movies they
> own and I send them back subtitled (or they buy it from me and I sub-title
> it before sending - saves 2 stages of shipping, they don't need to have
> held it before it becomes their copy). Especially if I have a way of
overlaying
> the subtitles without making a copy of the work, I don't see a problem -
unless
> I'm missing something in the law. It may be creating a derivative work,
but
> the derivative work isn't being sold, the service to create it is.

The problem is that the subtitles are themselves copyrighted.  It would be
the equivalent of - you send a book to me in English - I print a Spanish
translation between the lines and send it back to you.  The Spanish
translation would be a derivative work.  Now it is legal to have someone
translate a copyrighted work for some purposes ... but not for general sale
to the public.

> > This, of course, is what does not make sense to me.  Copying is legal
for
> > personal use (mostly) but not if you distribute it.  Why not get rid of
> > copying as a violation at all?  Why not just have public distribution be
the
> > crime?
> >
>
> This gets into the question of what to do about private distribution. I
would
> argue that Napster, for example, wasn't public distribution. It's easy to
> say that the Internet allows communities to form that are world wide. If
you
> restrict sharing to only one such group (while membership may be open to
> anybody) it's no longer really public. It's a long shot arguement, but it
> is based on parallels between social networks and computer networks.
>

I agree in the distinction between public and private distribution. I
believe that Napster was public distribution because you are sharing with
the public, there is no discrimination.  Private distribution would be with
close friends via ftp or something, not generally available to anyone.