• @FlowVoid@midwest.social
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      1 year ago
      1. The SCOTUS ruled that VHS could legally be used to time-shift TV broadcasts, ie record a program in order to personally watch later. If you have permission to watch a TV program, then watching it at a different time has no economic impact and is fair use. Making a copy of someone else’s DVD is still illegal. So is giving your VHS tape to someone else. They are not fair use.

      2. It is illegal to download copyright protected works. That applies to the person who receives the download, even if lawsuits tend to target those who share the file.

      3. It’s true the review itself doesn’t violate copyright, but my actions prior to the review (copying someone else’s DVD) did. It’s no different than sneaking into a movie theater in order to write the review. Focusing on the review misses the point

      4. Any copyright protected work you gather from the Internet has a limited license. That license generally allows private non-commercial use, so most people are not in trouble.

      There was actually a lawsuit by Facebook against a company that was using a web scraper to gather data about Facebook users to build advertising trackers. The judge noted that if the web scraper was downloading user photographs and text posts then it was very likely infringing IP (but not Facebook’s IP, because the rights still belonged to the users).