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Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#41

Post by danielweber »

nollidge wrote: post #40
danielweber wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did? When did a court rule that a slight change in Zevida's practice would make it legal? Lots of people are trying/hoping to change the First Sale Doctrine into something that can destroy copyright. That simply isn't going to happen. If some court someone rules that I can own a virtual copy of "The Avengers" and trade it around with my "friends" on the Internet, Congress will recognize that as a bug and modify th…

I was talking about the companies mentioned in the original article which have stood up to judicial scrutiny despite having ridiculous setups that exist solely to circumvent prosecution. Judges clearly don't mind that. > Congress will recognize that as a bug and modify the law. Why are you so sure of that?

I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if ever became legal that one person with one copy of a movie or song can legally and instantly share it with millions of his "friends" online. The same way I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if it somehow became legal to manufacture your own dollar bills.

Some people would say it's because of "Big Hollywood" or "the mafIAA" or whatever, but regardless of the spin, Congress would still act.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#42

Post by Dylan16807 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37
TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, the letter of the law only highlights transmission (uploading) as illegal in most copyright issues. Downloading most any material seems completely legal. That'd be neat to see: a bittorrent case which the user turned the upload to 0.0 . Are they infringing?

> Downloading most any material seems completely legal. // You're making a single copy without a license. Fair use doctrine may apply depending what you're doing with that copy. There is a general exclusion against the right to copy works that are protected under the Berne Convention for example see Article 9 ( http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#... ): " Authors of literary and artistic works…

I would argue that the illegal distributor is the one making the copy.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#43

Post by dkarl »

johrn wrote: post #3

So what if some company did something similar to Zediva, but with a model where customers "buy" the DVDs and then sell them back to the company when they are done streaming it? Basically use first sale to set up a streaming service where you don't need to deal with licensing issues. I pay $20/month for access to the servers and infrastructure. I get $10 of that to use as purchasing credit. Movies cost anywhere from $…

That reminds me of my very first programming job, using a source control system (Rational ClearCase, I think) at a company that had licenses for a certain number of concurrent users. When you tried to check your code in, the client had to check out one of the license keys to use during the interaction with the SCM server. If they were all in use, the check-in would fail: "no license available, try again later."

I think that was a licensing scheme offered by Rational and not a clever hack we devised for screwing Rational out of license fees, but I wasn't sure and wasn't brave enough to ask.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#44

Post by dullcrisp »

johrn wrote: post #3

So what if some company did something similar to Zediva, but with a model where customers "buy" the DVDs and then sell them back to the company when they are done streaming it? Basically use first sale to set up a streaming service where you don't need to deal with licensing issues. I pay $20/month for access to the servers and infrastructure. I get $10 of that to use as purchasing credit. Movies cost anywhere from $…

I don't really understand the restriction that was used against Zediva. Is the key point that the same company that's renting out the DVDs is also renting out the means to perform them?

Hypothetically, a company could set up a datacenter where you rent DVD players by the hour, provide your own disc, and stream the output to your computer over the internet. It seems that this would be allowed based on the Cablevision ruling. Then, I could rent one of these players for three hours, look up someone who lives near it, and pay them to go to a Redbox, pick up a DVD for me, and pop it into the DVD player, so that I can stream it at home. It seems this would be legal and not even completely impractical.

Does it only become an issue when the player, the courier, and the Redbox are all provided by the same company?

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#45

Post by yew »

danielweber wrote: post #41
nollidge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the companies mentioned in the original article which have stood up to judicial scrutiny despite having ridiculous setups that exist solely to circumvent prosecution. Judges clearly don't mind that. > Congress will recognize that as a bug and modify the law. Why are you so sure of that?

I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if ever became legal that one person with one copy of a movie or song can legally and instantly share it with millions of his "friends" online. The same way I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if it somehow became legal to manufacture your own dollar bills. Some people would say it's because of "Big Hollywood" or "the mafIAA" or whatever, but regardl…

But Congress obviously isn't doing anything about filling a data center with thousands of antennas and temporarily assigning them to individual customers in order to circumvent public performance restrictions.

At least in this case, talking about what decisions will "obviously" be made beforehand seems unwise.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#46

Post by Dylan16807 »

danielweber wrote: post #41
nollidge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the companies mentioned in the original article which have stood up to judicial scrutiny despite having ridiculous setups that exist solely to circumvent prosecution. Judges clearly don't mind that. > Congress will recognize that as a bug and modify the law. Why are you so sure of that?

I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if ever became legal that one person with one copy of a movie or song can legally and instantly share it with millions of his "friends" online. The same way I consider it fairly obvious what Congress would do if it somehow became legal to manufacture your own dollar bills. Some people would say it's because of "Big Hollywood" or "the mafIAA" or whatever, but regardl…

Well you neglected to mention the aspect of it being a large number of shares in your last post. Congress doesn't know who my friends are and I should be able to loan out a movie to a handful of people over time if I want to.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#47

Post by tsotha »

ljf wrote: post #15
TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, the letter of the law only highlights transmission (uploading) as illegal in most copyright issues. Downloading most any material seems completely legal. That'd be neat to see: a bittorrent case which the user turned the upload to 0.0 . Are they infringing?

I think not. No-one has ever been sued for downloading material from Rapidshare etc - they have all be bit torrent users who have been sharing as they downloaded.

That doesn't mean nobody can be sued for downloading material from Rapidshare.

They're working their way down the ladder. First it was dedicated hosting sites like Napster and Pirate Bay. Next it was bittorrent users who were seeding. When the content providers have pretty much mined out that vein they'll go after the Rapidshare users.

The real question is can they do it without losing money. My guess is they'll get the law changed so it's an administrative infraction under a certain amount, or they'll stick with people who've downloaded enough content the legal work can be paid.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#48

Post by nameuserc »

Maybe Johnny doesn't want to "stream". Maybe Johnny just wants video that play backs immediately/without delay, and smoothly. And Johnny thinks that's what "streaming" means. Maybe Johnny thinks that "downloading" means he has to wait.

Does Johnny know that when he watches YouTube he's downloading? Or does he think he's "streaming"? As long as Johnny does not have to wait for playback, and playback is smooth, does Johnny really care about whether he's "streaming" or "downloading?

All else being equal (i.e. speed to fill a buffer or a disk block is the same and in neither case does Johnny have to wait for playback longer than in the other), I'd bet Johnny would prefer "downloading" over "streaming", since then he can watch the video again later. Just like a VHS or DVD rental.

Assuming you have the storage space, all else being equal, "streaming" video when you can "download" it seems "insane" to use the Professor's term.

Unless of course your business model is traditional "broadcasting" of the pre-digital, pre-internet variety.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#49

Post by nucleardog »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #42
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Downloading most any material seems completely legal. // You're making a single copy without a license. Fair use doctrine may apply depending what you're doing with that copy. There is a general exclusion against the right to copy works that are protected under the Berne Convention for example see Article 9 ( http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#... ): " Authors of literary and artistic works…

I would argue that the illegal distributor is the one making the copy.

Well, it would be kind of argue to argue otherwise seeing as I'd think copying something necessitates having an instance of it in the first place.

However, the downloader shows the intent to make the copy (they are requesting the blocks of the file) and are contributing to the copying (the uploader would not have made that specific copy without the downloader initiating it). I think that would muddy the waters more than enough.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#50

Post by nl »

frankus wrote: post #5

There's really the exact same copyright-induced inefficiency in traditional video rental places. It always struck me as bizarre that a video rental place could "run out" of copies of a particular film, when at trivial expense they could manufacture (on site) additional copies on demand. Intuitively it seems like this would result in more money for the rightsholders as well, although maybe the need for video rental sh…

Isn't video rental (in the US) done under first sale doctrine[1]? That means copyright holders only receive money from selling each physical copy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

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