Is it illegal to watch movies online?

RobTang

Soubrette wrote: »

It is dubious as to whether you have a copy of the whole film at any one time in your cache and it is to all intents and purposes inaccessible, that and the fact that it is automatically overwritten all, I feel, makes it hard to apply any meaningful definition of the word copy to it.

You have to admit that thinking is extreamly flimsy tho, If I stole all your money £1 at a time but spent it before I took the next quid, on one in their right mind would say I havn't stolen all your money.

Streaming the whole movie is hardy fair use either...

Soubrette

RobTang wrote: »

You have to admit that thinking is extreamly flimsy tho, If I stole all your money £1 at a time but spent it before I took the next quid, on one in their right mind would say I havn't stolen all your money.

That is a moral issue - I'm interested in the legal issue - do you have an evidence except your thoughts and feelings as to whether watching a stream is illegal? Not analogies (this situation is illegal so this one must be too) but some hard evidence that it is actually illegal. Analogies (I find) are often used by people who have no hard evidence except their opinion to offer and so their 'proof' is an anecdotal analogy - analogies should be used (imo) to add colour to your carefully evidenced argument, not put forward as evidence itself.

I certainly agree that my thinking is certainly not evidence that it is legal - more the facts that:

a) I can find no reference to the fact that watching a stream is illegal, I can find no reference that it is legal either except in conjunction with such services as Spotify and a general comment from the BBC that you are safer streaming than downloading (no mention of legal or illegal streaming there at all). On balance I'm inclined to believe this is a slight weight to its legality as the big business interest that make a lot of money from copyright would be telling us constantly how illegal it was, publicity is their best weapon, however I am also prepared to accept that big business may not see it as a problem...yet unlike the football big companies who do see it as a problem and want to crack down - guess what, against the streamers not the people watching it though.

b) I have yet to see a compelling argument that what is on your computer during watching a streamed film could be in any legal sense of the word (that bit is the important bit) be a copy. I've been told that a whole movie is cached, half a movie is cached and this is simply not true (hence the buffering problems). I have put forward the thought that it would be hard to prove legally that you had a copy (or even was copying) a movie due to it being in an inaccessible cache, in a temporary file which will be automatically overwritten and is only bits of the film at any time - no one has countered this argument. Just to be clear I don't mean prove in the sense that you deny streaming a film and the other side has to prove it - I mean if you are open about it and admit it, could what was on your computer be called a copy in any legal sense. \I don't think there is any argument that could be offered to persuade me at this time short of a court of law deeming it illegal or Parliament explicitely naming it as illegal.

Streaming the whole movie is hardy fair use either...

If I sound tetchy about this then I admit I am - one of my pet hates in any discussion is someone who either through laziness or intellectually dishonesty takes an argument that has not been made by someone they disagree with and runs with it - it wastes time, makes the original person have to repeat themselves and to be frank makes the person doing look like a fool.

If you had read my post properly you would have seen that that was not the thrust of my argument at all. To repeat again, the law acknowledges that there are certain situations where copying things which have a copyright are not illegal - therefore my argument is that having a small part of a film copied on your computer does not automatically mean that you are breaking the rule. If there was no such thing as fair use/incidental use etc and if any kind of copying however small from another work then argument a) below becomes a winning one - however the law already recognises that small amounts of copy may not be illegal and so I feel the area still remains grey - to repeat, my argument is not that it's fair use or incidental use or whatever but that the law already recognises that holding a proportion of a work is not necessarily illegal.

Frankly the only arguments I'm getting from the 'it is illegal' contingency is that;

a) What you hold on your computer is a copy. To be honest this is the only argument that holds any water to me and is key to the il/legality of the situation - does what is held on your computer during a stream constitute a copy or copying a film? I think not but it is grey enough that I wouldn't want to be the one to be taken to court over it.

b) It is immoral and stealing - the former does not automatically make something illegal I'm afraid and the former is an individual comment on the situation, there are lots of situations where some people consider something stealing and others do not. I'm looking for legal argument not emotional ones.

c) Either in error or deliberately offering misleading explanations on how streaming works.

d) Either in error or deliberately taking my argument and arguing against something I did not say (as in your fair use comment), even when I have explicitly said in my original post

Soubrette wrote:

Whilst I'm not saying that watching a stream constitutes fair usage I am saying that the law already acknowledges that a certain amount of something has to be copied to breach copyright.

Unlike the 'it's illegal brigade' I am not saying it is definitely legal, I am saying it is a grey area and I believe on the balance of probabilities it is legal - my mind is open to new evidence but as it stands no evidence has been presented to change my mind from that stance (bear in mind that originally I was sure it was legal).

I have nothing to say on the moral issues, false analogies or strawman arguments but I am interested that the only person who has so far put forward an argument convincing enough to change my stance on this was actually me!!

I do hope that when the issue does become a real one, that for its own sake, the music/film industry puts a better show than the one on this thread.

Sou

Marty_J

Isn't transmitting a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder an infringement?

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

Isn't transmitting a copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder an infringement?

Yes, uploading something without permission seems to be always be illegal (barring fair usage etc)

I hope this is going somewhere interesting

Sou

Marty_J

Soubrette wrote: »

Yes, uploading something without permission seems to be always be illegal (barring fair usage etc)

I hope this is going somewhere interesting

Sou

I was just wondering if initiating the streaming of a movie (i.e. going to a streaming site and clicking "play") could make the user at least partly liable for the ensuing infringement.

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

I was just wondering if initiating the streaming of a movie (i.e. going to a streaming site and clicking "play") could make the user at least partly liable for the ensuing infringement.

Wonder away, it could be so but it might not be so - youtube have not banned people from watching copywritten material - they've pulled the material. As I said before the Premier League is cracking down on streaming http://www.eufootball.biz/Technology/6782-premier_league_illegal_streaming.html but look at the language in that article

illegal broadcasting methods

illegitimate sites

illicit streaming sources

There is no mention that it is illegal to watch a stream, in fact when talking about the viewer these phrases are used:

any computer-literate fan can access free streams

an overwhelming number of fans finding ways to enjoy the action for free.

There is also a concept in law where the legal postion of one person does not necessarily affect the legal position of another one - so it is illegal to steal a DVD but it is not illegal to buy it not knowing it's illegal (although you may forfeit the right of ownership if the original owner finds it). Again for the speed readers in this thread, this is to show that just because one person does something illegal it does not automatically follow that another one involved is also doing something illegal not that it is an exact same situation as watching a stream.

Again on balance, and as of this moment, it seems that the person watching the stream is not deemed culpable in the legal sense of the word.

I would be interested if you could come up with something a bit more substantial than conjecture.

I also want to add that I would argue just as hard if someone said that it was not within the law for DVD companies to divide the world into zones to maximise their profits - immoral? irrelevant, a kind of stealing? possibly by some definitions but still irrelevant, illegal - definitely not and I'd want to see the evidence as to why it would be illegal. I'm not defending streaming as a moral upstanding thing to do but I can't find any actual evidence that it is as yet illegal.

Sou

Soubrette

Soubrette wrote: »

I would be interested if you could come up with something a bit more substantial than conjecture.

Sou

Sorry, that bit sounds a bit nasty and it's not meant to be - it's just that I really would be interested in references that show it is considered illegal. I can find plenty of conjecture on other forums that yes it is illegal but no one ever seems to find any evidence to back up their thoughts.

Sou

Marty_J

Soubrette wrote: »

There is also a concept in law where the legal postion of one person does not necessarily affect the legal position of another one - so it is illegal to steal a DVD but it is not illegal to buy it not knowing it's illegal (although you may forfeit the right of ownership if the original owner finds it).

But it's illegal to buy it knowing it's stolen?

If our knowledge concerning the legality of doing something affects whether it's illegal or not, does that mean that initiating the streaming of a copyrighted work, with the knowledge that transmitting said work is illegal, affects the legality of doing so?

I would be interested if you could come up with something a bit more substantial than conjecture.

I'm just thinking out loud as it were; I'm willing to admit it's a grey area, so I'm just exploring the topic.

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

But it's illegal to buy it knowing it's stolen?

In that situation it is - in the situation of watching a stream I'm not sure it is.

If our knowledge concerning the legality of doing something affects whether it's illegal or not, does that mean that initiating the streaming of a copyrighted work, with the knowledge that transmitting said work is illegal, affects the legality of doing so?

:rolleyes: I had hoped that my analogy would show this is a grey area again.

We simply don't know if knowingly watching an illegal stream is illegal or not - the immoral brigade would like to believe it to be so but if that is the case then why isn't streaming vilified in the same way that downloading is by the big business interests?

If an aspect of it were *in any way illegal then it would have been jumped on by these people.

I'm just think out loud as it were; I'm willing to admit it's a grey area, so I'm just exploring the topic.

It's hard to explore a topic when it's just people thoughts and feelings though. That's not going to convince anyone who doesn't already believe is it?

Especially when certain posters are only really willing to explore the side they believe in - if you were truly interested then you would comment on the arguments I've put forward which hints at the legality of the situation but it seems my arguments are irrefutable :rotfl:(I'm joking )

Sou

I think rather than in any way - I mean more provably illegal.

Soubrette

Here is something which perhaps better illustrates my point that someone selling or doing something illegal does not automatically mean the beneficiary is doing something illegal.

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/site/about/faq.htm

From that site

While it is not an offence to buy pirated DVDs, the production, distribution and sale of pirated DVDs is a criminal offence

As it is not automatically illegal then I think the burden of proof shift on the person making the conjecture that in this situation ie starting a stream on your PC, is in actual fact an illegal act.

Sou