Is it illegal to watch movies online?

Soubrette

Soubrette wrote: »

*big sigh* lets assume the mona lisa is under copyright or pretend it's a picture of your own chosing which is undercopyright if that makes it feel better to you.

I hate analogies - people are soooo obtuse about them.

I was under the impression that we were discussing whether what you had on your computer after watching the movie was a copy or not.

Are you now shifting that to what you watched was actually the copy albeit of a transient nature?

Sou

I want to try and clarify that some more as I think we've been talking past each other.

I was under the impression that we were discussing the copy - are we now actually discussing the act of copying?

Sou

Marty_J

Soubrette wrote: »

*big sigh* lets assume the mona lisa is under copyright or pretend it's a picture of your own chosing which is undercopyright if that makes it feel better to you.

I hate analogies - people are soooo obtuse about them.

I didn't think you'd mind seeing as how it was intended to be in the same vein as your other examples, for which I gave identical answers.

I was under the impression that we were discussing whether what you had on your computer after watching the movie was a copy or not.

Are you now shifting that to what you watched was actually the copy albeit of a transient nature?

Sou

Why are you restricting it to what is on your computer after watching the movie?

Isn't what is on you computer while watching it just as relevant?

Marty_J

Soubrette wrote: »

I was under the impression that we were discussing the copy - are we now actually discussing the act of copying

Don't you have to create a copy on your computer in order to watch it?

mr_fishbulb

Soubrette wrote: »

I managed to lose a post - I don't know how or where so this is the abbreviated version:

Here is the type of thing I'm trying to get at when I say I doubt that what you have on your cache could legally be defined as a copy.

A man buys and illegal dvd and watches it in the US, he comes back home to the UK and finds that it has been damaged during the flight - does he have a copy?

A man watches a dvd and in the process his player damages it - he can't watch it again, is it still a copy?

A man is given a cake with a copy of the mona lisa on it - he eats it and it is good but has he breached copyright?

A fake sculpture is sent to someone but it is damaged in transit and is unrecognisable - is it still a copy?

zenmaster - it doesn't matter what you or I think or say, what matters is what this country has deemed legal or illegal. There are lots of argument on this thread which go along the lines of stealing is illegal, I think streaming is stealing therefore streaming is illegal. Our law is not always that cut and dried.

Sorry if it sounds a bit abrupt - I'm sulking after losing my other post :mad:

There are 2 distinct uses of the word "copy" here:

1 - Having the copy in your possession. I.e. the dvd is a copy. The image on the cake is a copy.

2 - The act of copying the item in the first place. I.e. the process of making a copy of the dvd. The process of copying the image of the mona lisa onto the cake.

Copy is used as both a noun and a verb.

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

I didn't think you'd mind seeing as how it was intended to be in the same vein as your other examples, for which I gave identical answers.

Oh ok, sorry

Why are you restricting it to what is on your computer after watching the movie?

I just thought that was what we were talking about Are we agreed then that's what on your computer afterwards (with nothing done to it) would be hard to define as a legal copy (in our opinion of course )?

Isn't what is on you computer while watching it just as relevant?

But I watched something on youtube and there didn't seem to be anything on my computer There must have been something on my computer while I was watching it but again I would come back to my original argument - is bits of something transiently on my computer, goodness knows where enough to have the legal definition of copy put to it.

I know both you and millionaire have computers that appear to cache the whole film but mine won't even cache a four minute song - and I thought I read somewhere (I thought it was millionaire but it has gone now) that when the brower is shut down - the cached copy disappears.

I actually like the second idea - that the copy is actually the stream as you watch it and that is the bit that is breaking the law - your computer only has bits of copy on it but you experience it as one whole copy and so that continuity is what makes it illegal. I'm not sure how convincing it is - I'll have to mull it over for a while but I like the sound of it

Sou

Soubrette

PS - no response from FACT today.

Sou

System

A lot of the time if i stream movies online i'll end up buying them anyway once they are reduced and not a ridiculous price. Same with music.

Soubrette

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

There are 2 distinct uses of the word "copy" here:

1 - Having the copy in your possession. I.e. the dvd is a copy. The image on the cake is a copy.

2 - The act of copying the item in the first place. I.e. the process of making a copy of the dvd. The process of copying the image of the mona lisa onto the cake.

Copy is used as both a noun and a verb.

Actually it's a bit more complicated than that - so we talk about having a copy of a film on dvd or file - but that in itself is not a copy, it's when the film is reproduced that that reproduction becomes the copy, after all a dvd physically looks nothing like a film.

There is no doubt that at some point in the streaming experience we experience an exact fascimile of the original film, so we do experience a copy.

Is that in itself enough to be illegal?

Sou

Marty_J

Soubrette wrote: »

Oh ok, sorry

No probs. :beer:

I just thought that was what we were talking about Are we agreed then that's what on your computer afterwards (with nothing done to it) would be hard to define as a legal copy (in our opinion of course )?

If it's unusable, then I guess it's possible it would longer be considered a copy (though it certainly seems to be usable by someone who knows what they're doing).

You have to make a usable copy (the thing you watch in your browser) before you get to that stage though.

But I watched something on youtube and there didn't seem to be anything on my computer There must have been something on my computer while I was watching it but again I would come back to my original argument - is bits of something transiently on my computer, goodness knows where enough to have the legal definition of copy put to it.

They have a flash movie on their website, you download it to your computer. It has to be a facsimile of whatever they uploaded otherwise it wouldn't work.

I know both you and millionaire have computers that appear to cache the whole film but mine won't even cache a four minute song - and I thought I read somewhere (I thought it was millionaire but it has gone now) that when the brower is shut down - the cached copy disappears.

Let a YouTube video load, and see if you can skip around the video. If you can go to any point instantly once it's loaded, then you have a copy of it somewhere on your computer.

I actually like the second idea - that the copy is actually the stream as you watch it and that is the bit that is breaking the law - your computer only has bits of copy on it but you experience it as one whole copy and so that continuity is what makes it illegal. I'm not sure how convincing it is - I'll have to mull it over for a while but I like the sound of it

My argument at this point would be that you have a facsimile of the movie on your HDD while you're watching it, and this facsimile is produced without the copyright holder's permission, thus making it an infringement of copyright.

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

My argument at this point would be that you have a facsimile of the movie on your HDD while you're watching it, and this facsimile is produced without the copyright holder's permission, thus making it an infringement of copyright.

Hypothetically speaking if we assuming that only a 5 minute buffer is kept on your computer (for argument sake) - with the rest being automatically overwritten as you watch the film, would this still be an infringement of copyright?

Sou