Is it illegal to watch movies online?

Fabio_Fonseca

Luis_Torres wrote: »

Pirated movies Streaming is illegal as you are technically downloading.

nice answer for a huge discussion in thread lol

CommonSense

what is actually illegal: watching streaming movies or hosting them on your site ?

Marty_J

CommonSense wrote: »

what is actually illegal: watching streaming movies or hosting them on your site ?

The latter is certainly illegal, and the former is currently under discussion.

Soubrette

Marty_J wrote: »

The latter is certainly illegal, and the former is currently under discussion.

Although whether it is or is not illegal is actually a fact and independent of this discussion - we just can't find the evidence either way.

Marty I've been playing around with 'streaming' today - youtube on the short clips I've been watching - I can flick back and forward - bbc i-player - if I jump back too far then it starts buffering again.

No answer from FACT - not expecting anything until next week to be fair though

I don't know if this is a rumour but I had read somewhere that the music industry want musical downloads to your phone classified as public performances, surely that is pure baloney?????

Marleyboy - I have linked somewhere that buying a pirated DVD is not illegal although obviously the copying and selling of said DVD is - are you saying that it is therefore legal to buy it but not legal to watch it? I would love to see some links that describe watching a stream as definitely illegal if you could provide some?

This is a very interesting discussion but I have a busy weekend ahead so probably won't be posting much - have a great weekend all, especially those who've added some great stuff to the thread such as Marty, I've really enjoyed it.

Oh and Luis Torres, thank you because you made me laugh....alot (well mr_fishbulb's response helped :j). How easy to deflate the self importance of internet discussion

Sou

Millionaire

Soubrette wrote: »

Marty I've been playing around with 'streaming' today - youtube on the short clips I've been watching - I can flick back and forward - bbc i-player - if I jump back too far then it starts buffering again.

Sou

BBC iPlayer uses 'streaming', Youtube uses 'progressive downloading', which means the whole file can be cached on a local system.

Pirated films via links use 'Progressive downloading' thus the reason why myself and Marty could see the whole file being cached on our systems, thus having a complete copy of the data locally.

Luis_Torres

CommonSense wrote: »

what is actually illegal: watching streaming movies or hosting them on your site ?

people can stream the videos only if its hosted, so hosting is illegal :j

Soubrette

Millionaire wrote: »

BBC iPlayer uses 'streaming', Youtube uses 'progressive downloading', which means the whole file can be cached on a local system.

Pirated films via links use 'Progressive downloading' thus the reason why myself and Marty could see the whole file being cached on our systems, thus having a complete copy of the data locally.

Hi Millionaire - part of my fun for the weekend was researching some longer youtube links (nothing to do with this thread). For the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, I can see the buffering as a red line across the progress bar - however as I watch the Prologue the red line behind the spot I'm watching slowly disappears - if I try and click in front of the red line then it starts to buffer again.

I still have no word from FACT, make of that what you will I will post if and when I do get word.

Just to summarise - for some people stealing is illegal and streaming is stealing therefore streaming is illegal. For others streaming is having a copy, having a copy is breaching copyright and breaching copyright is illegal therefore streaming is illegal. No evidence apart from opinion or interpretation has been put forward to support this view.

I hope I have shown that in some instances having a copy of stolen material is not considered illegal so both the premises in the above arguments do not automatically lead to the conclusion given. Any more than if I gave the premise that it is legal to buy pirate dvds therefore it is legal to stream - again the premise does not automatically lead to the conclusion.

Sou

asininity

Seems the government want to turn the law on its head by making people guilty until proven innocent. ISPs aren't happy with the government and rightly so. It might be illegal and against human rights too.

Human rights always protects the bad people.

Oh its not currently illegal to make back up copies of CDs, DVDs, or software you have purchased.

[Deleted User]

asininity wrote: »

Oh its not currently illegal to make back up copies of CDs, DVDs, or software you have purchased.

Isn't that only for software?

Esqui

It is still illegal to copy any copyrighted material...including copying a CD to your hard drive, though this is hopefully being changed.

In effect, using an ipod to listen to music is techincally illegal as you're copying copyrighted music from your computer onto it.