Is streaming video illegal...???

WhiteChristmas

googler wrote: »

Which law is this? Got any links or references?

The Digital Economy Act.

Most of the best analysis is on sites which wouldn't be approved of in these parts, but this gives a taste...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/01/ofcom_reviews_digital_economy_act/

The meat is easily Googled.

esuhl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

They all have AUPs which forbid stuff like filesharing, they all have the ability to stop it dead (at least in the case of torrents and binary news group downloads and albeit with a little collateral damage to the .0001% use of those protocols which isn't infringing copyright)...

What nonsense! Sharing files is not illegal - that's exactly what the Internet was designed to do. Of course there are concerns about copyright infringement, but there are plenty of legitimate uses for any file-sharing protocol - certainly more than one ten-thousandth of a per-cent.

kwikbreaks

Yes there are lots of legitimate uses for sharing files and I was sloppy in my language by not specifying that ISP policies are concerned with the sharing copyrighted material without consent of the copyright holder.

Regarding what percentage of binary newsgroup traffic and torrent traffic is completely legitimate I'll freely admit I have no idea so I took a guess. I'll guarantee that you don't know either which makes your guess no better than mine. I doubt it's much higher though using those protocols.

tripled

Angela68 wrote: »

Hi!
My pal has come home from uni and tells me that streaming movies, if watched alone, is NOT illegal...??? I am disabled and not able to work, so this would mean a great money saving for me if it is not legal.... It would be good to have a definitive answer on this.
Thank you and best wishes to you all, A

Downloading copyrighted material (including watching a stream) is not illegal. It is unlawful, the difference being you can't get a criminal record for an unlawful act, you can only be sued. The reality is it would be highly unlikely you would be sued for watching a stream as the copyright owner would have to identify you and prove damages, which would generally be difficult and any award negligable. I am unaware of a case of this having happened, but if someone can provide an example with references I would be interested.

If you use a peer to peer service to download copyrighted material, this is again unlawful but normally not illegal. In these instances it is generally easier to prove damages, because when you use a peer to peer service you upload the bits you have got to other people as you go along.

The only occasions (relevant to this discussion) that you commit a criminal act is if you do it as a business (basically profit from it, even if you aren't a 'proper' business), or distribute it "otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright" - which would basically read as anyone who uploaded the original copy to the peer to peer network, and possibly someone who has downloaded it and goes on to upload a large amount to other people (my interpretation).

The number of people in your room are largely irrelevant, as long as you aren't holding a public screening or charging admission.

Of course, if you are watching live broadcasts, you would need a telly licence.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/I/chapter/VI

Just to make it clear, at no stage in this post do I intend to either condone or condemn copyright infringement.

tripled

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Yes there are lots of legitimate uses for sharing files and I was sloppy in my language by not specifying that ISP policies are concerned with the sharing copyrighted material without consent of the copyright holder.

Regarding what percentage of binary newsgroup traffic and torrent traffic is completely legitimate I'll freely admit I have no idea so I took a guess. I'll guarantee that you don't know either which makes your guess no better than mine. I doubt it's much higher though using those protocols.

For bittorrent many figures are bandied about, in my experience generally ranging between 50% and 99%. However, generally the higher figures sample the biggest swarms, missing the long tail which would probably pull it down quite a bit. At a guess I'd say approximately 2/3, however I cannot prove that figure is correct. With enough research I could probably come up with a more accurate figure (unless, of course, my guess is right), but I don't really care enough to spend the time on it

esuhl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Yes there are lots of legitimate uses for sharing files and I was sloppy in my language by not specifying that ISP policies are concerned with the sharing copyrighted material without consent of the copyright holder.

ISPs can make up all sorts of terms to limit their legal liability for the actions of their account-holders... But how on earth is an ISP supposed to know who is downloading a particular file, whether or not it is subject to copyright restrictions, and whether the person who initiated the download has the requisite permission (if it's required)?

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Regarding what percentage of binary newsgroup traffic and torrent traffic is completely legitimate I'll freely admit I have no idea so I took a guess. I'll guarantee that you don't know either which makes your guess no better than mine. I doubt it's much higher though using those protocols.

Of course I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty confident that illegal use of BitTorrent protocols is not even close to a million times the "use" (whether that's files or bytes) of legal content.

Your "guess" of legal use was a specific figure - one millionth (or one ten-thousandth of a per-cent). My "guess" was a range - anything exceeding one millionth. So, clearly my guess is better than yours since it accounts for a far wider range of possibilities.

I don't know exactly how far it is from here to the moon, but if you told me it was ten centimetres, and I said it was more than that - surely you'd understand that mine was the more likely outcome.

Pound

WhiteChristmas wrote: »

The Digital Economy Act..

Is the DEA being enforced yet? I haven't heard any stories in the news yet. Until it is I don't think you need to worry too much about downloading copyright material.

kkashi

tripled wrote: »

Downloading copyrighted material (including watching a stream) is not illegal. It is unlawful, the difference being you can't get a criminal record for an unlawful act, you can only be sued. The reality is it would be highly unlikely you would be sued for watching a stream as the copyright owner would have to identify you and prove damages, which would generally be difficult and any award negligable. I am unaware of a case of this having happened, but if someone can provide an example with references I would be interested.

If you use a peer to peer service to download copyrighted material, this is again unlawful but normally not illegal. In these instances it is generally easier to prove damages, because when you use a peer to peer service you upload the bits you have got to other people as you go along.

The only occasions (relevant to this discussion) that you commit a criminal act is if you do it as a business (basically profit from it, even if you aren't a 'proper' business), or distribute it "otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright" - which would basically read as anyone who uploaded the original copy to the peer to peer network, and possibly someone who has downloaded it and goes on to upload a large amount to other people (my interpretation).

The number of people in your room are largely irrelevant, as long as you aren't holding a public screening or charging admission.

Of course, if you are watching live broadcasts, you would need a telly licence.

http : //www . legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/I/chapter/VI

Just to make it clear, at no stage in this post do I intend to either condone or condemn copyright infringement.

tripled - Would it be illegal or cause copyright issue, if one develops an app that STREAMS YouTube videos to others? This is very important for me. Inputs are greatly appreciated on this. THANKS

paddyrg

kkashi wrote: »

tripled - Would it be illegal or cause copyright issue, if one develops an app that STREAMS YouTube videos to others? This is very important for me. Inputs are greatly appreciated on this. THANKS

Well, I can only assume you don't own the intellectual property, so you'd be laying yourself wide open to IP claims.

If it is specifically youtube, and you're embedding their player/videos so they stream directly from their CDN, licensing is their problem. If you're re-streaming them then it'll come down to if you have any right to use the video content (ie got permission from each content creator). It's a poor idea though - the cost of streaming video is still relatively high, let youtube take the hit.

Mankysteve

While I don't know about the legality there are legitimate streaming sites.
All the big TV channel services, netflix, some of YouTube's stuff, lovefilm to name a few some charge some don't