under law?

Naustradamus · Post by **Naustradamus** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:52 pm

Hey there. I'm at this point taking a cource in college, and am in a audio / video course....well, my instructor says that using video and music, as we do, is against the law. Think is, I am sure that he has not informed himself on laws for a long time.

My question is, is this legal? multy contry is nice (as in US, Canada, and any other) would be nice info.

As for my thoughts? I havent checked, but I don't think that they are eligal, or should be. 1. They give a preview of the anime on question, god knows thats who I found out about some of my favorit anime's. 2. for the music also. it is extremely hard to go from mpeg or AVI or a nother to mp3 to get on a CD no? so in a way, its a preview of hte band. Again, this is a way Ihave found out some good bands, like Stabbing Westwards that have been disbanded for 3 years now.

And as I know, it is up to the companies in question to seek them out and press charges. If they don't, then this form of media os free to the public to creat and view. But remember, if someone starts making a profit out if it, it definetly becomes eligal at that point. Donations? Not eligal.

Anyways...just asking the question. Thanks to all who respond

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:55 pm

flint_the_dwarf wrote:Here.

Legality of Public Performances

Downloaded footage: is it ethical?

RIAA attack the org?

Naustradamus · Post by **Naustradamus** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:08 pm

thank you!

so its still iligal, but never a thing has happen against it yet =/

bum · Post by **bum** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:26 pm

Theirs a difference between illegal and immoral.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:45 pm

Naustradamus wrote:so its still iligal, but never a thing has happen against it yet =/

Eh, it's like musical/software piracy in Russia. They have a copyright law, but good luck finding signs of its' enforcement

bum · Post by **bum** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:26 pm

A law is meaningless unless its enfored. And by god, no-one is going to stop me from borrowing ny freinds games, movies and music (which is technicaly illegal, stupidly enough).

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:40 pm

J-walking is against the law... so is a lot of things we do everyday.. This is a hobby, not a business so maybe on paper it's against the law, but I don't think it's immorall unless we start to sell our hobby....

Why does this question keep comming up? Do people want to justify that everything they do must be to the letter of the law in every aspect?

Vlad

Voices_Of_Ryan · Post by **Voices_Of_Ryan** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:45 pm

Vlad G Pohnert wrote:J-walking is against the law... so is a lot of things we do everyday.. This is a hobby, not a business so maybe on paper it's against the law, but I don't think it's immorall unless we start to sell our hobby....

Why does this question keep comming up? Do people want to justify that everything they do must be to the letter of the law in every aspect?

Vlad

I must admitright now... I am a professional j-walker...

godix · Post by **godix** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:16 am

Not to beat a dead horse but the legality isn't clear cut. AMVs are not definately illegal, but they're not definately legal either. Yippie for big grey murky areas of the law.

Fair use has four factors a judge considers:

1) Did you just make an almost exact duplicate of the original or did you transform the work by adding something new to it. This is, in general, the single most important question.

2) You usually have more fair use leeway with factual material. You also have more fair use leeway with published material than unpublished material. Not saying a copywriten unpublished fictional piece can't be used for fair use but it's harder to defend.

3) How much is taken. Copying a lot of the material or copying the most identifiable parts is harder to defend. Parodies are a major exception to this since to work they pretty much have to copy the most identifiable parts and usually a lot of them.

4) Does your work based on someones copywrite make it substancially more difficult for the original work to sell.

AMVs have a fairly good claim they do transform both the song and anime which covers point #1. Pretty much any AMV I can think of is based on non-factual material so point #2 hurts but most of it is published which gives some leeway. Point three is highly variable, there are AMVs that are very clearly parodies while others are not. Either way, it's pretty safe to say that the anime source doesn't have all that much copied in it (3 minutes or so out of however much source there is) while the songs are generally copied in their entirety. It's highly doubtful anyone could seriously claim that AMVs hurt the originals sales and in the case of anime the opposite could probably be claimed. So does this all mean that AMVs are covered under fair use or not? Until it actually gets into a courtroom no one knows.

OTOH, I certainly don't want to hassles of being taken to court to try this defense and I doubt anyone else does either. A singke SLAPP would ruin anyones day.

Note: This info is specifically for the US, I don't know other countries laws enough to make a statement one way or another. I am not a lawyer either so I could be full of shit here. But then again, none of the people who flat out says AMVs are illegal are lawyers either. Also keep in mind a few AMVs are made with permission from the art and music copyright holders. I doubt there is more than a dozen like this but there are some.

bum · Post by **bum** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:43 am

Johnny Howard enjoys a salty mouthfull from Bush. So long as he's in government aussie laws woent be much different from american ones, except about half as strict.