Supreme Court Decision on MGM vs. Grokster

Org Profile · Post by **GloryQuestor** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:17 pm

(I'm not quite sure if it belongs here, but it is related to AMVs, so I put it here.)

Here are the details of the case, for anyone who hasn't heard:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20050215.html

Even though the case is meant to hinder P2P specifically, will a judgement in this case against Grokster affect the creation distribution of AMVs on the site?

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:19 pm

I have my suspicions that if the case goes to MGM, things like editing programs will become legally iffy, and rippers and DVD burners are almost right out.

devilmaykickass · Post by **devilmaykickass** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:16 pm

I seriously doubt this will change anything as far as AMVs go.

Sky_William · Post by **Sky_William** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:31 pm

Editing programs will not come into the crossfire. Obviously, if you downloaded the program from a p2p site then it would be in question, but the actual use of the program will never become illegal. The content used for the programs would also be a possibility.

As long as you own the rights of said property ie: footage, music.... Then there is nothing wrong with using your purchaced copy of an editing program. We all know that breaking the encryption for intent to copy your purchaced dvd, or cd is legally gray at the moment, but if you are using the copy for private use you should be alright. Anyone that has young kids at their home should be allowed to copy their own dvd's and cd's for fear of being scratched and/or broken.

Dvd burners are legal as well. I don't see them going illegal any time soon for reasons above. Console burners are used just like a vcr and pvr as just to watch your favorite show's at a more convenient time. Or to record a movie for the same reason. Their are reasons that they could be in the crossfires, much like anything else, but the good outweighs the bad. Everyone uses their technology differant.

Making amv's is iffy in the way that your breaking copyright protection in most cases to get the footage and music to make our vids. And of coarse, the fact that 99.9% of us don't have written permission to do so. percentage might be totally off, but you get the point.

and that's all I have to say about that. mkay

FurryCurry · Post by **FurryCurry** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:55 pm

I see distribution of amvs, DVD ripping programs, and the act of ripping as a pretty dark shade of legal grey, but see no significant danger to any other part of the process, like editing software, DVD burners, or digital video processing tools like avisynth.

What we do here actually twists editing programs to do things they weren't really quite meant to do, and it often shows, with programs acting balky and having issues.

A much more typical use would be like what I did last summer, dumped the footage of my cousin's wedding taken by my uncle and I on our mini-DV camcorders into premiere, hack it down a bit with a little straight cut editing, slap on a title or two, and encode to mpeg2 so I could burn a dozen or so DVDs for family members. If there had been a need, I could also have legitimately used avisynth and filters to make small web-sized clips.

All that is perfectly legal, and a much more common use than amv editing.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:28 pm

Actually, the issue here is really the Betamax case. Basically, the Sony v Universal case established that Universal was not liable for any acts of copyright infringement committed by Betamax owners. In other words, the manufacturer of a technology is not responsible if the technology is used for piracy - so long as it has "substantial non-infringing uses".

DVD Rippers and DVD burners definately are things that can be used for piracy, as are editing programs. Thus, if the case goes to MGM, all of these would be on the line.

badmartialarts · Post by **badmartialarts** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:44 pm

I was pretty sure the case against P2P networks was not intended to reverse the Betamax decision (although putting any chink in that standard is probably in the record/movie companies best interests). The Betamax standard is that the technology cannot be primarily intended for copyright violation. This is enforced also in the No Electronic Theft law, at least, if my non-law trained eyes are reading what I think they're reading in that law. The basic arguement is whether P2P programs were ever really intended to not be a way to share copyrighted material, and given the fact that most P2P software (at least in the past, I sure hope they were smart enough to remove this feature) auto-indexes your MP3 collection for you, I can see that the P2P people are skating on thin ice.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:50 pm

Actually, MGM would love to reverse Betamax, given the chance, now that VHS tapes are mostly dead. It would let them kill p2p completely (in legal terms), although not in practice - they can't control it, so they want to kill it. Technically, the Betamax standard is that something is "capable of significant noninfringing uses", which is what all the lower courts said.

Not all content people are evil, though. Some kick major ass!