stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP (Don Stanwyck) (03/19/84)
A Copywrite violation occurs whether the item is sold or not. It is a violation, for one explicit instance, for a choir to buy one copy of a piece of music and photocopy it for the rest of the choir members. It is a violation, for which people were fined and jailed in the last year, to copy a piece of liturature for distribution to a college class with out the permission of the copywrite owner. One of the most common violations is the copying of a friend's album onto tape for your personal use. The theory is that this deprives the copywrite owner of a sale that may have occurred if you had not copied it. -- ________ ( ) Don Stanwyck @( o o )@ 312-979-3062 ( || ) Cornet-367-3062 ( \__/ ) ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck (______) Bell Labs @ Naperville, IL
dan@idis.UUCP (Dan Strick) (03/19/84)
Don Stanwyck is correct. The copyright laws do allow for "fair use" of a copyrighted work, but "fair use" has a limited legal definition that includes certain educational and other kinds of use but definitely does not include arbitrary non-commercial use by individuals. It is illegal to make a copy of a copyrighted work (e.g. a prerecorded tape) for any reason. It does not matter if there is no commercial motive and it does not matter if the copy is for the owner of the work (i.e. the person who bought the tape). Only the owner of the copyright has the right to make copies (though he may sell this right). The only exceptions are "fair use" and the making of backup copies of computer programs (or copies required to use programs). Copyright law provides certain remedies for the damage suffered by the copyright holder and certain penalties for those who violate the law. These include: - recovery of lost income - seizure and destruction of unauthorized copies - up to $50,000 in statutory damages - recovery of legal expenses I doubt recovery of lost income or seizure of an unauthorized copy is sufficient incentive for a publisher to sue someone who made a copy for a friend and I doubt that a court would award much in statutory damages for such a small offense, but the copier would get stuck with the publisher's reasonable legal expenses. So what does this mean in practice? Heck if I know. It is hard to imagine a publisher bringing an individual to court for making just a few copies, but someday one may get fed up with rampant copying and decide to make a few examples of otherwise law abiding citizens. Dan Strick University of Pittsburgh [decvax|mcnc]!idis!dan
rcd@opus.UUCP (03/20/84)
<> > A Copywrite(sic) violation occurs whether the item is sold or not. It is a > violation, for one explicit instance, for a choir to buy one copy of a > piece of music and photocopy it for the rest of the choir members... Yes. If you want to understand the intent of the law, consider that you can adversely affect the copyright owner in either of two ways - you can unjustly profit from his work (that's the selling-it part) or deny him profit from his work (that's the copying and distributing part, regardless of whether you sell it). You may not understand all the in's and out's of the law, but you can usually apply the test of whether the copyright holder is somehow losing money he might have made. -- {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd