Comment on FBI nabs worker at DVD company for ripping prerelease blockbusters

LavaPlanet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  He didn’t get arrested for theft. He got arrested for being part of a distribution network that empowered Russian hackers.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Downloading is absolutely illegal, it’s just not really enforced because you need to prove criminal intent. You’re still accessing copyrighted material without a license, which is a copyright violation.

    Distribution has much higher penalties and is more likely to push people to buying (harder to find copies = potentially more legal sales), so that’s where enforcement is focused.

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    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If you can present the law that makes it illegal to download, please do so.

      The laws of the USA make it illegal to distribute, but license violations are beef between you and a company subject to civil dispute at most (which is entirely uneconomic to pursue) AND technically you haven’t violated the license, the distributor has.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Here’s the interpretation by the US copyright office in their FAQ:

        Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution.

        The enumerated rights of copyright owners are detailed in Title 17, section 106, with exceptions (e.g. fair use) described through section 122. The relevant portion is:

        (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

        (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

        (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

        My understanding is that the copyright office is using 1&3 in their interpretation. So my understanding is that Meta is violating copyright by downloading copies of copyrighted work if their use doesn’t fall under the fair use claims.

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