What is the law on downloading TV shows?

Clipsey

Clipsey

Clipsey

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Yes yes we all know it's illegal and all goes on but was just wondering if anyone knew the exact law and if so provide some sources>?
I've looked at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but appears a bit :confused:
Also what with it being the World Wide Web the argument is that you have to abide by the laws in the country you reside in?

Thanks
 
Clipsey said:
Also what with it being the World Wide Web the argument is that you have to abide by the laws in the country you reside in?
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Yes you do and this is why it is harder to enforce laws when someone is violating laws in one country but not where they are actually based. Also the DMCA is for the US, the EU has a similar law though.

It's illegal but say you have Sky+ and a program you can legally record comes on but you forget to record it. You can legally have a recording of it but it would be illegal for you to download it from a torrent site for example.
 
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Unless the company specifically gives you the right to download a show and watch it then it's illegal, much like 4oD where you are given a set time and works on an account system. :)

Edit* - in the U.K, USA, EU etc ;)
 
Guys, just to clarify I know it's illegal etc but I am writing a paper on it and would like some views/sources.
That's one of my arguments about the whole Sky+/Tivo - if you can record it for free and its broadcast for free - I believe its out there in the public domain. As long as we do not re-distribute it then it should be allowed (however I do see the problem of bit-torrent, which you are helping re-distribute it to other people?)
 
Wish we had some real lawyers here.. be interesting to know. I imagine that its more about sharing it than leeching it.

Be interesting if tested in a court. Say for example that Dr Who was just shown on BBC, you missed it but obtained that exact episode from the internet 5min after it finished. Really are you breaking the law? Or is the person offering it to you breaking the law? Considering you are simply obtaining it from another medium.

Doesn't seem that much different to pirate radio stations of ye olde. They never arrested the people tuning it, its the radio stations themselves they targeted.
 
JBod said:
Doesn't seem that much different to pirate radio stations of ye olde. They never arrested the people tuning it, its the radio stations themselves they targeted.
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Which they very rarely caught as the main transmitter was placed on some high rised block which in turn had the pirate station transmitted too it using a low wattage transmitter some blocks away :D

The best they could do was disrupt the pirate station by confiscating the main transmitters, the pirates then simply bought and placed a new high power transmitter at a new location and they were back in business :D

You would’ve thought they would have learnt!?!? It seems not as they are hell bent on stopping the unstoppable. Far better for them to embrace the technology and make it work for them!
 
There is a forum concerned with all aspects of P2P though not sure that it is really safe to link to from here, and one of the main posters is a British lawyer. His interpretation of UK laws is that downloading is, bizzarly, legal however the act of filesharing isn't.
 
His interpretation of UK laws is that downloading is, bizzarly, legal however the act of filesharing isn't.
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Thats probably due to the fact that downloading material for your own personal use is ok but re-distributing it is against the law. Whether this be through selling it on, burning it or simply the act of file sharing where in essence you are helping re-distribute the copy right material.
What happens if we set the upload ratio to 0.0 - is it then ok to use P2P :P
 
What's the difference between recording and watching later and downloading and watching?
What about if you record a show for a friend?

There's also the distiction between timeshifting and 'media shifting' for want of a better term. Is it OK to record a TV show to a DVDR, and then to a VHS? From a broadcast? From each other? Someone elses DVDR or VHS?

What about a media shift from broadcast to hardisk? then To another hard disk? Someone elses's hard disk? For purposes of watching later - timeshifting? Can you keep it? Do you have to erase/delete it?
 
whitecrook said:
What's the difference between recording and watching later and downloading and watching?
What about if you record a show for a friend?

There's also the distiction between timeshifting and 'media shifting' for want of a better term. Is it OK to record a TV show to a DVDR, and then to a VHS? From a broadcast? From each other? Someone elses DVDR or VHS?

What about a media shift from broadcast to hardisk? then To another hard disk? Someone elses's hard disk? For purposes of watching later - timeshifting? Can you keep it? Do you have to erase/delete it?
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Yea it's a mess, which is why so much legal\illegal downloading goes on.

I mean if I pay my TV license but don't have a freeview box am i legally allowed to watch a tv show that was on bbc3? What if someone gives me a dvd or I download it?

The act of downloading a cd must be legal if i already own the CD, it's jsut like making a backup copy. Since the act of downloading is legal then uploading to me should be legal.
 
Clipsey said:
That's one of my arguments about the whole Sky+/Tivo - if you can record it for free and its broadcast for free - I believe its out there in the public domain.
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You can't "believe it's in the public domain" - "public domain" is a specific legal term which does not apply here. The copyright holder continues to hold full rights to the programme. They chose to broadcast it (on one occasion) for free, and the law entitles you to make a recording for "timeshift" purposes. They might later choose to redistribute it, either for free or for a charge, or not to distribute it again at all. That's completely their decision. no one else has the right to distribute the recording at all. The legal position is not open to opinion or interpretation.

The only question is whether that policy is fair or enforceable - and as far as enforcement goes it's at least as enforceable as copyright law on anything else. Plus people are clearly fairly happy to spend money on a DVD boxset of a TV series, even when they could have seen it on television for free at some point.

The act of downloading a cd must be legal if i already own the CD, it's jsut like making a backup copy.
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Not true at all. Making a backup copy (where that is legal) involves copying the original media for your personal use. It does not involve a copy made from an alternative source. The person uploading it to you would be illegally redistributing the recording. The "I've paid for it already" arguement doesn't work - paying for a copy of a CD gives you a right to use that copy, it doesn't give you a right to obtain a copy by whatever mechanism you see fit.
 
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True and I agree. However I think the laws need updating and networks need to get up to date with technology. Why are they always the last ones to embrace them?
'time shift' occurs to re-watch that broadcast from a Tivo/Sky+ (this is in essence illegal according to laws but the use of VHS/Sky+ technology or whatever has been regarded as legal)
What happens if you miss your favourite episode mid-season, Sky+ did not work? I just think the networks need to update themselves.
 
It's illegal but stupidly so.

For example. BBC show Heroes for free on Tuesday (or is it Wednesday?) night, but I am out with my mates. So I got it off the Internet. To me this is just the same as watching it (or recording it) on the BBC for free.

Sci Fi are showing Dead Like Me but I fell behind so I got the episodes I missed of the Internet. Big deal.

Nobody is losing a penny here as both are delivered to my TV for free.

Now if I did something like say I downloaded the whole of Babylon 5 rather than buy the DVD box set then that would be different as it isn't on TV and they would have missed a rather large sale.
 
Right I'm ill so I'm not about to go quoting stuff for you, but I will post the basics.

The statute you want to look at is the CDPA (Copyright, Designs and Patent Act) 1988 as amended (its been amended a stupid amount of times).

The act provides for civil and criminal sanctions for varying amounts of copyright, patent and trademark infringement. P2P activities are nearly always taken down a copyright infringement route although trademark infringement is theoretically possible to. I wrote a mammoth post on this not too long ago - I'll go find it

EDIT: Here's the link, it'll give everyone a basic understanding of some of the things that are important to this discussion. I was basing the answer around whether tv-links should have been shut down, but I go into a lot of the basics at the same time.

<goes back to being ill>
 
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I think the reason companies like BT are putting policy's on their Broadband at the moment is because they want to Introduce IPTV, this will probably drive down people downloading TV shows illegally as you will most likely be able to watch what you want when you want.
 
it's illegal and all but it does obviously need updating. as someone might have said, i pay the full license fee yet as i'm in an area that can't receive freeview i don't have access to the full gamut of bbc shows. the downside of downloading online is that if i were to download say heroes then it's probably an episode that has been recorded from a broadcast in america which obviously i have no right to watch. a real decent online service from the bbc where you could enter your tv license number and have the ability to stream/download their range of shows would be ideal for me. *obviously having the v+ box helps a lot but at my old house i was always annoyed as i couldn't get cable there were trees blocking sky and i wasn't in a freeview area, didn't even get channel 5.
 
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