Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Much like recording TV shows, which is also content you don't own that you're making a personal copy of for use later.
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As I recall, the Ninth District findings of fact led the USSC to rule time-shifting legal at least in part because viewers were simply copying material they had been invited to view for free anyway:
Quote:
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[W]hen one considers the nature of a televised copyrighted audiovisual work, see 17 U.S.C. 107(2) (1982 ed.), and that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact [464 U.S. 417, 450] that the entire work is reproduced, see 107(3), does not have its ordinary effect of militating against a finding of fair use. SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)
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Myself, I see at least two points to ponder in this: first, the "nature of the copyright work" (this is the second of the four "fair use" tests set forth in 17 U.S.C. 107). If you want to try to convince a judge that the "nature" of a library book is legally indistinct from that of a "televised copyright audiovisual work", well, I don't think I'll be coming to
that party.
Further, home recording is considered fair use because the viewer is simply copying material he was invited to freely view anyway. That's a very important point, and explains why it's legal for me to record, say,
Transformers off HBO, but not to copy the
Transformers DVD I brought home from the rental store (which, BTW, like the library book, is also available to me only for a limited time).
Second, the citation from 464 U.S. 417 clearly indicates that reproduction of the entirety of a copyright work
normally militates
against a finding of fair use. Use, in the case of time-shifting, was only found fair after consideration of the other tests.