Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
I agree with most of the rest of your post, but in this case it doesn't really matter if the downloader is exercising fair use rights. If the site they're downloading from is not an authorized distributor, then the uploader is committing copyright infringement regardless of what the downloader does with the file.
Copyright infringement depends on whether or not the uploader is authorized, it has little to do with the downloader.
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In that case, the uploader's ISP should go after them. (Funny how the RIAA and MPAA aren't making any noise about monitoring *uploads.* It's almost like they know how ridiculous that would be.)
Maybe it was uploaded under fair use--part of a "torrents for teachers" collection of well-known educational episodes of popular tv shows. ("70s TV episodes spotlighting racism." "20 anti-drug episodes." "Examples of gay people in popular media.")
While I have doubts such a claim would hold up in court, I could see a coherent and plausible argument that a "mix collection" of episodes from several production companies has educational value, and that the production companies themselves would never cooperate to allow such a thing to be made--especially if the collection included commentary on which shows got it right and which ones botched their attempt to showcase popular controversies. And a good argument can be made that you need the entire episode, not a small collection of clips, to discuss how it deals with these topics.