Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
Actually, copyright is quite enforceable if the courts and law enforcement have jurisdiction.
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Copyright (IP-law in general) enforcement is not quite that easy, as current enforcement practice tends to show. In this respect, it would be feasible if one could simply outlaw downloading copyrighted material. Evidently, that's somewhat to restrictive since there's three areas where downloading copyrighted material is clearly legal, or supposed to be legal. There's downloading of purchased (or licensed
) copyrighted material, downloading of copyrighted material that's intended for free use and there is fair use. It is not that straightforward to say, in appropriate legal terms when downloading of copyrighted material is legal and when it is illegal.
I, for example, like to have a quick look over NY Times articles in the morning. I tend to look at one or two articles specifically. That actually encompasses downloading of copyrighted (as well as trademarked) material, most likely it gets stored in cache and of course in the RAM of my computer. Then I tend to visit some blogs I try to follow, occasionally one of the blogger gets enthusiast (or outraged) over a NY Times article and will cite one or two of maybe even up to six paragraphs. Again, I download copyrighted NT Times material, store it at several places and read it. If I'd want I could go to a variety of sites and download the electronic version of the NY Times.
Some of the options described above are clearly intended to be legal, some are in a grayish zone and some might or might to be legal depending on the site where I would get the elecytronic version of the NY Times from. However, I am evidently intellectually challenged (why would I chose to read the NYT otherwise?
)--so how am I supposed to figure out which method is legal and which one is not? Who is, under an agreement with the NYT allowed to redistribute and who is not?
There's a million different examples to come up with, I am certain holes can be shot in all of them -- but the issue stands, it is incredible hard to determine (both for end-users and for juridical systems) what download of copyrighted material is infringement and what is not.