Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
You can't buy a DVD and offer digital loans without a per loan royalty and/or a contract with the rights holder. Same with ebooks.
It's not remotely the same as buying a CD, DVD, ebook and changing the format for your own gadget, even in countries where that is technically illegal due to DRM circumvention, no individual would be sued for personal use. But websites or operators "sharing" digital copies by any means and any conversion have always been successfully prosecuted or sued. It's only the level of damages that's ever in contention.
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Indeed, personal use is a different creature.
Personal use transcoding hasn't been litigated in the US because all the cases litigated (and won) have been for *distribution*. Napster, pirate websites, etc...
That is the violation, distributing somebody else's material.
Personal use is different because it's generally understood that few people would pay for an MP3 or ISO file of a CD or DVD they already own, when tbey can easily convert what they already paid for, so the transcoded version isn't often substituting for a new sale.
Personal use only triggers one or two of the four tests, depending on the judge, and it usually is treated as "de minimis", too small to bother the courts with, which is not the case with the IA.