Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
No. They aren't.
Correct.
Laws made like you theorize in your first paragraph would mean that if I posted one of the Harry Potter books in plaintext (or even just a few chapters thereof) into a thread, all the people that viewed it (including the moderator who eventually removes it) would be guilty of copyright infringement and liable to full prosecution and penalties. Even if they only realized it was copyrighted after the page fully loaded, no account of my titling the post "Hot deal on the PRS-600". (Viewing a webpage does COPY data from the internet onto your computer, you know!)
- Ahi
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The specific scenario you posted would be covered under fair use for the downloaders. The moderator certainly has a fair use right to review uploaded files to see if they violate copyright or not. Likewise if downloaders have reason to believe that they are not actually downloading copyrighted material (i.e. because of a misleading topic heading) they have a fair use right to review the material downloaded.
On the flip side, if you posted it clearly and unambiguously as what it was, then the downloaders very likely are violating copyright law.
Lets look at it this way. If person A has a legally purchased CD (I am using something where the medium and the media are tied together to simplify things) and lends it to person B, then everything is fine. Person B has a legal right to listen to that CD. However, lets say that person B asks person A to make a copy of the CD for him and person A complies. Now both person B and person A have violated copyright law; person A actually has made the copy, but person B caused the copy to be made. Now lets assume that the original CD was an illegal copy. B is still guilty of violating copyright because he caused an additional illegal copy to be made.
Now on the flip side, if person A lead person B to believe that the CD contained music owned by person A, then requesting a copy does not make B guilty of violating copyright because B believed it was legal to make that copy.
Downloading is the same thing. Person B is taking a copyrighted file and making a copy of that file which B did not pay for and which otherwise does not fit under fair use. We are not talking about making copies that person B did not realize violated copyright.
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Bill