Copyright law [LWN.net]

Copyright law

Posted Nov 13, 2020 14:18 UTC (Fri) by ldearquer (guest, #137451)
In reply to: Copyright law by Wol
Parent article: The RIAA, GitHub, and youtube-dl

> What do you mean by "redistributing". The exception in English law says you can have copies AS LONG AS YOU ALSO HAVE THE ORIGINAL.

That was my whole point. I see I failed to word it properly :)

I was saying, I always thought the copyright law is all about distributing copies. Once you have an original, you can *not* make copies and distribute them. But you can make (private) copies and keep them for yourself (for your car, etc).

So, you can make copies, but not distribute them

So I thought youtube-dl use was OK as long as I don't make copies and distribute them. Because I was not aware of further restrictions imposed by DCMA.

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Copyright law

Posted Nov 13, 2020 19:04 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

It's not "further restrictions imposed by the DMCA". The default position of copyright law is you cannot make any copies full stop. Not for personal use. Not for backups. Not even temporary copies required to run programs.

That's why things like software licences appeared - so people could legally run their programs. And all the exemptions about personal copies.

The DMCA was an attempt to criminalise what was already illegal - making unauthorised copies of commercial DVDs. (Made all the more complicated by the American concept of "fair use" and people saying "making backups is fair use".)

Cheers,
Wol

Copyright law

Posted Nov 13, 2020 22:37 UTC (Fri) by ldearquer (guest, #137451) [Link]

> I was saying, I always thought the copyright law is all about distributing copies. Once you have an original, you can *not* > make copies and distribute them. But you can make (private) copies and keep them for yourself (for your car, etc).

s/copyright law/status quo of copyright law plus applicable private copies exeptions (existent in most jurisdictions)/