Stream-Ripping Can Be Perfectly Legal, French Ministry of Culture Says (torrentfreak.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Downloading music via stream-ripping tools can be perfectly legal, the French Ministry of Culture has confirmed. The resulting copies fall under the private copying exemption. However, this only applies if the stream-ripping service doesn't circumvent technical protection measures, which is a widely contested issue. [...] Copyright holders are convinced that stream-ripping sites break the law but, in most countries, legal uncertainties remain. In the US, for example, popular stream-ripper Yout.com has sued the RIAA in an effort to have its site declared legal. This case, which remains ongoing, could set an important precedent.
In France, the Ministry of Culture was recently questioned on the stream-ripping issue. Philippe Latombe, a member of the MoDem party, asked the Government whether copies downloaded through these services are considered illegal. The question was part of a broader inquiry into the private copying rules and regulations. These allow people to copy music and movies in exchange for a tax that's paid on storage media and devices including blank CDs, hard disks, and smartphones. Responding to the question, the Ministry of Culture confirmed that, under the right conditions, it's perfectly legal to use stream-ripping services to download music and other media. "[Stream-ripping] is legal and the resulting copy falls under the exception for private copying as provided by law, if several conditions are met: it must be made from a lawful source at the request of the user, without being stored by the converter, and no circumvention of technical protection measures must be carried out." If these three boxes are ticked, stream-ripping is in the same league as ripping or copying an old-fashioned CD or DVD.
The big question, however, is in what situation all these conditions would apply? With regard to YouTube ripping, the "source" could be considered legal, as artists and labels often upload the videos themselves. The second box is also ticked by many stream-rippers as they don't permanently store music. The operator of the stream-rippers FLVto and 2Conv recently said that his site doesn't even store basic logs as that would involve significant costs. This brings us to the third and final condition; whether the stream-ripper circumvents technical protection measures. This is a crucial question and the answer largely depends on who you ask.
In France, the Ministry of Culture was recently questioned on the stream-ripping issue. Philippe Latombe, a member of the MoDem party, asked the Government whether copies downloaded through these services are considered illegal. The question was part of a broader inquiry into the private copying rules and regulations. These allow people to copy music and movies in exchange for a tax that's paid on storage media and devices including blank CDs, hard disks, and smartphones. Responding to the question, the Ministry of Culture confirmed that, under the right conditions, it's perfectly legal to use stream-ripping services to download music and other media. "[Stream-ripping] is legal and the resulting copy falls under the exception for private copying as provided by law, if several conditions are met: it must be made from a lawful source at the request of the user, without being stored by the converter, and no circumvention of technical protection measures must be carried out." If these three boxes are ticked, stream-ripping is in the same league as ripping or copying an old-fashioned CD or DVD.
The big question, however, is in what situation all these conditions would apply? With regard to YouTube ripping, the "source" could be considered legal, as artists and labels often upload the videos themselves. The second box is also ticked by many stream-rippers as they don't permanently store music. The operator of the stream-rippers FLVto and 2Conv recently said that his site doesn't even store basic logs as that would involve significant costs. This brings us to the third and final condition; whether the stream-ripper circumvents technical protection measures. This is a crucial question and the answer largely depends on who you ask.
Well of course it's legal (Score:3, Insightful)
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Even (commercial) audio CD and DVD technically have some protaction built-in and even though it's useless, I'm sure some petty people would like to bring you to court for copying any of them onto another media.
The only thing you could really legally copy is non-protected media (good luck finding th
Upload is Naughty (Score:2)
The rule applies regardless of the propaganda by the pigopolist mass censors, upload is naughty, download not so much. There is no way an end user can possible tell what is and is not a legal source online and must go with what the portal distributing the content and advertising, normal practice, claims.
Uploading on the other hand, without the permission of the claimed legal owner, quite criminal under law, although the morality of it is really quite shady, freedom of speech demands copying be legal, it is
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There were 2 big draws of piracy, one was convenience while the other was cost. Once the industry decided to stop fighting the internet the convenience argument started to evaporate and for the most part buying music on things like iTunes was just as convenient as piracy, next came streaming services where you don't even need to download and store the content, you can stream it to a whole bunch of devices without having to download and copy files around making the legitimate route even more convenient.
With
Re:Upload is Naughty (Score:4, Insightful)
There is of course the "oh but you don't own it" argument and that's right just like I don't own a rental car or a VHS from blockbuster. This is the rental model, you can still buy it outright if you want and if you want to go that way then good for you. I'm happy to pay for content but it used to be a massive PITA and even these days for some of the more obscure stuff I end up pirating it because it's "not available in my region" or some bullshit like that. Im happy to pay for it but if they won't sell it to me then I'll certainly pirate it.
Sadly, when it comes to TV and movies, it's not just the obscure stuff that's not available anymore. It's almost everything, because each company that creates content has decided to create its own service hoping to get a larger slice of the pie, and now approximately nothing is available anywhere unless you spend a hundred bucks a month on a dozen services, if then.
You can't get just the content you want without paying for all the crap you don't (e.g. when you get Disney+ and Hulu, ESPN costs only one extra penny). The current state of inconvenience is every bit as bad as it was twenty years ago. They just made it look a little different so the viewing public won't notice that they're getting screwed with their pants on.
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You can't get just the content you want without paying for all the crap you don't
Better this than being nickel-and-dimed for everything.
But is it? If you didn't have streaming services, and your only option were to buy TV shows from iTunes or whatever, how much would you pay per series? I'd be wiling to bet that it would be a whole lot less than the $20 or $30 per season that the various networks charge for one-off content. And that means the price would drop until it was as high as the market would bear. Otherwise, nobody would watch the shows, and the networks would go out of business.
The only reason they can get away with those price
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Correct, the cost is amortized over the subscriber base. If you want individual specific content you can do that buy just purchasing them individually rather than the streaming model, it will most likely cost you more though. For me the streaming model is more cost-effective, certainly moreso than it was going to Blockbuster a decade ago :)
I'm not talking about specific content. I'm talking about abusive bundling. It's one thing to amortize *some* of the cost of expensive programming across a wider pool. It's quite another to make your most expensive content entirely free, with half of the cost of that content paid for by people who don't want it, and who only want some of the cheapest content you have.
To me, I'd expect that if you're one of the ~50% of Americans who want sports content (which is some of the most expensive content on TV),
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Uploading is copyright infringement which is illegal under civil law, not criminal law.
It becomes criminal if you sell the copies.
New tech (Score:1)
Recording a song from the radio (Score:3)
Is recording a song from a radio legal? Is recording a movie off the TV legal?
Then recording what is streamed from Youtube should be too.
Re: Recording a song from the radio (Score:5, Informative)
Yep.... stream ripping is no different than pressing record on a VCR. That has been settled for decades.
Re: Recording a song from the radio (Score:3)
We should note there was a time when industry faught the ability to record on TV. it was just futile.
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Here in Germany I know one private (RTL) group that tries to prevent recording of their "HD+" broadcast. Other broadcasting groups have given in to complaints of their viewers and just let them record anything.
But RTL, kind of the German FOX (well not really, but in German terms kinda), has been hard on their stance to now allow direct recording of their HD broadcast, while recording the SD broadcast is fine.
For the majority of people who only know how to record broadcasts with the built
Re: Recording a song from the radio (Score:2)
Your final point about illegal services being simpler is interesting. in my experience torrenting is generally seen as an obscurely complex process for most people. Streaming services though that offer illegal foreign films and shows are rather common in China though. There are crackdowns but often specific, like for the one show that a significant complaint was filed against. I think the legal system here can be responsive to these take down requests but rare which is interesting because it suggests to me
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I am not exactly sure if German Cable can be compared with US Cable.
Cable is mostly found in cities and offered as part of the rent people have to pay. Though in my part of Germany (south), most people that I know have used satellite dishes for as long as I can think of.
PayTV was available over satellite even during the ti
Re:Recording a song from the radio (Score:4, Interesting)
Is recording a song from a radio legal? Is recording a movie off the TV legal?
Depends. For time-shifting it generally is, I don't know about France but in the UK it's allowed and in fact many cable and satellite receivers have it built in.
For keeping a copy of that song or TV to use over and over again is technically copyright infringement. Of course nobody gets sued for it but technically it is.
As for YouTube, they could argue that since it's already on-demand there is no reason to record it locally for time-shifting. That would be wrong though, it is needed for offline viewing. I sometimes do it when I fly long distance, for example.
Go France (Score:2)
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Great Britain has not been towed into the middle of the Atlantic. It is still part of the (completely arbitrary) continent known as Europe.
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Hopefully you failed the test.
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The recent extension of the "private copy exemption tax" was done in full knowledge that all commercial media have some kind of protection that actually renders them illegal to copy. While the s