Topic Legality...

[diamondd]

Hi, this is kind of a strange post but I just wanted to ask something about what constitutes an "acceptable" topic for the forums and couldn't find anything in the rules about what I'm going to ask about..

Basically I bought some DVD's for a few of my favourite TV shows and reeeally want to rip all the eps and special features to my computer so they'll play nice with my whole streaming setup and all the rest. Thing is, I'm having a great deal of trouble with the copy protection and wanted to ask for help in the tech forum but thought it might be a bit of a grey area legally and might not be appropriate/allowed.

Can anyone help out? is it OK?

EDIT: think this might be part of the issue just btw http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/16/sony ... wont-play/

[Cas Bitton]

I'm having a great deal of trouble with the copy protection and wanted to ask for help in the tech forum but thought it might be a bit of a grey area legally and might not be appropriate/allowed.

And posting it in the spam forum makes it ok? Not a chance.

You can find the information you need here - http://www.copyright.org.au

[Mekon]

It's not actually grey at all, legally-speaking: format-shifting (as opposed to time-shifting) of DRM'ed copyrighted video content is not allowed in Australia.

Audio, on the other hand, is legitimate since the amendment to the Copyright Act back in 2006. Why didn't they include video? God knows... presumably pressure from the industry.

Without the express permission granted by the author of a copyrighted work or by the license under which it is distributed you are not permitted to do the following under Australian law:

1. Download copies from the Internet. (This excludes iTunes and any other Online Store that says it's legal in their license.)
2. Share or distribute copies via the internet.
3. Use, distribute, sell, create or promote (which includes discussing 'how to use', or links to websites about) devices which circumvent 'technological protection measures'.

You are though permitted to do the following under Australian law:
1. Copy music off a CD as long as it's for personal use, you own the CD and you don't give the copy or the original to someone else.
2. Lend but not give the copy or the original CD to members of your family and to people you are living with.

On this last point, this means in practice that the use or discussion of mod chips, DVD rippers, etc. is illegal and has criminal penalties. (PlayStation1 mod chips were recently ruled to be legal by the Australian High Court, but this ruling only extends to mod chips that have identical functionality to the PlayStation1 mod chips, which is unlikely to cover other consoles with more complex copy protection systems like PS2 and Xbox).

These laws apply to all actions in Australia, regardless of the source of the copyrighted material or the laws of other nations.

Other media file formats not specified here can be assumed to be copyrighted unless express rights are granted by the copyright owner such as the author or publisher.

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/australian_copyright_info

Note bolded and underlined bits.

[diamondd]

I'm having a great deal of trouble with the copy protection and wanted to ask for help in the tech forum but thought it might be a bit of a grey area legally and might not be appropriate/allowed.

And posting it in the spam forum makes it ok? Not a chance.

You can find the information you need here - http://www.copyright.org.au

haha, well no, but this topic isn't about how to rip dvd's is it?

no problem, I was still under the impression that "back-ups" were OK but I guess not. Geeze, even the discussion of? Well I can't pretend I don't think that's ridiculous... but anyway I'll leave it at that here.

[MunchY]

You could definitely create a topic about how to get video from a disc. Bit late but next time you could just avoid the nasty specifics and still get an answer.

I'm a bad influence..

[brat81]

You are though permitted to do the following under Australian law:
1. Copy music off a CD as long as it's for personal use, you own the CD and you don't give the copy or the original to someone else.
2. Lend but not give the copy or the original CD to members of your family and to people you are living with.

^This law above is stupid.

So does that mean "gifting" is illegal ?

[Mekon]

I'm not sure what you mean by "gifting"...

If you mean buying an original CD and giving it to them, it has nothing to do with what you have posted. What that explicitly says is that you can't make a copy, keep it and give the original to someone else (you have to give them both the original and the copy, or destroy the copy). You are perfectly entitled to give original copyright material to someone else, as long as you don't make a copy.

Hardly a great revelation.

[FryzieDelta]

So does that mean "gifting" is illegal ?

It is if you use Origin.

Basically I bought some DVD's for a few of my favourite TV shows and reeeally want to rip all the eps and special features to my computer so they'll play nice with my whole streaming setup and all the rest. Thing is, I'm having a great deal of trouble with the copy protection and wanted to ask for help in the tech forum but thought it might be a bit of a grey area legally and might not be appropriate/allowed.

There are a number of programs out there designed to take the content of a disk containing audio and/or video and either convert it into an image file or set of folders (which is what you are asking for) or put it on another disk. I would not suggest using such programs for illegal activities though, this is a gaming forum after all and doing such a thing would be wrong.

[Mekon]

There are a number of programs out there designed to take the content of a disk containing audio and/or video and either convert it into an image file or set of folders (which is what you are asking for) or put it on another disk.

If you re-read my original post... said programs are designed to bypass the DRM, making them illegal (potentially in a criminal way, rather than just civil).

Stupid? Perhaps... but that's the way the law currently stands.

[FryzieDelta]

But what if I wanted to convert my digital photo album into a .iso file?

[diamondd]

But what if I wanted to convert my digital photo album into a .iso file?

you own the copyright to those photos and you don't have any DRM to bypass...

[FryzieDelta]

But what if they were my friends photo's that I snuck out of their house during the last BBQ and they had some form of security on it?

And what about a program on the market like Nero? How does that work legally? Legal to buy and download but illegal to use for what is likely it's intended purpose? I did here a while back about a mod chip company getting off of being sued by Sony of someone for putting chips in consoles that bypassed DRM because it allowed owners of the consoles to use "backups". Could a similar argument be used for burning a disk?

[Marius]

Eh, the main thing is bypassing DRM. Bypassing tech measures to protect copyright is the core of the law. That's the main push of the US copyright law that Australia had to more or less agree to as part of our trade deals.

CD burners are legal items because they can be used to copy in cases which doesn't involve bypassing DRM. There are many uses of a CD burner that don't involve copying media. Law firms for example use burners all the time to send copies of their documentary evidence to other law firms involved in a case.

At a guess, I would say that audio and video is different, because several prominent MP3 player makers have implemented audio sharing tech as part of their products.

[wayne19540]

The copyright laws in australia.
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j ... Eq8MN4FDSw

[ChainsawMcP]

It's not actually grey at all, legally-speaking: format-shifting (as opposed to time-shifting) of DRM'ed copyrighted video content is not allowed in Australia.

Audio, on the other hand, is legitimate since the amendment to the Copyright Act back in 2006. Why didn't they include video? God knows... presumably pressure from the industry.

There are some other examples that show up how stupid our laws are... and how much pressure the industry was able to bring to bear.

You can record from a TV broadcast for use at a later time - but not to create a "library" - so you can't keep the copy forever to watch over and over... but that leaves a huge gap between "watch once and then remove the news from last night" and "I have every episode of Friends ever broadcast"

You also can't record something that you are actually watching ... so most PVRs with timeshift are helping you to break the law...

http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-a ... 121632.pdf