Back when we would record onto VHS, is that considered piracy? Found a super bowl XXXI tape from my Uncle circa 1997. I’m curious lol.
Also side note, have any of you dabbled in digitizing old VHS? Have quite a few home videos on VHS and I’m wanting to preserve them for the future. I’ve done a bit of research and have come across a wide array of information. I know that doesn’t really qualify as piracy, if there’s a better comm for this, please direct me there!
Only if you sold it. Back when cassette tapes first came out, the mystic industry sued, and the Supreme Court ruled it fair use. So VHS tapes were under the same umbrella. We wouldn’t get that same ruling now.
the mystic industry sued
They considered video recording to be black magic and they’re very protective of their turf.
The implications of “magic is data” are fun. It leads to stories like Unsong where you can brute-force enumerate incantations until you find a good one. I also like the concept of Wizard’s Bane. I haven’t read it, but my understanding is that magic turns out to be Turing-complete, and the protagonist creates a LISP evaluator in magic, which enables them to outcast their enemies who are still doing the magical equivalent of writing assembly.
You’d probably also enjoy The Laundry Files. Math is magic, and while you -can- do it in your head, using computers is a lot safer and more efficient. Includes such gems as a basilisk gun integrated into CCTV camera systems.
Not in Australia. Relevant section of the Copyright Act 1968 as it would have existed back then, for those interested:
Click to view
COPYRIGHT ACT 1968
- SECT 111 Filming or recording broadcasts for private and domestic use
(1) The copyright in a television broadcast in so far as it consists of visual images is not infringed by the making of a cinematograph film of the broadcast, or a copy of such a film, for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made.
(2) The copyright in a sound broadcast, or in a television broadcast in so far as it consists of sounds, is not infringed by the making of a sound recording of the broadcast, or a copy of such a sound recording, for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made.
(3) For the purposes of this section, a cinematograph film or a copy of such a film, or a sound recording or a copy of such a sound recording, shall be deemed to be made otherwise than for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made if it is made for the purpose of:
(a) selling a copy of the film or sound recording, letting it for hire, or by way of trade offering or exposing it for sale or hire; (b) distributing a copy of the film or sound recording, whether for the purpose of trade or otherwise; © by way of trade exhibiting a copy of the film or sound recording in public; (d) broadcasting the film or recording; or (e) causing the film or recording to be seen or heard in public.
The same laws still apply today, just reworded. By the way, this practice of recording live TV is known as time shifting.
“I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” — Jack Valenti, MPAA president, 1982
You wouldn’t download a serial killer.
But you could download countless murder-mystery audiobooks and ebooks from Libby, so that’s a close second.
Yeah pretty much. Pretty sure recordings were for personal use.
It was definitely considered piracy by the public at the time. Everyone I knew called it a “legal grey area”, but as far as I know it was legally permissable.
The media companies tried their hardest to make it sound like you were destroying the entire industry and you’d go to jail for life as soon as they caught you.
What makes me mad is the boomers I watched copy rentals and NFL games are the same ones telling me I’m stealing by using an ad blocker.
You know what I think is funny? The NFL doesn’t have any footage of Super Bowl 1, the only known tape of the game is held by a private collector, but he can’t watch it due to the NFL copyright. So its sitting in an Iron Mountain facility in the Poconos. And its deteriorating.
That’s actually an urban legend. Most of it was shown again by the NFL back in 2016 after they used various incomplete sources to patch the majority of the material back together.
The bit about the tape has a grain of truth to it. A man found a copy of most of the show in his father’s attic, had it restored, and wanted to sell it to the NFL but the two parties couldn’t agree on a price. The man and the curator of the organization which restored it both had watched it. It was then kept in a vault due to its value.
It was recently shown to the public by the organization that restored it, so I’m assuming it was never purchased by the NFL. Bummer for the finder.
In 1984, this issue made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately decided that recording television to tape using a VCR for personal use (“timeshifting”) is fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.
For personal use, so not for distribution and a copy made on your own, not procured from someone else, right?
The Wikipedia article has these relevant quotes from the court opinion:
The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses … one potential use of the Betamax plainly satisfies this standard, however it is understood: private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home.[7] […] [W]hen one considers the nature of a televised copyrighted audiovisual work… and that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact… that the entire work is reproduced… does not have its ordinary effect of militating against a finding of fair use.[8]
So yeah, private, non commercial, in the home, for content you would have otherwise been able to see for yourself in the past by the “regular” means available to you.
Which is vastly different from going on the internet and downloading a movie with your favorite torrent program when you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to see it…
Came here to say “Time shifting”.
To the top with you! I see some opinions quoted, but yours is the right answer.
Of course it was Sony filing the suit. Of course.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=fkNqNYkwhlg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I had a friend whose family owned a video store, while it wasn’t exactly legal he could get me copies of everything and they were completely perfect Pirates.
I mean covers, labels and the actual tapes. They had specialised machines for all of it and they did it pretty perfectly.
Ive tried doing it myself by linking two machines together and the results were watchable but not on the same level as the machines he was using.
Way back in the day, my best friend had a family friend that owned a computer software store. He rented games and gave us copies of the latest and greatest copy programs with a wink-wink and a nudge-nudge.
Not an answer to your question, but in the 80s/early 90s my grandmother used to tape movies off the tv, I believe she actually copied VCR to VCR so she could make a copy without commercials. She’d then cut out the description from the TV Guide, and scotch tape it to the top of the video cassette tape.
Oh damn, that TV guide tip is genius! We used to handwrite on a post it and then cover it with packing tape to kind of laminate it.
My folks were also too cheap/broke to buy blank VHS tapes, so we used to get regular movies at yard sales and cover the little tab area with electrical tape. Lol.
It’s only Piracy if it comes from one of the Seven Seas, yar!
Otherwise it’s just sparkling copyright infringement.
Did you have express, written consent from both the NFL and 20th Century FOX? 🫠
My brother and I (mostly him, just helped a small bit) used to distribute Anime this way. He’d buy laserdiscs of Anime like Rurouni Kenshin (OVA/Prequel)and Yu Yu Hakushou, then download translations for subtitles and time them on the computer, using a bluescreen pass through and onto some SVHS VCRs. From those two SVHS VCRs, he’d use 9 others to copy them onto VHS tapes for distribution via mail. He’d charge cost iirc, not making profit on it.
I’m 100% sure it would be considered piracy if the companies had a way to find out. Plus VHS tapes had piracy warnings on them back then anyway.
I guess it’d be a fuzzy space that falls right in why VCRs and cassette decks with record functions where allowed to exist. Time and format shifting are generally allowed, but retention or lending of it would be feasibly unauthorized distro. It’s that space carved out by the Sony/Betamax rule that says ‘if a tech has substantial non-infringing use then go for it’ in effect.
So the 1997 Superbowl was “back in the day…?” Holy fuck.
1997 was at least 15 years ago. ;)
“about 10 years ago” in our house 🤣
