Re: Taking HD video from HD-DVD and burning it to Blu-Ray, is it possible?
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Originally Posted by Douglas Monce
It was my understanding that the same rulings that allowed the Betamax to be sold in the United States in the first place, allowed for the coping of movies and television programs for personal use only. That genie was already out of the bottle, so the recent laws only made it illegal to crack the digital encryption. The key here in the Betamax ruling was the term "personal use" and allowed for the recording of TV shows and movies for purposes of time shifting. What the source of that copy was is nebulous.
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Your "understanding" is understandable, because this myth has gained currency through repetition. It is, however, without basis.
There is only one Betamax decision with any controlling authority, and it's the one from the Supreme Court. I have read it numerous times. It did not "allow[] the Betamax to be sold", because it had already been on the market for some time. The case rejected a claim for damages by various content producers and held that time-shifting for personal use was not an infringement -- and that is all it did.
Now, one can certainly construct an argument that "the genie was out of the bottle", and copying for personal use is now legal. But to my knowledge no court has so held and no statute so provides. In the absence of such authority, no responsible attorney would tell a client that such practices are legal, and no one would walk into a court and blithely assert that the legality is well-established. That only happens on the internet.
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Originally Posted by Douglas Monce
It could be argued that DVD, and all digital video formats are in fact computer software.
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Yes, that could be argued, but not under federal copyright law, because the Copyright Act provides separate definitions for "computer programs" and "audiovisual works", and only the former carry the right of backup for archival purposes (that's "
archival", not "personal use"). Audiovisual works, as defined in section 101, are:
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| works that consist of a series of related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines, or devices such as projectors, viewers, or electronic equipment, together with accompanying sounds, if any, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as films or tapes, in which the works are embodied. (Emphasis added). |
That covers DVDs.
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Originally Posted by Douglas Monce
Of course laws are written in such a way that they can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
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The best-written laws are those with the least ambiguity, but obviously nothing is perfect. When interpretation is required, training and experience make a difference.
You're a professional cameraman, and I wouldn't know how to thread a Panamax. What do you think would happen if you set me down in a room full of camera equipment, lenses and film and left me on my own to shoot a movie? Probably a lot of broken equipment and unuseable footage.
I see the equivalent whenever people on the internet start holding forth about copyright law.
