Under the radar

Wed Jul 17 06:17:41 EDT 2013

It's complicated and varies by country and device type, but very often a 
'fee' is already included in the purchase price of a device, to cover 
recording capability. In the old days, a tax was levied on Video Tape / 
Cassette. Now a tax is levied on recording media used in recording devices.#

But regardless of all that....

1) Breach of copyright in most nations is a strict liability issue. That 
means that even if you did not create a logo yourself, but you display 
it on your website, you too are guilty of copyright breach.  Very akin 
to 'innocently' buying stolen goods. They are still stolen.
There are countless issues when some of the content on your own site is 
'fed' from other sources, but we won't go into that.
We also won't go into if the logo IS a derivative work, or not.... 
that's an entirely different issue. But IF any content is copyrighted by 
someone else, and you don't have permission to use it.... you're in 
breach, regardless of who made the copy.

2) The BBC's licensing terms for its media are very clear and 
unambiguous -  The moment you access them via other techniques, and more 
importantly keep the media (even for your own private use) you're in 
breach.
The tool you use to achieve this breach is largely irrelevant. Just 
like  a hammer is legal... but if you use the hammer to smash a window 
and break in, the hammer is still legal, but your actions are not. For 
this reason, get_iplayer's legality isn't the issue (although it could 
still be debated).

3) When a website goes live, and it promotes an 'activity' that 
encourages copyright theft / breach, the legal ramifications become 
complicated.

The defence would be:
"We merely discuss a 'tool' and do not condone use of it to obtain media 
illegally".
"We have no responsibility for the tool itself"
"We only encourage use of the tool to access content legally"

The prosecution's case would be:
"you WITTINGLY encouraged the use of a tool to specifically breach 
copyright, and the content of the mailing list is evidence itself of 
users accessing copyrighted material".
"The website never sought to discourage such use, even when clearly 
aware that many users were using the tool to download content illegally"
"The owner of the website profited from this activity by endorsing and 
encouraging the continued development of the tool, and in doing so, 
gained tangible reward through the continued access of content not 
licensed to him/her"
"The creation of the website, and public announcement of it via a 
mailing list could ONLY be described as 'publicising it'. In doing so, 
it sought to widen the adoption of the tool and thus condone / encourage 
copyright breach. It is hard to imagine the owner being unaware of the 
use of the tool to which he provided links"
"Whilst it can be said that selling a hammer does not make you burglar, 
if you knowing sell, or give a hammer to someone you suspect is going to 
carry out such a crime, you become complicit in that crime."
"The claim you only wanted users to use the tool legally seems 
incongruous with the BBC's clear licensing terms that no other tool is 
to be used to accessed their media, yet you continued to promote the use 
of the tool"
"You were aware that the 'issue' of potential problems, as it was 
discussed in the mailing list, so having become aware of such.... you 
took no actions at all?"

There ARE lots and lots of arguments either way.... but none of that 
actually matters.... what really matters is that the perception of 
get_iplayer at the BBC and its content providers is that it's a 
negligible issue (today).
The moment that perception changes, the trickier things will become for 
us all, and you can't 'undo' the damage. So why risk it?

The last thing we need is some news feed like Tech Crunch, or Engadget 
running an article saying "iPlayer Ripper rises from the ashes!!". If 
that happens, it puts content providers on alert, and it becomes an 
agenda item at the next round of meetings and negotiations. All of a 
sudden, the content providers start asking the BBC "you need to address 
the get_iplayer issue". We don't want that.

Again I reiterate - it doesn't matter who thinks they hold the upper 
hand 'legally'.
It doesn't matter if someone's prepared to take a site down if ever 
called to do so.

What matters is that increased visibility of ANY tool (legal or 
otherwise) than can aid users in breaching DRM or just avoiding will 
only result in adversity.

> Tom <mailto:madtom1999 at googlemail.com>
> 17 July 2013 10:36
>
> I'm presuming that they dont allow feeds to get_iplayer by IP location 
> in the same way that iplayer does here but if you can watch it on 
> iplayer in a VM (as you can) then you can record direct from the 
> screen and audio anyway so there is no real difference - just ease of 
> use.
> Tom
>
> _______________________________________________
> get_iplayer mailing list
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
> Long Al <mailto:longal at live.co.uk>
> 17 July 2013 10:28
> get_iplayer differs fundamentally from a VCR/PVR in that programs may 
> be recorded without the use of an aerial feed and, therefore the need 
> to acquire a TV Licence.
> If Auntie Beeb could get us on "loss of revenue" what could the 
> defence be?
>
> Al ("Devil's Advocate for a free planet")
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Tom
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 10:12 AM
> To: get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> Subject: Under the radar
>
> How is using get_iplayer any different from having some form of video
> recorder - other than it allows people to watch things they've missed -
> which I could do anyway if I recorded all bbc content and kept it for a
> week, which as far as I know is currently feasible, and as a licence
> payer my right.
> I know the providers may try to argue differently but they are fighing a
> loosing battle with reality and the sooner the whole issue gets sorted
> the better for all.
> Tom te tom te tom
>
> _______________________________________________
> get_iplayer mailing list
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
>
> _______________________________________________
> get_iplayer mailing list
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
> Tom <mailto:madtom1999 at googlemail.com>
> 17 July 2013 10:12
> How is using get_iplayer any different from having some form of video 
> recorder - other than it allows people to watch things they've missed 
> - which I could do anyway if I recorded all bbc content and kept it 
> for a week, which as far as I know is currently feasible, and as a 
> licence payer my right.
> I know the providers may try to argue differently but they are fighing 
> a loosing battle with reality and the sooner the whole issue gets 
> sorted the better for all.
> Tom te tom te tom
>
> _______________________________________________
> get_iplayer mailing list
> get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer