Anyone here familiar with copyright laws??

[Starquest aka AndyR]

I am considering "bootlegging" the OT onto DVD. I have access to a DVD burner, laserdisc player, and the OT on laserdisc.

My current plans are to make DVD's or the OT so I can watch them on my projector.


Here are my reasons for doing this -
1) my projector will distort VCR tapes when displaying them - its old.
2) I dont own the laserdisc player myself, so I cannot use it to watch them on the projector.
3) I dont want to get a laserdisc player myself then have to switch sides all the time
4)when the OT finally DOES come out on DVD it will be the crappy special editions


My main question is this. Would it be illegal for me to make these DVD's and GIVE them away to people who already own the OT? I have always been under the impression that it is illegal to profit from bootleg, but what about giving them away to people who already own the movies on tape or VCD or LD? All I would ask from them are the blank DVD's and the cost of shipping.

Its kinda the same logic as taking a friends tape and making a CD for them so they can play it in their car...

Anyone know?

[JMK]

Andy, I sent you a PM.:)

[ReaperFett]

I believe Distribution is illegal

[JMK]

I thought it was ok if you weren't making money off it, but it's never recommended, so I'd go with Reaper's advice.

[Doc Milo]

Reaper is right.

The law says that the copyright owner has the sole right to reproduce and distribute their material. So, yes, it would be illegal to distribute those copies -- regardless to any money exchange or profit made.

Here's the part of the law pertaining to this question:


106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works:
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

106A. Rights of certain authors to attribution and integrity37
(a) Rights of Attribution and Integrity.- Subject to section 107 and independent of the exclusive rights provided in section 106, the author of a work of visual art-

(1) shall have the right-

(A) to claim authorship of that work, and

(B) to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art which he or she did not create;

(2) shall have the right to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation; and

(3) subject to the limitations set forth in section 113(d), shall have the right-

(A) to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and any intentional distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a violation of that right, and

(B) to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work is a violation of that right.

(b) Scope and Exercise of Rights.-Only the author of a work of visual art has the rights conferred by subsection (a) in that work, whether or not the author is the copyright owner. The authors of a joint work of visual art are coowners of the rights conferred by subsection (a) in that work.

(c) Exceptions.- (1) The modification of a work of visual art which is the result of the passage of time or the inherent nature of the materials is not a distortion, mutilation, or other modification described in subsection (a)(3)(A).

(2) The modification of a work of visual art which is the result of conservation, or of the public presentation, including lighting and placement, of the work is not a destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification described in subsection (a)(3) unless the modification is caused by gross negligence.

(3) The rights described in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (a) shall not apply to any reproduction, depiction, portrayal, or other use of a work in, upon, or in any connection with any item described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of the definition of "work of visual art" in section 101, and any such reproduction, depiction, portrayal, or other use of a work is not a destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification described in paragraph (3) of subsection (a).

(d) Duration of Rights.- (1) With respect to works of visual art created on or after the effective date set forth in section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, the rights conferred by subsection (a) shall endure for a term consisting of the life of the author.

(2) With respect to works of visual art created before the effective date set forth in section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, but title to which has not, as of such effective date, been transferred from the author, the rights conferred by subsection (a) shall be coextensive with, and shall expire at the same time as, the rights conferred by section 106.

(3) In the case of a joint work prepared by two or more authors, the rights conferred by subsection (a) shall endure for a term consisting of the life of the last surviving author.

(4) All terms of the rights conferred by subsection (a) run to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.

(e) Transfer and Waiver.- (1) The rights conferred by subsection (a) may not be transferred, but those rights may be waived if the author expressly agrees to such waiver in a written instrument signed by the author. Such instrument shall specifically identify the work, and uses of that work, to which the waiver applies, and the waiver shall apply only to the work and uses so identified. In the case of a joint work prepared by two or more authors, a waiver of rights under this paragraph made by one such author waives such rights for all such authors.

(2) Ownership of the rights conferred by subsection (a) with respect to a work of visual art is distinct from ownership of any copy of that work, or of a copyright or any exclusive right under a copyright in that work. Transfer of ownership of any copy of a work of visual art, or of a copyright or any exclusive right under a copyright, shall not constitute a waiver of the rights conferred by subsection (a). Except as may otherwise be agreed by the author in a written instrument signed by the author, a waiver of the rights conferred by subsection (a) with respect to a work of visual art shall not constitute a transfer of ownership of any copy of that work, or of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive right under a copyright in that work.

Sections 107 to 121 are Fair Use clauses. Mainly, it talks about quoting works within other works, copying works for nonprofit educational purposes, etc.

Here's the link to the site where you can look to see if what you want to do will, in fact, fall into a "fair use" clause (I personally don't think it does.)

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

[Arlenia Tavira]

It's not going to be an easy process. You'll have to:

1) Buy a TV capture card, not a cheap one, but one that will capture in 720x480 w/out dropped frames. There's no way to hook a laserdisc player directly up to a computer like there is with DVD drives, so you can only use a video in to capture the video output from the laserdisc.

(You'll need about 40 gigs of HD space just for the capture file, you're talking about 2 hours 10 minutes of 720x480 video, at least 40 gigs for the uncompressed video, 1.5 gigs for the uncompressed audio.)

2) Crop, resize, add new borders, encode the audio to .mpa, .wav or .ac3. With mpa or ac3 dolby compression, you'll get on average a 4x smaller filesize, with .wav the size stays the same.

3) Encode the uncompressed video to MPEG-2. VBR 4 passes.


All of this is going to be a real doozy. I have 1 year of video capture/compression experience, and I could still imagine problems popping up unexpectedly with capturing and authoring.

You should likely go over to doom9.net, read the guides, and....research it for a few years.

[Starquest aka AndyR]

thanks everyone, while I dont want to infringe on any copyright laws, I DO want the OT on DVD for myself.

thanks for the link Arlenia, I will check that site out. Yeah, its going to be comlicated, but I've been doing wedding videos on my pc for awhile (side business), so I've most of the hardware and software for this. I know that quality is not going to be anywhere near close to the quality of the SE OT when it comes out, but it will be better than tapes. :D