[franciscop]

It depends on the country! In Spain for instance it's totally legal as long as there is no commercial intention.

Both "distributing" and "copyrighted" are terms that some times have not such clear boundaries. Is giving your sibling a used DVD illegal? Is selling it to a 2nd hand store illegal? A book is clearly legal to resell, right? Then why wouldn't some digital material be? There is a whole industry interested in making you think that is illegal, so please don't spread FUD :)

[derekp7]

The word "copyright" implies the right to make copies. Copyright laws (in various jurisdictions) also include language regarding performance of a copyrighted work, but that is a separate issue.

Digital media is interesting, as when you receive a copy of it on a physical medium, it is basically unusable unless you make a copy of it (i.e., putting the disk in a computer and copying the contents to computer memory). So to enable people to actually use that copyrighted digital work, the copyright holder grants an end user the right to load (copy) the digital work into computer memory (via the shrink-wrapped license agreement) for the purpose of executing / watching / reading it. And of course typically things like computer programs are installed (copied) onto a computer's storage device, which the license also typically grants permission to do.

Now it could be written into copyright law that if the normal method of using a work is to copy it into working memory, or load it into storage on a computer, that the law would explicitly allow that (or, as an alternative, the courts could allow that via "fair use" doctrine). But instead, the law, courts, and copyright holders are perfectly fine with this ambiguous grey area so that they can reserve a number of rights via the shrink-wrap software license.

[slededit]

Transitory storage falls under fair use. This has been tested in court for things like internet caching.

[Retric]

That's a rather tenuous connection. EX: "Transitory storage" does not count as a copy.

You need to make a copy of a book on the back of your Retna to read it, however nobody calls that copying.

It's easy to argue that playing a DVD is not actually copping the DVD as at no point does a DVD player copy the full DVD. Without a durable copy it's no more copping than the back of your Retna.

[ben_w]

I recall there was a court case about that. A copy of a program in system memory was deemed non-infringement because it was necessary for use of the software, however (certain classes of) modified copies were unlawful. I believe this is the precedent used to take down cheating apps for (e.g.) World of Warcraft.

[xbkingx]

From what I understand, it usually comes down to whether copy protection mechanisms were circumvented in order to make the copy and whether the copy was transmitted to a nonlicense holder.

So, making an image of a DVD isn't illegal, but sending that image to someone that doesn't own a license is. But, ripping that disk to mp4 is illegal if any form of protection is in place, no matter how weak.

Of course, ripping to mp4 and then sending it to someone is double illegal, which makes it legal. I should mention now that IANAL.

[tzahola]

In Hungary, downloading is legal, uploading is not. This makes torrenting problematic, but they never go after torrent users. Also, there's a special "tax" on storage media (CD-R, DVD-R, USB sticks, HDD, etc.) which is supposedly used to compensate copyright holders via some obscure distribution mechanism (read: a big chunk is probably stolen somewhere down the line).

[franciscop]

Oh yeah, we call that the "canon digital" and it sucks. Goes to few rich artists and it's not even stolen since they just keep it legally.

It was specially ironic when I was a teenager with a music band, we recorded some CDs of our own music. We were paying extra for the CDs in case we were pirating, so this money went to the SGAE and the like for artists while we were of course the artists who had to pay more! Talk about abuse of power.

[gambiting]

In Poland it's the same - downloading pretty much anything for personal use is perfectly legal, only sharing isn't(so using Kim's service would have been 100% fine).

[xyzzyz]

Except of software -- downloading software is still illegal in Poland, even though it is legal to download books, music, movies etc. There's an explicit provision for this in the copyright law.

So, using Megaupload is completely legal in Poland as long as you don't download software, just operating it and uploading to it isn't.

[Moter8]

But don't the ads on megaupload make it illegal then? (For them of course)

[chrischen]

People paid for their service too. So they are making money directly off of users’ illegal actions like how

1) airbnb users illegally converting rooms into short term rentals 2) amazon helping people avoid sales tax 3) uber lyft allowing drivers to drive taxis without a taxi license

[jdmichal]

As for point (2), technically it's on the consumer to pay use tax on an item that they did not pay sales tax on. Amazon was operating in a perfectly normal manner; it's just that interstate sales like that weren't common before the internet. The laws are still trying to catch up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamlined_Sales_Tax_Project

[nitrogen]

I thought mail-order catalogs were fairly common. How did they handle tax?

[btilly]

The exact same way that internet companies do. :-)

As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't.

However if the company and customer exist in the state, then state law can apply to both. So companies have to track and apply state sales tax only for states where they have a physical presence.

After that it is all down to what it means for a company to exist in a state. For example if Amazon owns a subsidiary named A2Z Development which is doing software development in California for Amazon, does Amazon have a presence in California?

[8ytecoder]

>> After that it is all down to what it means for a company to exist in a state. For example if Amazon owns a subsidiary named A2Z Development which is doing software development in California for Amazon, does Amazon have a presence in California?

It's called having a nexus - even a single employee counts as having nexus. I'm not sure about subsidiaries though.

[btilly]

Several states have passed laws saying that affiliates in a state are enough to establish a nexus. Precedent varies by court about whether this is so. For example New York said yes, Illinois said no. No case has yet found its way to the Supreme Court.

I do not know of precedent involving subsidiaries. But the legal case for it would seem to me to be stronger than it is for affiliates. And even if the courts did rule otherwise, well, if the state really wants to go after a local subsidiary, surely they can make their life hard in SOME way...

According to California law AB153, affiliates count as a nexus. This did not get legislated. Amazon responded by cutting off all California affiliates after that was passed. Then the issue of subsidiaries was raised. After some negotiation, California did not go after subsidiaries like A2Z Development, and Amazon started collecting California state tax in 2012.

[vkou]

> As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't.

That's because this leads to incredibly absurd conclusions, such as Amazon 'not doing business' in a state, despite selling billions of dollars worth of merchandise to it. I don't understand how people can claim this to be the case, with a straight face.

In fact, I would daresay say that Amazon.com selling things to residents of Montana means that it has a presence in the state, for the purposes of that transaction, moreso then it does for having an Montana office that employs 8 people who code for AWS.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Sears Roebuck did the exact same thing when they were shipping everything by rail out of Chicago. Nobody out of state paid sales tax then either.

[chrischen]

My point is that it's on the consumers to follow the laws, but in each of those cases the companies are implicitly benefitting from mass "illegal" activity from users.

[briandear]

“Illegally converting rooms..”

You mean two consenting adults agreeing for a price to exchange a service such as a room or a ride in a car?

Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free. Hotels don’t own Airbnb rooms and taxi companies don’t own Uber cars which means they only derive their right to a oligopoly via regulation— regulation that historically is as the result of mobsters or other similarly situated constituencies attempting to create artificial barriers to entry.

Why do people like you seem to love the nanny state? Why do taxis need “regulating?” Why can’t grown ups decide who they want to ride with? Why can’t owners of properties rent to people? How is renting to someone any different than having non-paid houseguests? On a practical level, it isn’t. If the concern is increased traffic in residential areas, then why aren’t houseguests regulated? If the concern is security, then why aren’t residents and owners required to undergo background screenings as a condition of buying property?

America is supposed to be about freedom, but it more closely resembles some totalitarian regulatory wet dream.

Taxi regulation is just a money grab. Health and safety is a ridiculous argument. Me driving my neighbor to the doctor is zero different than me driving a stranger to the post office.

“Hacker News..” LOL. Seems instead more like a bunch of old spinsters lamenting the failure of the temperance movement whilst clutching pearls over those youngsters playing jazz records and dancing the Lindy Hop without appropriate chaperones.

Dammit, we should be encouraging the pushing of limits, of testing boundaries and kicking dents in the status quo. We damned sure ought not be actually defending the status quo. Disrupt!

[megous]

> Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free.

Do you mean two consenting adults copying some files?

If you don't mind ignoring laws around taxis, etc. why a special case for copyright?

[Cthulhu_]

The main difference is scale; giving your sibling a used DVD is just a 1:1 exchange, uploading it to e.g. megaupload can potentially open it to millions of other people.

There are laws about digital resale though; there was an EU ruling that indicated reselling digital-only products is legal.

[franciscop]

These Spanish laws AFAIK are from the time where you would copy casettes and give them to your friends. The lawmakers recognized that spreading the culture in this way among your friends was more important than making this a crime. With internet there has been a lot of debate, but it is still pretty much the same. Though Spaniards are quite unhappy with American corporations trying to force their American laws on us and making us criminals while we do something perfectly legal stuff! (And also internally with the SGAE, but that is another topic).

[fwgwgwgch]

Can we use this sub thread to post our knowledge of country laws about this?

Don't worry USA you can continue on browsing ;)

[franciscop]

Sure! I'm actually quite interested. Now that I live in Japan it's basically the opposite of Spain, here it is one of the most strict countries.