Pirates in the Stream: Know the Legality of Streaming Video on the Web
In the United States, as well as in other countries that are signatories to international copyright treaties, the owner of the copyright to intellectual property such as a movie, book or song has the right to determine who may publish that property. Publishing in this case refers to making the copyrighted work available to other people, whether it is providing a copy to one friend or to all visitors to a website. It is illegal to publish a copyrighted work, or any significant portion thereof, without the permission of the copyright holder, even if no money is earned.
So why do so many people share video that they know is copyrighted? There are a number of reasons. Some people do not understand the law and honestly believe that they are doing nothing wrong. A large number of people believe that it is all right to copy and share copyrighted work as long as they don't make money in the process. A person is entitled to make copies of a copyrighted work for his or her own use. This allows a person to make backup copies of software or transfer a recording from cassette tape to CD. However, giving those copies or the original copy to others is not allowed.
Other people believe that copyright laws are inherently wrong. These people feel that intellectual property should be freely available to everyone, rather than belonging to one individual who can decide that some will have access to it while others do not. For these people, sharing video on the Internet is a form of crusade. The more video they are able to make freely available, the more they contribute to the inherent freedom of all intellectual property.
Then there are those who simply want to make a buck off of other peoples' work. These are the true pirates, who will use other peoples' intellectual property to bring visitors to their website in the hope that those visitors will purchase some goods or services through the website.
While not all video streamed over the Internet is pirated, a large portion of it is. There are many different reasons why video is pirated, from ignorance to straight-out greed, but the fact is that streaming any copyrighted video without the permission of the copyright holder is piracy, and is illegal.
Published by Mike Wever
Mike Wever is a computer expert, sometimes video producer, and editor of a small press magazine called Wanderings. View profile
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7 Comments
Post a Commentpppawel, it is the person who makes the content available that is infringing on the copyright (stealing intellectual property). It is the distributor, not the consumer, who is expected to pay royalties to the copyright owner.
So by streaming you mean someone who publicize the media or streaming as watching the media?
Anonymous, if you look at the FBI warning at the beginning of a DVD you bought at the store, you will see that it is licensed for private home viewing only. This means you only have the right to share this movie within your household watch this movie. You are actually in violation of your license if you rent the movie to a friend. Letting a friend borrow it is more of a gray area, but there's no real violation unless the friend makes a copy. Rental stores purchase movies with a different (and much more expensive) license that grants them the right to rent the movie out.
I don't think that you are correct on this subject.
If you purchase a video it becomes your property. You may loan it out, rent it to other people if you wish. Why would streaming the video as a rental be any different as long as you bought it. This is the premise of the all video rental stores and I see no reason why this would not also apply to this over the web. It is just a different delivery vehicle. As long as you are not making the video available for people to down load i.e. simply streaming it to them I don't believe it is a violation of the copyright laws. I believe the law states once a product has been purchased then the owner may do with it what they wish as long as they do not make copies that they sell to others. But the copy I paid for I may rent to whomever whenever. if the person watching the video then attempts to make a copy then it would be they who are in violation and not the one renting. It would be the same if you rented a movie from a video rental
Hi Mike Wever,
Very interesting article. I have cited you (with attribution and hyperlink) in a short blog on streaming here: http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/row-row-row-your-boat.html
I hope you do not mind - please let me know if you have any objections and I will remove.
While you are technically downloading data, most people don't realize it. You ARE downloading video files into your browser cache when you stream video. So you ARE obtaining an illegal copy. However, most people don't even know what a browser cache is. I found a little ironic. People don't want to "steal" so they stream it, but they unknowingly downloaded it anyways. At the same time, I wonder. Would the police fine you for letting your friend borrow a movie? CD? Your ipod? (Provided there was no transfer of songs). A BOOK?!? There becomes a point when the copyright becomes rediculous. Let's just say for a minute that there is no such thing as a browser cache. You do not download the movie. Would you get fined just because it was electronic, because it was on the internet? Oh noes, internet.
Great article - very interesting.