Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!w3vh!rolfe
From: rolfe@w3vh.UU.NET (Rolfe Tessem)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The Worm on NPR, 10 Nov 88
Message-ID: <375@w3vh.UU.NET>
Date: 19 Nov 88 18:58:17 GMT
References: <2197@ficc.uu.net> <32194@bbn.COM> <7900@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <21672@pbhya.PacBell.COM>
Organization: W3VH Packet Radio, Great Barrington, MA
Lines: 34

In article <21672@pbhya.PacBell.COM>, whh@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes:
> In article <7900@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, wolfgang@mgm.mit.edu (Wolfgang Rupprecht) writes:
> > I would be very surprised to hear that the right to record radio shows
> > doesn't fall under the same "time-shifting" fair-use provision of the
> > law as the legal recording of TV programs with a VCR.
> 
> *That* issue was settled in the '50s.  It is legal to tape off the air
> for your own use without violating copyright.  However--you'll probably
> get a better copy by purchasing it from NPR.
> 
>     --Hal
> 
I don't believe that this was settled in the '50s as you
state, but rather just a few years ago in the Sony "Betamax
Case" that went to the Supreme Court.  The key here is "for
your own personal use."

Another element of the copyright law that seems to be widely
misunderstood here is the concept of "fair usage," which
basically means I may use excerpts of a copyrighted work in
reportage without compensating the copyright owner.  For
example, when Jimmy Cagney died, and all three network news
broadcasts ran obituaries using excerpts from his films, *none* 
of the networks paid licensing fees to the studios that own the
films as they would have had to if they'd been used in an 
entertainment compilation.

This almost cetainly doesn't belong in news.sysadmin any
longer, but I'm not sure where to direct followups...
-- 
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