Scenario 1: Adam uploads the film Gone With the Wind in an uninterrupted (single-file) format. Example: he uploads a DVD rip to an IRC network.
Scenario 2: Adam uploads the film Gone With the Wind in an interrupted (multi-file) format. Example: he breaks a DVD rip into 24 small pieces (each approximately 10 minutes in length) and uploads them, one at a time, to Youtube.
Scenario 3: the same as Scenario 2, except Adam uploads each fragment under a different username. Assume that this is figured out by all.
Scenario 4: the same as Scenario 2, except Adam e-mails a different fragment to 23 accomplices, each of whom uploads only the one fragment which he received, each of whom has their own unique Youtube account and legal identity.
Scenario 5: Adam, all by himself and with no intent to conspire with others, decides to upload just the first 10 minutes of Gone With the Wind to Youtube. He does so to try and raise interest for the movie. He is not seeking profit. His right to upload 10 minutes of this 238-minute film are protected under the U.S. copyright law's Fair Use clause.
Scenario 6: the same as scenario 5, but now let us assume that there are genuinely 23 other non-conspirators who each also decide to upload a 10-minute segment of the film; and that their 10-minute segments, when summed together, approximately cover the length of the entire film. Assume 24+ non-conspirators if it will allow you to accept the possibility that people could independently upload an entire movie w/o conspiring to do so, i.e. assume 50+ videos on Youtube which contain much overlapping footage but which, between them, cover the entire film.
The question is, in which of these scenarios is the original copyright holder barred by the Fair Use clause from issuing a take-down notice to Youtube and a legal summons to the file uploader(s)? I will provide my own ignorant answers as the first reply.
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3 comments:
Adam is found guilty of copyright infringement = Scenarios 1, 2, and 3
I am not sure = Scenarios 4, 5, and 6
--> I would guess Adam is found guilty = Scenario 4
--> I would guess Adam might actually be protected by the Fair Use clause = Scenarios 5, 6
The reason I bring this up is, I see the Fair Use clause as being ultimately irreconcilable with the concept of copyright / ownership of intellectual property. It would seem to me that if you legally permit a human being to upload even 30 seconds of a film that, in theory, 600+ people could come together and upload the entire work, piece by piece. One might argue that it would be migraine-inducing to try and watch a film which stops every 30 seconds, but the obvious work-around is to simply upload overlapping segments (i.e. Seg001 is 0:00:00 to 0:00:30, Seg002 is 0:00:20 to 0:00:50, Seg003 is 0:00:40 to 0:01:10, etc) and to utilize a free and completely legal application which allows you to merge, splice, and otherwise edit video files.
I suppose one could argue that the act of doing so (with criminal intent) could in itself be made illegal, but the copyright holders would not be able to police this. They would be powerless to enforce their copyright -- as would the legal authorities vested with those powers. If the video chunks are legal, and if the editing software is legal, and if it is possible to create a merged file, watch it in complete privacy, and delete the merged file leaving behind zero evidence -- all of which, for now, are still possible in today's world -- then I don't see how Fair Use and copyright are going to be able to co-exist for much longer.
As for my prediction of who will win, it would currently be copyright. I think either extreme is a sad state of affairs. But I also think that one extreme or the other will have to be adopted, as the two ideologies are fundamentally irreconcilable.
On the one hand, we can choose to live in a world where there is complete freedom of thought -- and by that I mean no ability to claim ownership for original ideas or products, resulting in an intellectual Dark Ages as men and women of insight lose much of their material drive -- fame and fortune -- to work hard in coming up with new works of art, new scientific discoveries, or new inventions to make living happier, easier, better. On the other hand, we can choose to live in a world where cameras are a thing of the past, as it's illegal to even take a picture of somebody or their private property without their informed consent.
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