Beware! Personal copies of games and movies are illegal

I am not sure that this atourney knows his copyright laws. Firstly South Africa's copyright laws are taken straight froim the Berne Convention as we are a member of the Berne convention as are most countries. He does not mention the Berne Convention at all.

The Berne Convention Article 9 does not forbid the copying of a video that I have purchased a hard copy of onto a portable device that I own and for my personal use at all.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P140_25350

The UK copyright laws are laws pertaining to the US IN ADDITION to those of of the Berne Convention.

The Berne Convention does give clear guidance on what fair use is and it is summed up well in this article from the UK
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use

So, I don't know a single court that will prosecute me for making a copy of a DVD that I purchased for use on my MVICX media player in my lounge. I am personally sick and tired of the bullying tactics on the ever so greedy Film and Music industry in South Africa that tries to bully against fair use while they charge as much as they can get away with for movies - people like Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro - totally outdated and backward. I do not approve of pirating in any form.
 
brentmin said:
I am not sure that this atourney knows his copyright laws. Firstly South Africa's copyright laws are taken straight froim the Berne Convention as we are a member of the Berne convention as are most countries. He does not mention the Berne Convention at all.
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In the Berne Convention, when it says "It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union", it means exactly that, that each country needs to make their own laws governing these things.

Such as:

(2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.
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Do not buy media and digitize as it fall under criminal law (Criminal record)
Download direct in digital format as it falls under civil law (Fines with no criminal record)

Gotcha

/resumes download.
 
One that is very strange that all music CD's and DVD's is copied in China or any other place in the world that is cheaper. There is no law against it but they don't want to use South African companies which owners and workers must buy their goods.
 
What I take away from this article is that it's legal to download TV episodes. Come on, people, focus on the positive, and get leeching!
 
What is this "dvd" you speak of? Is that a cross between Divx and mkV?
 
brentmin said:
I am not sure that this atourney knows his copyright laws. Firstly South Africa's copyright laws are taken straight froim the Berne Convention as we are a member of the Berne convention as are most countries. He does not mention the Berne Convention at all.

The Berne Convention Article 9 does not forbid the copying of a video that I have purchased a hard copy of onto a portable device that I own and for my personal use at all.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P140_25350

The UK copyright laws are laws pertaining to the US IN ADDITION to those of of the Berne Convention.

The Berne Convention does give clear guidance on what fair use is and it is summed up well in this article from the UK
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use

So, I don't know a single court that will prosecute me for making a copy of a DVD that I purchased for use on my MVICX media player in my lounge. I am personally sick and tired of the bullying tactics on the ever so greedy Film and Music industry in South Africa that tries to bully against fair use while they charge as much as they can get away with for movies - people like Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro - totally outdated and backward. I do not approve of pirating in any form.
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Dude, don't speak when you don't know what you are talking about. Keep your location & local laws in mind.
 
nickhallsa said:
@Kosmic, I'm 28, and that is a horrible picture :(
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I'll happily exchange it with a better one ;D

Mike Hoxbig said:
So what are they saying that we didn't know already?
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Sometimes we need a reminder, and sometimes not everyone is as up-to-date with what's going [-]wrong[/-] on in SA copyright.

In this case, however, what's new is that SAFACT is telling folks they shouldn't make personal copies of games and movies in an FAQ on their site.

I also found the fact that games are not afforded the same "personal backup" default rights as software interesting.

rwenzori said:
No - we neither want nor need a revamp. What would happen in a revamp would be something like: <snip/>
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I worry about this as well. Copyright in SA broken, no doubt, but at least it seems as though copyright holders aren't given incentive to enforce the more ridiculous provisions (especially format shifting).

nickhallsa said:
The article is a bit misleading, most EULA's for games allow the user to make a copy, and the EULA changes the default position (essentially the EULA is the copyright owners way of giving you permission to make backups).

With series and movies though, there is no licence agreement that you as the "viewer" enter into with the copyright holder. So the default position stands, no backups allowed. Again, as many have pointed out it is highly unlikely that the copyright owners will ever sue you for it if you did it though.
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Quoting this for emphasis. Not sure how many folks read it. It's all in the license. Maybe that's the place to target reforms, rather than trying to change the act itself?

Most people don't read the EULA before installing or using a piece of software, so at this stage I would argue that the default position is important. Some basic rights should be allowed for, whether in the legislation or an easy to identify license provision.

For instance, Creative Commons licenses offer some basic, easy to understand acronyms for the rights asserted and freedoms afforded. If at the top of EULA there's a little logo telling you how many copies you can make, and what those copies can be used for, then the restrictiveness of the Copyright Act is less of an issue, I think.
 
piracysucks.co.za lolololol 100% lame, at least 1 if not all of them are downloading illegally.
 
rwenzori said:
I must give you a lot of credit for coming here and responding, especially to rude pricks like me. Good man.

No - we neither want nor need a revamp. What would happen in a revamp would be something like:

- Govt would call for some sort of input
- Places like SAFACT, the BSA, Nu Metro and others would put a lot of money and effort into punting their bs - "Clamp down on these dirty copyright-infringers, criminalise, put big fines, and we'll create lots and lots of new jobs and give you lots more tax revenue."
- Joe Public has not the resources to put up a fight - people wouldn't pay anyway, all these new international copyright-protection efforts are really just a way for the first world to milk money from the poorer nation, you bastards are actually "losing" very little anyway, keep the sanctions appropriate to the illegalities, you bastards actually need to move your arses into the digital age and price cheaply sell on volume, etc.
- Morons in govt would think themselves very clever to pass draconian legislation in line with such horrors as the DMCA, SOPA, ACTA, and we would be stuffed.

Leave it alone.
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th_nod.gif


I was thinking exactly the same thing.
 
@rwenzori and @Jan. I think you're not giving Joe Public enough credit. Have ACTA and SOPA not been shutdown? Also from our perspective SA has a couple of very organised civil action groups that would jump at the opportunity to see some revamping. I my opinion we need to do something that is happening in the UK. A total overhaul of the copyright system (and while we are at it, we can look at patents and trademarks as well!). One of the proposals from the report was that maybe copyright should be abolished in its entirety as it is wholly unsuited for the digital age. That being said, @Jan has the right idea, licence reforms are realisticly where we can achieve proper reformation, and in all likelihood it will be take a much shorter time to happen.

A lot of people have be talking about opening US iTunes accounts etc. and why we don't have an SA iTunes store etc. The answer comes down to licencing, basically the owners of the copyright are being 'greedy' and don't want seperate licence agreements for every region. In terms of games part of the blame lies with the FPB because they won't accept PEGI or EsSRB rating, and insist on rating things themselves (although hopefully this is going to change). That is why there is so few games in the SA Apps store for example.

If at the top of EULA there's a little logo telling you how many copies you can make, and what those copies can be used for, then the restrictiveness of the Copyright Act is less of an issue, I think.
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^ This. The good news is there is a movement in the legal profession (although it is being met with massive resistance) to make all contracts more readable and easier to understand. Hopefully we will start seeing this like this.

@brentmin while the Berne Convention does have some applicability to our Copyright laws, the truth is (as others have pointed out) that it is up to the host countries to determine how they implement it. A simple way of thinking about it is like this, Berne give countries a blue-print of what their copyright laws should look like, but it is up to the actual country to determine how they implement it. The other thing to bear in mind that International Law, for the most part, it basically unenforceable (there is no court people can sue countries in to make them comply with international laws) and in nearly all circumstances local law will trump international law.
 
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