[ExtractStream] Re: My dangerous idea.

[sharkey@a...]

> Ok, s'pose I've got the cable. Few questions:
> 1. Is it legal for me to invite a friend to watch the show?

Yes. Copyright law doesn't recognize human memory as a legally controlled
copy, and no further copying is being done in this case. If you've charged
your friend money for the right to come to your house and watch cable,
then that's no longer legal, though. That brings it into the area of a
public performance. You can't sell tickets to watch cable at your house.

> 2. Is it legal for me to let my friend watch the show from his appt?
> (OK, I open the window and he uses good binoculars ;-)

Ditto with case 1.

> 3. Is is legal for me to stretch the wire to his window and let him see the
> show
> from his appt.?

It depends. If you've installed a splitter so that you can watch it in
your apartment while he watchs a copy of the same signal in his, then
this is illegal. If you have not split the signal, but just moved the
end of your cable into his apartment and you can't see it (without
binoculars and windows) in your apartment while he's watching in his,
then this is legal.

> 4. Is there any difference between #2 and #3?
> 
> Man, that copyright law is a can of worms...

Copyright law centers around the concept of a copy and duplications
of that copy. If when you stream a copy of something on your Tivo on
this Tivo-Napster service you delete your copy as you stream it, this
would be legal. It's not copying then, it's transference. A space shift.
Space and time shifts of data are legal. It's when you copy and distribute
a work that it becomes illegal. This is the fundamental basis for copyright
law.

That's why when mp3.com tried to start a service where they allowed people
who owned CD's to download mp3's of the tracks on those CD's they ran
afoul of copyright law. Even though you had to own a copy of the data
being sent to you, it didn't matter. mp3.com was creating and distributing
copies of works to which it did not own the copyright. While encoding these
same tracks into mp3's on your own computer would be legal, and this was
effectively the same thing, the way copyright law is currently written,
this was illegal.

Eric