Television piracy?

[fuzzyoctopus]

So I'd like to get opinions on this as well, since the other thread made me think of it.

Why do you think that no one is trying to crack down on the piracy of TV shows?  Music, is the main focus. Movies are a huge deal, yeah, but we don't really do movies.  If we want to see a movie, we'll rent it or go the the theater.  
However we download shows that we don't have time to watch rather frequently.  Like, we missed the stargate season finale, and so we downloaded it.  
I'm most interested in what people like EUOL and Spriggan have to say about this, because they're so conservative in their views on this subject.  But I look at it as no big deal because we get the channel it's on, so we *could* watch it if we'd remembered.

Now what's important here is the two shows from premium cable channels that we download.  There's no way we have the money or the desire to pay for HBO and Showtime.
However- we really really like the shows, and when they come out on DVD we're going to buy them, which we wouldn't do if we'd not downloaded them, because we'd never have seen them.

[Spriggan]

I know you don't want to hear from me on this but I'm going to add one quick point.

According to fair use laws you can record TV shows (by TVo or old fashioned VHS) and keep them for a full 24 hours, after that they need to be deleted.

Also I think people don't have a problem with keeping TV recordings becasue, after all, they are paying to watch the show (via paing for cable).

Just thought I'd add that.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Actually I *do* want to hear from you on this.

And that's interesting - does that apply to the HBO shows as well, since they're such different private institutions?

[Spriggan]

The 24 hour fair use?  I would assume so.  I know for fact that it applies to the major networks and standard cable channels.

[Spriggan]

Fair use. In a lawsuit commonly known as the Betamax case, the Supreme Court determined that the home videotaping of a television broadcast was a fair use. This was one of the few occasions when copying a complete work (for example, a complete episode of the "Kojak" television show) was accepted as a fair use. Evidence indicated that most viewers were "time-shifting" (taping in order to watch later) and not "library-building" (collecting the videos in order to build a video library). Important factors: The Supreme Court reasoned that the "delayed" system of viewing did not deprive the copyright owners of revenue. (Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).)

from stanford uni's fairuse and copyright website

[Tage]

Since you mentioned it, I downloaded every episode of Dead Like Me, since there was no way I was going to pay for premium cable for one show.

I regret nothing.