J films on video w/ E subtitles

[David Blair]

as I understand it, Japanese copyright law is very close to what US
copyright law was before Sonny Bono, ie pre-1997 [I am referring to his
legislation, not his skiing accident, though  they are similar].
So, this is not only unenforcable, it probably isn't following the law...
they are proably depending on the end-users ignorance of copyright law.

Here's an example I hopefully have grabbed correctly from various parts of
Nolo Press's "The Public Domain", referring of course to US law... remember
that US law is much -stricter- than Japanese law....

a US library can buy a DVD and lend it out of the building, unless they are
somehow forced, in the purchase, to accept a -license- that specifically
says that can't lend it out of the building. There is no implicit
license... it has to be printed etc like a software EULA. Thus if there is
dual channel marketing, I assume that a consumer-channel DVD would also
have to have an explicit EULA preventing library-loan use. A license is not
copyright, it is a insidiously different thing.

As mentioned in LT's post, Library-loan and classroom showing are different
things. However, as an counter-example, it is ok to record off of tv and
show that program once within 45 days.... however you cna't show ti every
year same time same course unless you buy it or get permission. 

ANyway, on the positive side, guess what... the US library can even make 3
copies at a time, as long as those -copies- never leave the building. That
includes putting the copy on a -local- network for workstation viewing....
unless again you were made to enter some sort of -licensing- agreement, I
guess. If you are making such a fair use copy of a DVD, you aren't allowed
to make a digital copy using any method that breaks encryption... ie you
can't rip the DVD and convert it to some other digital form. You can either
make a VHS copy, if the DVD doesn't have macrovision protection, or if it
is a single layer DVD, you can just do a straight copy on a DVD burner, as
long as it doesn't have some secondary disk-copy protection, which I don't
think exists at present for dvds.

sorry for the technical detail, I thought it might be helpful, library-wise.

best,
David

>> He was saying that
>> technically universities 
>> shouldn't be able to buy VHS tapes either!
>> According to him, it was all a 
>> question of rights. DVDs and videos are sold
>> for home use only, and to 
>> buy them for public use in a library involves
>> other rights. 
>
>I don't know anything about Japanese copyright law but if this was
somebody in
>the US it would be clear that this person doesn't understand public
>performance rights.  These rights (which as you might guess cover a
showing of
>the video in public, ie beyond family/friends) are indeed not granted with
>DVDs/video.  That's what "home use" refers to.  However, it's quite
>clear--again in the US at least--that libraries are not restricted from
>purchasing, owning and making these videos available to their patrons, though
>not for any public use.  So a library could buy the Criterion DVD of, say,
>Rashomon and lend this to its users.  However the library could not set up a
>monitor and have a public screening of the DVD and it also could not lend the
>disc to anybody they knew was planning to use it for a similar public use.  
>
>And as for the producers' permissions, these performance rights are
granted by
>the copyright holders which may or may not be the producers.  In some cases
>you might have to get approval from all producers; in others you could
legally
>show it even if the producers explicitly denied permission as long as they
>don't control any of the copyright.
>
>LT
>
>
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