Did the Supreme Court Already Rule on SOPA & PIPA 28 Years Ago?

“The bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online. But the tech industry fears that, among other things, they will give media companies too much power to shut down sites that they say are abusing copyrights.” NY Times

This is the key issue right!? Well I have news for all those websites and advocates against these bills. I’m no attorney but I played one once… sorry just kidding. I believe the Supreme Court has ALREADY ruled on this 28 years ago!!!!!

How many of you grew up with a VCR in your home? How many of you actually knew how to program it to record a tv show, nightly news or a movie? Did you know that this created a bit of trouble back in the 80’s? Did you know the Supreme Court has already ruled on recording “media” of “copyrighted” material.

Sony v. Universal City Studios

As long as it is not for commercial use the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 an individual could record tv shows, movies etc. So I’m wondering why haven’t any of those sharp Harvard and Yale attorneys pulled out that ruling to challenge the government on these proposed bills?! The big question is commercial use language. If one is not literally selling the copyrighted material then how far can they go in its use?

Before we go here follow me on a trip through time for a few…

During the height of VHS recording in the 80’s another hot way to record copyrighted material was on the cassette tape. Come on you know you did it. You sat there all day listening to your favorite radio station waiting for that song (maybe new release) by your favorite group to come on and record it. You also made your share of mixed tapes for working out, or for your boyfriend or girlfriend! We all did at one time or another up until the mid 90’s!! Keep in mind this is all copyrighted material at the time on what we had as state of the art technology… magnetic tapes(VHS or casssette)!

In the 90’s everyone started buying computers with writable CD ROM drives. We then went right back to our old tricks of making mixed CD’s. Some folks went as far as breaking out the VHS and transferring those shows, movies etc on to our computers and then using whatever software that was available at the time to move those programs to CD’s. This was the birth of the coming digital recording video/audio revolution.

(The internet at the time was in its infancy but growing rapidly where you could find anything you wanted. One could write a book on the internet and its impact, we know the story and how it exploded and with sites like Napster. So I’m mentioning for chronological purposes but won’t focus on it.)

Late 90’s gave birth to the mini disc, which allowed you all the conveniences of a CD but in a small package. It barely had enough time to come of age as technology continued to skyrocket where the first MP3 players started popping up along with technology to capture video.

Enter 21st century, MP3’s made life easier as you could cram all the music you owned into a small digital storage device. With video capture people found ways to get their favorite tv shows and movies etc on their PC’s and slowly began to upload them to the internet. Technology is growing exponentially during these early years of the new millennium where DVD’s were coming on the scene and along with them the ability to record video on disc. Couple that with the internet and everything on it, the internet became the radio airwaves and cable tv or satellite “feed” of the decades prior where people were getting their “copyrighted” material to record on those magnetic tapes!

Okay its clear more is going on here and I don’t want to write a book just hope you get the jist of where I am going. Now we fast forward to today.

We have thumbdrives, memory cards, portable hard drives, DVR’s and new state of the art optical storage devices on the horizon not to mention Cloud. These devices are todays VHS and cassette tapes of our times. The internet has replaced radio and tv airwaves(cable/ satellite) we once used to record our favorite songs or program those VCR’s for our favorite copyrighted material. We also are storing articles and documents digitally which once upon a time were also stored on magnetic data tapes! We aren’t doing anything different today we weren’t doing in the 80’s that the Supreme Court ruled was permissible granted as long as its not for commercial use!

The devices and how that “copyrighted” material we “record” is delivered to us has changed but it’s still the same process.

How many of you have playlists on your MP3 player? Are those not the same as making a mixed tape of the 80’s? You ARE copying the playlist created on your computer and transferring into a device, an MP3 player, with storage capabilities. Is it not the same as your cassette in the cassette player? How many of you DVR your favorite shows and movies? The DVR player with its internal hard drive is todays version of a VCR and VHS tape! How many of you are on network of some kind where you can share whatever it is you recorded/stored?

File sharing networks could be viewed as Clouds open to the public! Its all about perception and how one defines their network and how the copyrighted material is used.

Same but different, the theory holds though. Now for those using copyrighted material monetizing them as their own works thats another story. If one is reposting articles or creating their own music compilation and selling them, then you deserve to be busted. Commercializing the copyrighted material is the fine line. If one goes by the book then everything you see is a violation. The news and media firms themselves would be guilty too not just bloggers and website owners.

There are tons of websites where copyrighted material is reproduced BUT it is clearly sourced. The owner, author of the material is being given credit. So where is the crime? You can go to any news site and I guarantee you there are videos, audio or documentation that isn’t the site owners property. They aren’t profiting off of the copyrighted material, they are in fact baiting you to their site with that material to see their original content.

I don’t recall hearing Reuters filing a lawsuit against Yahoo News or CNBC for reproducing their articles. You can take any headline and search for it getting 1000’s to millions of hits. Those hits will lead you to major news media websites. Many are reposting the material, but again citing its source. Go on Youtube or any big video site and you will see countless examples of copyrighted material reproduced. Many video posters will cite the Fair Use Code, as their goal is to simply share and educate from using copyrighted material.

For example if you upload the latest Lady Gaga song on YouTube that gets a huge volume of traffic and have the option(if YouTube contacts to partner) to place ads on said video YOU WOULD BE COMMERCIALIZING Lady Gaga’s copyrighted material. Thats prohibited and you would be breaking the law. But if you use said video for a fan site about Gaga where you sell your own original content you are not monetizing Lady Gaga’s content; you are just using her video to bait people to your site! Gray area but fact is you aren’t profiting off of THAT video/ song!

This is a fine line but IMO, again I am not an attorney, if one is not selling/profiting off the direct sale of someone elses copyrighted material then the use of it, getting it today is no different than in 1984. The Supreme Court ruled it’s okay for non commercial use. It is a fine line but the majority of reposted copyrighted material floating around today is sourced so there is no need to police it. The net community is already engaged policing itself because NO ONE wants to get sued!

The concern according to this article and others is one accessing copyrighted material and saving it. Accessing the internet and saving to a storage device of some type. This is no different than accessing copyrighted material from the radio or tv airwaves and saving them on magnetic tapes!

So tell me what’s the difference between recording copyrighted material (from print to video) on magnetic tapes to recording copyrighted material (from print to video) on a hard drive?

The internet is the new radio, the internet is the new cable/satellite tv feed and digital storage devices are the new VHS/ magnetic storage tapes.

I’m not writing this to be right or wrong. I’m writing this to remind people we have been “here” before. If it was okay 28 years ago how is it not okay today? Storage devices and delivery of copyrighted material to the storage device has changed but its still the same. I think there is something to the Supreme Court ruling that could aid those in opposition to these proposed bills. I haven’t seen the 1984 ruling mentioned in any of the current articles on the SOPA PIPA debate. So maybe someone out there reading this with a law background or working directly on these bills might have some new ammo to fight Congress and major media. I mean after all major media is named in the ruling, Sony v. Universal City Studios!!!

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