16 replies to this topic

[ivanvamp]

I am wondering about watching movies online. I know it's illegal to download stuff from megavideo or putlocker. But is it illegal to simply watch movies on those sites? When I google this question I get several different answers, and of course I have no idea if any of those folks actually know the law.

So does anyone here know the answer to this question? Thanks in advance.

[Mack]

The practical answer (as opposed to a strictly legal interpretation - sorry, I know that was actually your question) is that streaming will not likely get you in any trouble whatsoever. Seeding files in a torrent is something to avoid, unless you are protected via proxy, and even then, I am not recommending you do so.

A reasonable and helpful solution to the practical issues, as opposed to formal legal issues, is to use a proxy service, of which there are many good ones. Commercial proxies are fast, and the good ones don't keep logs (for long). They are in fact a helpful extra layer of protection from that grey area where many largely law-abiding internet users find themselves from time-to-time. For example, if your favorite sports team is subject to a national blackout on a weekend game, a good proxy can route you through, say, Canada, and you can elide the blackout restrictions, and enjoy a cold beverage while watching the game.

tldr; Practically speaking, there is nothing to worry about.

edit: A lawyer friend said: "I think the answer would be NO because you did not make a copy. (copyright forbids making"copies") There are arguments that you would be violating performance rights, etc. but that's not clear."

Edited by Mack, 11 February 2012 - 04:34 PM.

[judes63]

I don't think you will be liable for just watching movies. The FBI closed down MegaUpload a couple of weeks ago and arrested the executives for piracy and copyright infringement because they personally profited from making movies available on the site, but I couldn't find any mention of individual users being investigated. http://www.fbi.gov/n...ht-infringement

It looks like the government policy is that liability belongs to the people making illegal content available in the first place.

Edited by judes63, 11 February 2012 - 05:06 PM.

[epraz]

Mack, is your friend a copyright lawyer? He doesn't know what he's talking about. ivanvamp, the short answer is yes, but enforcement seems to only be against distributors, not consumers.

[ivanvamp]

Mack, is your friend a copyright lawyer? He doesn't know what he's talking about. ivanvamp, the short answer is yes, but enforcement seems to only be against distributors, not consumers.

Thanks epraz. A follow-up to that, though. There are some legit sites that legally stream movies (hulu, for example). So it's not automatically wrong to go online and watch a movie. Is it up to the customer to know which sites are legit and which ones are not? I mean, in some cases it's pretty obvious, but does the government just say, look, it's up to you to get it right as the consumer, and if you get it wrong, we can nail you?

Or does the government not go after the consumer precisely because it's difficult legal ground? (or do they not go after the consumer because 200 million Americans watch stuff like this online?

[Mack]

"Mack, is your friend a copyright lawyer? He doesn't know what he's talking about. ivanvamp, the short answer is yes, but enforcement seems to only be against distributors, not consumers."

He is a Communications Law professor. My bad here - I didn't accurately report the form of my question to him which was "would I get in trouble if I watched an illegal stream," and not "is it illegal to distribute these products in this fashion." The distributors of the streams are subject to S.978 - The Commercial Felony Streaming Act (text of bill here: http://www.opencongr...l/112-s978/text). I don't believe the bill references consumers, and I suggest that as a practical (and possibly legal) matter Ivan has nothing to worry about for consuming said streams.

I suspect (but could be wrong) Ivan that you are consuming these items at your institution or workplace and are concerned about breaking the law....Why don't you ask your legal department what they believe is the law, and let them provide some guidance? I believe, again, as a practical matter, if you are watching one of these streams in your home, you have, effectively, zero to worry about, not the least of which for the reasons you suggest.

[ivanvamp]

"Mack, is your friend a copyright lawyer? He doesn't know what he's talking about. ivanvamp, the short answer is yes, but enforcement seems to only be against distributors, not consumers."

He is a Communications Law professor. My bad here - I didn't accurately report the form of my question to him which was "would I get in trouble if I watched an illegal stream," and not "is it illegal to distribute these products in this fashion." The distributors of the streams are subject to S.978 - The Commercial Felony Streaming Act (text of bill here: http://www.opencongr...l/112-s978/text). I don't believe the bill references consumers, and I suggest that as a practical (and possibly legal) matter Ivan has nothing to worry about for consuming said streams.

I suspect (but could be wrong) Ivan that you are consuming these items at your institution or workplace and are concerned about breaking the law....Why don't you ask your legal department what they believe is the law, and let them provide some guidance? I believe, again, as a practical matter, if you are watching one of these streams in your home, you have, effectively, zero to worry about, not the least of which for the reasons you suggest.

My situation is this: I don't want to break the law. But I like watching movies, and I'd rather pay nothing for it than something. If I can do that without breaking the law, great. If not, then I will find another solution. I'm not looking to "get away" with something. I originally started watching free movies but then learned of the megavideo case and it got me wondering.

I mean, you can go online and listen on youtube to just about any song you want, even if it's not the official music video. So you can listen to any song without paying for it and, as far as I know, that's not illegal. I was wondering the same thing about movies.

[BroodsSexton]

Do you ever exceed the speed limit?

[judes63]

I don't know if this is going to clarify the situation or confuse it more, but here's the Motion Picture Association's take: http://www.mpaa.org/...f-content-theft

It says that hosting or providing a link to unauthorized content is illegal, but says nothing about user liability. So I don't see consumers being targeted, just illegal websites (caveat: I am not a lawyer). As you said above, how are you supposed to know for sure if the site's legitimate or not? My own personal take about visiting potentially illegal websites would be not so much fear of breaking the law as of getting a virus or malware, but that's just my (extreme) paranoia on the subject.

[ivanvamp]

Do you ever exceed the speed limit?

Occasionally, sure. I'm hardly a perfect law-abider, but generally I try. Certainly there's a big difference in terms of consequence between getting a speeding ticket and going to jail (not that I have any idea if violating anti-piracy laws would land someone in jail...but I bet it's more serious than going 50 in a 40 mph zone).

[weeba]

Movie wise; if it's not netflix/hulu, it's probably not a site formally affiliated with the studios, watch at your own risk

[djhb20]

1) I'm not a lawyer.
2) The copyright holder has the exclusive right to "reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords". (US Code, Section 106).
3) The copyright holder can license others to do that.
4) If you go to a site that doesn't have a license to provide copies to users, my guess is that if the copyright holder wanted to go after you, they could. I think the argument would be successful that by clicking "play" (or loading the site that starts the stream automatically) you would be found to be "reproducing" the copyrighted work (admittedly, with the assistance of the unlicensed site. [There's certainly case law in other areas that would say that you'd be liable for doing something essentially the same as that.]
5) No studio would ever go after you for that. It's not efficient. It's worth it for them to go after the people/institutions that provide access to the unlicensed works to the masses. But if they wanted to, they could, and would probably be successfully (assuming they could prove that you took the steps necessary to instigate a reproduction).
6) I think, though, if you walked by someone else's computer and watched a reproduction that they had started without input from you (explicit or implicit), you would not be liable.
7) Yes, that's a stupid distinction.
8) Again, I'm not a lawyer.

[ivanvamp]

Ok that's helpful. I can't believe they'd have the time or the money to go after the literally millions upon millions of individuals who watch on sites like megavideo. I can see why they'd go after megavideo or something like that, but the tens of millions of people? The cost would be unfathomable, I would think.

[SumnerH]

Ok that's helpful. I can't believe they'd have the time or the money to go after the literally millions upon millions of individuals who watch on sites like megavideo. I can see why they'd go after megavideo or something like that, but the tens of millions of people? The cost would be unfathomable, I would think.

The music companies did at some point go after individual downloaders--the idea isn't that prosecuting any one downloader is worthwhile, it's that you may scare individuals into not downloading (and hopefully going and buying your content instead). You don't go after all 10 million, you go after a small fraction but enough to get the word out that you're not 100% safe doing this. I don't know if the movie industry has done likewise yet or not.

Their main focus is certainly usually on people doing the sharing/uploading/hosting/whatever rather than the downloaders.

[kneemoe]

stuff....

I suspect (but could be wrong) Ivan that you are consuming these items at your institution or workplace and are concerned about breaking the law....Why don't you ask your legal department what they believe is the law, and let them provide some guidance? I believe, again, as a practical matter, if you are watching one of these streams in your home, you have, effectively, zero to worry about, not the least of which for the reasons you suggest.

You think he's watching/streaming movies to his desktop at work, and suggest he contact legal to discuss it?

[Mack]

You think he's watching/streaming movies to his desktop at work, and suggest he contact legal to discuss it?

I thought, based on his "One Campus at a Time" tagline, that he might be employed at an institution of higher education. He was clearly worried (unnecessarily so in my opinion, but my opinion doesn't really matter in that respect) that he might be breaking a law that might get him in real trouble (as opposed to his more recent speeding ticket example). If he is worried he could: (1) simply stop doing what he is doing, (2) find out if what he is doing is really breaking the law, and then make a decision regarding his behavior, or (3) other things that are not germane to my response. If he is killing time watching streaming TV in a corporate setting, yes, of course he might want to think twice about discussing it with legal. At an academic institution, he should have no problem whatsoever getting appropriate guidance that would come with no downside (e.g., you are fired, etc. - just not going to happen). In any setting, he could pose the question as hypothetical if he wished, and get the information he wants.

SumnerH is largely correct about the strategy undertaken by the entertainment industry: most of the time, to the extent they catch up with any individual, it is someone who has used a boatload of bandwidth to make files available for download by others. For the average joe, the worst that 99.999% of them might expect is to get a letter from their internet provider warning them to modulate their behavior. As was noted above, the strategy of picking on the little guy is expensive relative to the returns (and leads to technological developments that facilitate new and better ways to access "pirated" online content), and the industry also got some public relations black eyes early on, which have convinced them that picking on the "little people" is not the way to go. Going after the large providers has always been a winning strategy for them, essentially starting with the Napster case. The whole situation is just a lawyer's dream....(which might be re-stated as the whole situation is a giant waste of resources).

[kneemoe]

Epraz pointed out, in the cutting the cord thread, this case which might be germane to the conversation on the legalities of streaming copyrighted media. IANAL, but the way I'm reading this streaming != copying, and may therefore land this in a grey-area of the law. I think this was something SOPA was trying to address.
Of course with the recent crackdowns of sites hosting mere links to streaming sources that case may already be outdated, I try to keep up on this stuff but its ever shifting. If anyone can clarify that point it'd be appreciated.

EDIT: this suggests its not a grey-area, but rather an infraction that's not at the same level as copying.
Still, it's nearly a year old so I wouldn't be surprised if there's been further change in the law since.
And here's another source noting SOPA's intention of making streaming a higher level offense, Worth noting - SOPA did not pass.

Edited by kneemoe, 17 February 2012 - 12:50 PM.