Re: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights

["Ernest Miller" <ernest.miller(at)aya.yale.edu>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Hartman" <hartman@onetouch.com>
To: <dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 11:40 AM
Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss] Slightly OT - Japanese copyrights


> >
> > Would it be a violation to sell a sub-titled version if you
> > bought and destroyed an original for every sub-titled copy
> > you distributed?
> >
>
> If you have license to a copy, and the right to do what
> you wish with your own copy, then that plan should work.

The subtitles would be a derivative work and illegal.  Copyright law
prohibits copying.  If you make a copy and destroy the original, you still
have violated copyright law.  I agree that this makes no sense, which is why
I advocate eliminating the "right to copy" as part of copyright law.

> It is similar to a plan executed by someone who was fed
> up w/ all the (unnecessary) sex in movies.  He offered
> a service whereby he edited a movie to make a clean version.
> IIRC either the customer had to send in their copy of
> the tape to be edited, or they bought a copy from him
> (as they would from any other reseller) that he had already
> edited.  He did not _make_ copies, he edited existing
> ones.
>
>
> --
> -Richard M. Hartman
> hartman@onetouch.com
>
> 186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!