Beware of purchasing Disney DVDs from Walmart

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

Just to chime in on the discussion of copyright. There are actually no laws currently when it comes to digital property specifically. That means that the laws that apply to photocopying books have been deemed inapplicable to digital property. However, I do know that people in Canada have been charged with piracy for owning large collections of pirated movies. And I also know that a precedent has been set by a Supreme Court decision saying that downloading music is acceptable. So, currently, movies and music are being dealt with differently.

 

[cpbjgc]

Just to chime in on the discussion of copyright. There are actually no laws currently when it comes to digital property specifically. That means that the laws that apply to photocopying books have been deemed inapplicable to digital property. However, I do know that people in Canada have been charged with piracy for owning large collections of pirated movies. And I also know that a precedent has been set by a Supreme Court decision saying that downloading music is acceptable. So, currently, movies and music are being dealt with differently.

As the OP already has decided on their course of action, this is my last post on the Copyright aspect.

The Copyright Act applies to any creative work, whether it is in print or recorded in an analog or digital format. If you want to check the act you can find it here. It does apply to digital property as long as the property is subject to copyright. I have not seen any Supreme Court of Canada decision that states downloading music without paying for it is acceptable. What is has said is that Internet Service Providers cannot be sued by copyright holders or be held responsible for piracy by persons who subscribe to their service using it to pirate music (e.g. I use MTS in Manitoba as my ISP. If I illegally download music, MTS will not be responsible because I used their service to carry out the illegal activity).

So, to sum it up, the Copyright Act, which gives artists the ability to protect their creative works, does apply to downloadable music and movies. So don't be a - if you like that song or movie, buy it!

 

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

So, to sum it up, the Copyright Act, which gives artists the ability to protect their creative works, does apply to downloadable music and movies. So don't be a - if you like that song or movie, buy it!

Just to be clear, I don't download movies or music. I was just trying to sort out the Supreme Court Decision. I thought it was multi-faceted though and didn't just speak about ISPs. I thought it set a precedent that made file-sharing programs ok too. In any case, I guess we are off topic.

 

[cpbjgc]

Way off topic, but I can't help myself sometimes. What is frustrating about this topic is that media coverage generally gets this entirely wrong when they report on it. Most people don't read Supreme Court of Canada cases for fun (I know I don't), so we have to turn to the media to know what's going on. When they reduce 40-50 pages of legal writing to a 15 second description, they sometimes lose the point

I did not mean to suggest that anyone on this thread downloads pirated material, I just wanted to put out that general thought not to pirate material for people to consider.

And that's really my last post on this!