Arizona Fugitive?
I'm sorry but I must strongly disagree. Out of print or not, these materials (the DVD, not the car parts) are covered by copyright law. I agree that it is inconvenient to abide by the rules under these circumstances, but lets try this one.
I'm an executive in the software business and have been one for many years. We often EOL (end of life) a version of a product, to replace it with an upgraded version. At some point, we no longer sell the old version. Is it OK for customers to start copying the old one because they can't buy it any longer? Would the copying of those materials impact the sale of the new version? At the limit, wouldn't that preclude subsequent investments in those products?
These days, intellectual property and copyrighted laws are under enormous pressure for those rules to be changed. But until they are, they were the rules that governed the creation of those materials and continue to be relevant throughout their lifetime.
Now regarding the car parts that are no longer in production, I haven't a clue.
Gentlemen,
This subject has stirred up some real passion and heated debate based upon some of the PM's I have received along with demands that I delete some of the posts contained here. I am not a copyright attorney and my opinion is certainly not the end all, but I have done a little research. And yes, there are many instances where copying software, CDs, and DVDs is completely legal. Although music on a CD is copyrighted, United States law allows for the owner of the CD to make up to five backup copies for his own use as long as that music is not distributed, sold, or used for commercial purposes. Let me remind you that every time you set your VCR machine to record a program while you're off to dinner so that you may watch it later you are making a copy of a copyrighted program. Is the resulting tape in your VCR illegal contraband? When the Discovery Channel shows "Ford GT-Rebuilding a Race Car Legend", and I record it on my Cox cable DVR, I have just made a copy of a copyrighted program. Is the contents of my DVR illegal contraband and if so, why hasn't Cox communications been taken to court? As regards software, when I download it onto my computer, I am making a copy of it on my machine and the original disks then go into a drawer as a backup.
Every time you download one of your music CDs onto your iPod, you have just made a copy of a copyrighted album. Is your iPod now illegal contraband?
There is one thing that makes copying some DVDs illegal. It's called the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which states that it's illegal to break the CSS copy-protection mechanism employed by most commercial DVD movies.
What does that mean? Most fair-use advocates say that the policy directly contradicts U.S. copyright law, but the DMCA seems to indicate that you cannot make a copy of a commercial DVD, even for personal use, and you certainly cannot give a copied DVD to anyone or watch copied DVD files on your computer.
The ability to create copies of the media you've purchased for personal use is a long-accepted facet of the fair-use doctrine in U.S. copyright law (at least, it used to be). However I assume that fair use will eventually catch up and be established as a safety valve for consumers (which has been the pattern with previous technologies, such as VHS), but for now, the territory is still uncertain and a bit dangerous." * (quoted from an Internet legal source on this topic)
In short, when I buy software, music CDs, or DVDs, I have the right to view them and to back them up. I don't have the right to make copies to sell or distribute or to make additional copies of software to use on additional computers. In the case of DVDs, it is illegal (only in the U.S.) to circumvent the DMCA copyright protection software even for the purposes of making a personal backup copy.
As to renting a DVD and dumping it into my DVR so that I may view it later or storing a copy of that DVD using some other storage mechanism so that I may view it later (but not distribute it), the laws are vague and contradictory.
Finally, if anybody posted any material offering illegally copied materials for sale or free distribution, I would delete that post and shut down the thread. I have not seen anything like that here. Perhaps I'm just a legal simpleton, but the first time I watched that Ford GT show I was watching a copy recorded on my Cox HD DVR. That copy still exists on my DVR and I may view it any time I wish. Perhaps I am a criminal too and both Cox Communications and Chip Beck should be sitting in a jail cell somewhere.
Chip
