Apollon soon in kde-extragear

[Richard Smith]

Hi.

On Tuesday 10 February 2004 12:15 am, Martin Köbele wrote:
> Then I strongly agree with Benoit Walter. There are illegal pages which can
> be displayed with konqui. The use of K3B, especially after adding the
> DVD-burn-feature, is obvious: It's about copying CDs and DVDs.
> Nobody says "stop" here?? Why not? Isn't copying of copyrighted material
> illegal?
>
> NO, it's not!! - As long as it's for private use!

False. In America, there's something called 'Fair Use' which I believe allows 
this sort of thing. But the US != the world.

In the UK, there's no 'private use' disclaimer anywhere. As it happens, 
copying of copyrighted material here isn't technically 'illegal' (which means 
you can have criminal suits filed by the state against you), it's 
'actionable' (which means you can have civil actions taken against you, ie 
you can be sued by the copyright holder). But I'm sure you meant a broader 
sense of illegal to cover both things.

> Same with downloading copyrighted material via a p2p-program, or http, or
> ftp, whatever. Downloading is not illegal.

If by illegal, you mean 'you can be sued', you're totally wrong.

> There is even no law which says that it's forbidden to possess copies of
> copyrighted material! You're even allowed to listen to the mp3s.

Wrong. Look at, for instance, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) in 
the UK for an example. You're not allowed to 'possess or deal with an 
infringing copy'.

> Imho, there are more people looking at porn-pages than people using
> p2p-software. And you don't tell those: "hey dude, that's dirty!".

Dirty? Not for me to say. But in many countries, no-one can sue you for it.

> Other topic: Uploading. That is illegal - if the offered material is
> copyrighted. Per default, Apollon doesn't upload and doesn't turn the
> user's pc into a searchnode.

Uploading may or may not be illegal depending on who owns the copyright, and 
what sort of license you have for using it.

> On Tuesday 10 February 2004 00:19, Dominique Devriese wrote:
> >"Maybe a prominent notice could be put in place in the
> >program saying that usage of the program is to the user's own risk,
> >and that (s)he should always check the legality of the downloaded
> >content ?"
>
> It's not in the downloader's responsibility to check that. It is the
> uploader who might break the law, if he shares copyrighted material.

That's wrong. Whenever you tell your computer to make a copy of a song, or 
whatever, it's *your* responsibility to make sure that you're allowed to make 
a copy. You are the one copying it from their computer to your hard drive. 
And even if they send you it, you are the one copying it from the network to 
your harddrive.

Having said all this, please take with a handful of salt, since I am *not* a 
lawyer.

Richard