RE: VHS movies - question

["John T. Mitchell" <John@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1) There is no such thing, from a legal standpoint, as purchasing a
movie "for home use."  If you buy a legal copy of a movie, Section 109
of the copyright Act gives you the right to re-sell, lend, rent, trade,
give away or throw away your copy without the copyright owner's consent,
but gives no other copyrights to you.  You can make "home use" of any
copy without permission regardless who owns it, and you need permission
for a public performance, regardles who owns it.  (See Section 202 - the
"copyrights" and the "rights to the copy" are separate.)

References to "home use" generally refer to private (versus public)
performance of the work.  No one has an exclusive right to perform a
work privately.  The right to perform a work privately is simply not one
of the copyrights granted.  If a copyright owner purports to license the
showing of a movie in private, they are basically selling something they
don't own.  The copyright act's right to perform a work extends only to
the right to perform the work publicly.

Coming back to question #1, then, whether you have a right to perform
the work publicly is a question of license form the copyright owner, and
has absolutely nothing to do with who owns the copy.  (If I have a
license to show the movie in a theater, I can even show a pirated copy
without infringing the copyright.  If I'm watching the movie privately,
then it doesn't matter one whit whether I bought, borrowed, rented or
stole the copy.)

2)  You become proficient by diving in, spending a lot of time, and
disbelieving most of what has been said.  This is an area of the law
infected with a ton of smoke and mirrors from powerful media companies
who can afford to spend a lot of money creating an impression of what
the law is.  Good luck.

John
_____________________
John T. Mitchell
http://interactionlaw.com
  

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: langval@xxxxxxxx [mailto:langval@xxxxxxxx] 
>  
>  Two questions:
>  
>  1.) When a movie is purchased for home use, does the owner 
>  have a right to use that movie for a public showing, such as 
>  in a college theater, as long as no admission fee is charged?
>  
>  2.) How have you become proficient in copyright law?