I’ll admit it… I used to be a download junkie. Movies, music, pretty much anything I could find that might interest me, I downloaded. I watched Spiderman 2 in my living room 2 days after it had been released in the theater.
Sigh…
I’m done with it. I haven’t downloaded much in months. My music all comes from, CD, iTunes or Rhapsody now, and movies I can just get from the library when they come out. One thing I do (did) still download is TV shows. If I miss recording a show, I’ll just download it. Network TV is free, so not a problem, right? I have a home-grown DVR (Tivo, ReplayTV, etc). I built it out of a spare PC I had laying around. It records my shows and even tags the commercials so when I play the show back, they get skipped automatically. Up until a few weeks ago, it was working great. Now I just get static and no audio.
Bummer.
So I open up Miro and look for The Office. Episode 8… Great. Click. Downloading.
Fast forward to today. I check my email and see one with the subject Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement
Oh snap!
Click here for a copy of the email: dmca
I guess TV shows are off limits too. I had always had my doubts of the legality of them. I guess I was right.
Time to fix the DVR.
November 29, 2007 at 5:27 pm |
Bravo on a good decision. I used to make mix tapes “back in the day,” and I have watched copyrighted onto YouTube. But it just wasn’t OK with my conscience, and now that I forego it, I find that I don’t miss it. Life is busy enough that I can find other things to do until the show/movie is available on Netflix!
May 4, 2008 at 9:27 am |
Anything ever come out of this? I just got a similar warning from Cox for “The Office”. Hopefully I’m not getting sued…
July 8, 2008 at 3:15 pm |
Is watching them on your laptop any different than Tivoing something, or recording it with a VCR, or DVDR? I understand with music, it takes away from CD Sales and money doesn’t go to the artist. Movies, it takes away from rentals and buying DVDs etc. Is it that we’re not watching the commercials anymore?
July 8, 2008 at 10:34 pm |
@Dianna
It wasn’t the watching I got nailed for. It was the uploading due to using BitTorrent. Essentially, I was “redistributing copyrighted material with out the owners consent”. In layman’s terms – letting someone make a copy of my copy that I didn’t own in the first place.