Quote:
Originally Posted by gideongallery
IF you were not allowed to give your friends copies then vcr would have encoded locks that pervented tapes from playing in vcr that they were not recorded on.
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Yes it is legal to share your copy of the copyrighted work with your family and closest friends:
Section 101,
2 the definitional section of the Act, explains that
3 [t]o perform or display a work “publicly” means (1) to
4 perform or display it at a place open to the public or at
5 any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a
6
normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is
7 gathered; or (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a
8 performance or display of the work to a place specified by
9 clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or
10 process, whether the members of the public capable of
11 receiving the performance or display receive it in the same
12 place or in separate places and at the same time or at
13 different times.
Thus, if you seeded your copy of the say "District #9" at a public torrent site, and got sued, you'll need to convince the judge that all half a billion people who downloaded it are your family and friends if you want to come clean out of the courtroom - because if they're not your family and friends, your actions will be considered public broadcast which is an infringement.