Copywrite Infringement?

[michelle812002]

What is the name of your state? Oregon

I basically want some advice for my boyfriend. He is a big fan of old cartoons (such as x-men),and has a lot of them on VCD format. Recently he has been selling copies of them on an auction website, as these sets are not available, or sold in stores. The money he gets basically just covers the cost of materials, but it is something he likes to do. What I am asking is basically can he get in trouble for this? If so, what type of punishment. Thanks

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state? Oregon

I basically want some advice for my boyfriend. He is a big fan of old cartoons (such as x-men),and has a lot of them on VCD format. Recently he has been selling copies of them on an auction website, as these sets are not available, or sold in stores. The money he gets basically just covers the cost of materials, but it is something he likes to do. What I am asking is basically can he get in trouble for this? If so, what type of punishment. Thanks

**A: yes he can get prison time under the Federal copyright infringement laws and even his X-Men friends will not be able to help him.

 

[aahlee]

Maybe Home Guru can help us i was under the impression that the digital copyright act allowed a person to give it away, of even if you charged say 49 cents for cost the cdr, no one will bother you, but if you try and make a profit by selling it even for 99 cents that would be a criminal matter....

 

[racer72]

The Digital Copyright Act allows a person to make a copy of an audio or video recording for there own use only. The copies cannot be sold, given away or distributed to anyone else without specific permission from the owner of the copyright. And as of this time, the Act only covers materials such a pressed recordings (record or record albums) or magnetic recording media (anything record on tape). At this time, the taxes collected on recording media as specified by the Act does not include CDs or DVDs, that is currently being debated by the US Congress and the courts. The manufactures of blank CDs and DVDs are claiming their product is for information storage, not for recording music or videos. They are also claiming they have no control over their product once it has been purchased by consumers. Also, to protect themselves, most auction sites such as Ebay ban the sale of recordings of copyrighted material because of the cloudy legal status of such sales at this time. And the boyfriend of the OP will most likely be banned from the auction site if he is caught, if the auction site is reputable. There are a couple of auction sites though that promote themselves as above the law, they allow the marketing of copyrighted material and even promote it. These sites are based in Russia or Thailand and US laws do not apply.