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Say, I pay for a broadcasting service, and lets say due some circumstances I miss it.

Does the original copyright (or the fact that it allowed me to watch it), allow me to source the content elsewhere?

I in no way am sharing the content that was aquired elsewhere.

Edit: Likely I will watch it one time and delete it afterwards.

Edit: I know the alternative source is infringing copyright. But does that have any effect on me?

David Siegel
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leppie
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    I bought a movie ticket for yesterday night's screening but couldn't go to the movie theater. Can I go tonight? Is it OK to go to another movie theater? – Taladris Sep 30 '19 at 13:48
  • On a more practical note, many television networks will allow you to stream content if you can provide valid login information for a broadcasting service. – David K Oct 01 '19 at 12:33

3 Answers3

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No

This is not a copyright issue as you are not making a copy (save for a transient one in your cache which is allowed). You are allowed to record it for personal time-shifting as that is fair use/dealing.

The broadcaster either owns the copyright (unlikely) or has a contract with the copyright holder that allows them to broadcast it. Assuming the broadcaster chooses or is not permitted to subsequently stream it, if you miss it, you miss it. Your contract with the broadcaster is over. Their obligation was to make the broadcast available to you, yours was to pay for it - nobody is obliged to watch it.

You can, of course, seek the content from any other legal sources, complying with their terms including payment if necessary.

Dale M
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  • Thanks, this makes a lot more sense to me. – leppie Sep 30 '19 at 05:31
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    This also (as a matter of course) applies backwards. If you watched the broadcast, you are not obliged to pay for it if you have not already. You are obliged to pay if and only if you made a contract with the broadcaster. Subsequently it will of course not be illegal to acquire a copy and watch that - if the acquisition was not illegal in itself (burglary, etc) – Stian Sep 30 '19 at 05:51
  • Note that in some countries downloading pirated content for personal use is legal. Then OP could do this regardless of the original payment. – JonathanReez Oct 01 '19 at 20:58
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No, you may not legally get the content elsewhere: that is a violation of copyright law. When I create content that I want money for, I negotiate with a distributor such as TW, and I grant TW a license to make my stuff available. The license can have all sorts of terms in it, for example conditions on where and when it can be distributed, and how much TW must pay me per user. Such content usually has some requirement of keeping track of how many viewers there are. TW gets permission to copy my stuff in exchange for something valuable – we have a contract.

I have no contract with you. You have a contract with TW. Your contract with TW may allow you to watch the stuff once, or any number of times between certain times. TW cannot grant you the right to watch stuff that some other party also happens to make available (be it legally or illegally). Your right to watch at the scheduled time depends on a chain of rightful permissions, where TW can legally distribute because of their contract with me, and you can legally watch on TW because of your contract with them. The pirate source has no legal right to my stuff, so you cannot gain a legal right to my stuff from them.

Also FYI in the US there is no legal defense "I didn't know that the pirate source was distributing illegally" (known as "innocent infringement").

user6726
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    I'm not sure this is correct, given the reasoning of the time-shifting cases. – bdb484 Sep 29 '19 at 17:55
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    Thanks. Your last point is moot. I ask exactly the opposite. I am fully aware of the source. In the end I just want to get what I paid for where my service could not provide it. – leppie Sep 29 '19 at 18:29
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    Honestly, from a copyright point of view, I have the right to watch it as I have paid for it. Again, the issue is not the source whether they have or not broken copyright. The right to watch/consume the content was given given to me from a legitimate copyright holder. – leppie Sep 29 '19 at 18:35
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    However, you have to pursue the enforcement of your right with the party that granted you the right, e.g. TW and not me. – user6726 Sep 29 '19 at 18:40
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    Your last point also shows how bad the system is, imagine some store is showing content illegally on their TV's. Does this make any person walking past this store accidentally seeing the content a copyright infringer? Edit: this is not the point I am making. – leppie Sep 29 '19 at 18:40
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    You paid for a package of gum from Target but forgot to put it in your bag. So you went to Kmart and took that same type of gum because you paid for it. – George White Sep 29 '19 at 19:39
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    @GeorgeWhite Thats a bad argument, because copyright infringement is not theft. – gnasher729 Sep 29 '19 at 20:50
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    @leppie you did get what you paid for. You were able to watch at the time it was broadcast. They didn't fail to make it available, you failed to watch it, which is your problem, not TWs. – Andy Sep 29 '19 at 23:14
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    Possibly worth a question of its own, but given the "Time-shift" personal usage recording exception to copyright, has the question of 'shared time-shift' or similar ever made it to court? [Ie, Myself and a friend both have broadcast access to the material, and I loan my time-shift copy to my friend because their attempt failed due to technical error or mistake.] – TheLuckless Sep 30 '19 at 22:50
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    @leppie "Honestly, from a copyright point of view, I have the right to watch it as I have paid for it. [...] The right to watch/consume the content was given given to me from a legitimate copyright holder." - Nope, you're misunderstanding copyright law rather substantially. To use a physical analogy, me purchasing a Pepsi from McDonalds and failing to drink it, doesn't give me permission to walk into BurgerKing and take a Pepsi, even if both stores had an infinite supply of Pepsi. It does sucks when you pay for something, and life gets in the way and you don't get your money's worth. – Jamin Grey Oct 01 '19 at 03:08
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    Copyright law allows you to record a rental, and play it later TIVO-style (time-shifting, format-shifting, analog-loophole, etc...) or recording on e.g. VHS's, but it doesn't give you a right to gain access to the content from illegitimate sources if you missed your window of opportunity on the source your contract was for. Copyright law is outdated and needs to be updated for the digital era, but poor laws is not justification for us picking and choosing what laws we follow if we don't like them. We don't get to pick what laws we follow, we pick who writes those laws, and adhere to them. – Jamin Grey Oct 01 '19 at 03:16
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Does the original copyright (or the fact that it allowed me to watch it), allow me to source the content elsewhere?

No. Because copyright does not allow you to watch anything. Copyright is a prohibition on making unauthorized copies, not a right to do anything.

David Richerby
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  • Hey David, I think that you are right, but debate about copyright is complicated and controversial: it could help if you could elaborate, or your answer runs the risk of being downvoted a lot (not by me) – Mario Trucco Sep 30 '19 at 08:36
  • @MarioTrucco I'm not debating anything, and there's no controversy about what copyright is, merely about whether that thing is desirable. I don't really see anything to add, beyond duplicating what's already in the other answers. – David Richerby Sep 30 '19 at 08:37
  • Ok.. In my experience though, I see a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about copyright matters. See for instance https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/2223/why-does-browser-cache-not-count-as-copyright-infringement – Mario Trucco Sep 30 '19 at 08:41
  • @MarioTrucco My answer was specifically aimed at addressing a confusion and misunderstanding about copyright that's present in this question. – David Richerby Sep 30 '19 at 08:43
  • i cheerfully upvoted it, as it gets to the crux of the matter. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Sep 30 '19 at 15:50
  • This is exactly what I thought when I was reading the other answers. You've got my upvote. – Stefan Teunissen Oct 01 '19 at 13:56
  • Re "Copyright is [...] not a right to do anything", Copyright provides rights to the author (a limited monopoly to copy, distribute, perform, etc) and to the public (a guarantee that the monopoly is limited, fair use exceptions, etc) – ikegami Oct 01 '19 at 14:06
  • @ikegami Yes but those aren't really rights to do things. Even if the copyright system didn't exist, authors would be able to copy, distribute and perform their works, and the public would be able to make fair (and, of course, "unfair") use of them. The essence of copyright is to prohibit people from doing certain things. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 08:08
  • Copyright literally balances the rights of the author against the rights of the public. // Authors wouldn't be able to stop others from making copies without Copyright. Copyright gives the right to control distribution, etc – ikegami Oct 03 '19 at 14:01
  • @ikegami I agree. The only point I'm making is that the rights that copyright grants are the right to prevent other people doing something, not the right to positively do something yourself. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 18:48
  • Still then, Copyright allows others to make copies, performances, etc of Copyrighted works (through fair use and the limited term). – ikegami Oct 03 '19 at 19:05
  • @ikegami As I said, those other people would be able to do those things even if copyright didn't exist. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 19:07
  • ??? It does exist, and there's no mention of discussing some hypothetical other world in the answer to which I'm replying. – ikegami Oct 03 '19 at 19:08
  • @ikegami The fact that people could do X even if copyright didn't exist means that copyright can't be the reason they can do X. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 19:48
  • Unless X depends on the existence of Copyright. Anyway, saying there are no rights granted when the Copyright is defined as "the exclusive right given to the creator of a creative work to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time" is confusing and misleading, and nothing you're saying is changing that. – ikegami Oct 03 '19 at 20:16
  • @ikegami I never said that no rights are granted. – David Richerby Oct 03 '19 at 20:19