Simon - Legal Issues?

ElkmontRollTider · August 6th, 2003, 04:58 PM

Simon,

As I've mentioned to you before, I have been doing some DVD conversions of my Alabama football collection. At work, we have a trader board for selling/trading items, and I would like to start trading games at work like you guys do on here on tidefans.com.

Since you have been doing this for a while, I'm sure this has been addressed before, but are there any legal issues to contend with when distributing copies of broadcasts? Obviously, if I were selling them for $30 each to turn a profit, that would be illegal since they are copyrighted broadcasts. My aim is simply to share the wealth with other fans, asking for expenses in return or trading for games I don't have in my own collection. Some info on this is appreciated.

BTW... I had some questions for you earlier in BocaTide's post below that I think you missed. Sorry for burying that in someone else's post. If you need someone else to help distribute DVDs on this board, I should be ramping up my conversion rate soon with some newer equipment. I may try to send you a copy of one of my discs for your review to see if I'm on par with the others. I'm especially proud of the 1985 Iron Bowl disc I did recently. It has a clip of "The Kick" that plays when the disc is first inserted, with titles that say "1985 Iron Bowl - The Kick." Also, to produce the DVD version, I took a recent broadcast of the game on ESPN Classic and spliced in all of the parts of the game they removed using my tape of the original 1985 broadcast. You can tell which parts are from the original because the color is somewhat faded, but it gives some continuity back to the chopped up ESPN version.

sbott · August 7th, 2003, 08:09 AM

Sorry I missed your previous questions - I'll go and find those later.

Legally - we're in a very grey area. As you say, if we were making a profit, we would be violating copyright. In addition, if the copyright holders (which is also a murky area) were selling games and we distributed ours (even for free), we would be violating copyright as we'd be taking money away from them. As neither is the case, then everything is a moot point. The copyright holders cannot sue for our profits nor for their lost profits. In other words, go for it

As far as "joining the group" - yes please!!! Shoot me an e-mail and I'll add you to our working list!

Thanx!

s

ryno · August 7th, 2003, 01:45 PM

Simon I lost your e-mail so this is the onyl way I know to let you know this. You told me you mailed me 3 games over a week ago and they still haven't arrived. Let me know if they came back or how you sent them or from where you sent them or what address you sent them to. Just curious as to what has happened.

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RTR