Reference no: EM133855245

Question

Fair use is the right to use portions of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder for purposes such as review, criticism, or parody. Under certain circumstances, fair use is also a successful defense for practices such as time shifting, place shifting, and format shifting. Exactly what constitutes fair use, however, is only sketched out in copyright law. The precise nature of fair use is shaped by court decisions covering situations and devices as diverse as vinyl records, printer toner cartridges, videotape recorders, and file sharing networks. "Specifically, it is not the intention of Congress to restrain the home recording, from broadcasts or from tapes or records, of recorded performances, where the home recording is for private use and with no purpose of reproducing or otherwise capitalizing commercially on it." U.S. Judiciary Committee statement regarding the Sound Recording Act of 1971 It seems incredible, but there once were no restrictions on copying sound recordings. "Record pirates" could legally copy and distribute, say, an Elvis Presley recording. In 1971, the U.S. Congress passed the Sound Recording Act that prohibited copying music for commercial use. The law was not, however, aimed at prohibiting consumers from making copies for their own use. Time shifting is the practice of recording music, videos, or other works for playback at another time. The legal precedent that gave consumers permission for time shifting was the landmark..