Want Vhs

March 15th, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Want Vhs

i want to transfer the contents of a copy righted VHS video tape onto a Dvd?

but i havnt got the equipment 2,so am thinkin of bringin my videos 2 a professional, is this legal? its 4 my own private use, the video is a music concert of my fav band BZ , am in the uk, thanx

Consult the copyright laws of the UK.

What you're doing is called "format shifting" which is not always legal.

Time-shifting (i.e. recording something for later viewing) and format-shifting (i.e. duplicating a record in a different format for use, not for archival purposes to guard against loss) are the subject of negotiations between publishing / recording companies and governments because they represent areas Where There is the possibility of more revenue to the companies if the governments interpret the copyright and licensing laws more narrowly.

e.g. a time-shifted recording of a TV movie is (possibly) a lost revenue for a copyright holder because the chance remains that they could broadcast it again later, with different commericals during the breaks to fund the production.

e.g. a format-shifted recording is (possibly) a lost revenue for a copyright holder because they would normally retain the right to market the copywritten work in the new format for you to purchase separately.

A lot of people (myself included) are a little disgusted at the latter, since we only want to pay once for a work for personal use only. That and we generally have the right to make an archival copy of a work in case the original gets damaged is a positive thing, but there are still ongoing legal debates over whether we have the right to make an archival copy in a second format (convenient to us to make) and then swap around "this is my archival copy, *this* is my working copy" as we see fit -- as it would seem to infringe on potential revenues of the type of the second case above.