Is It Dangerous to Upload Copyright Material to Cloud Storage

Storing Your Movies On the Deject… Legally?

(Epitome Credit: Pixabay — Ciker-Free-Vector-Images)

Duplicating Protected Content Legally

Nope. According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you can't. And unfortunately, neither can I. The net is a vast identify and often a source of conflicting information, not least when it comes to copyright constabulary, which varies by country and region. (This commodity will discuss U.s.a. copyright law.)

I have a large personal film library (all purchased legally), and I take considered creating a digital fill-in of my whole drove. A digital moving picture library would hateful more flexibility, insurance in the case of loss, and—in the case of a deject-based library, the ability to watch from anywhere. The only problem comes with those pesky piracy prevention laws. And unfortunately, there'southward no legal mode around them.

Clouds

Recently, I became aware of a piracy trend involving Google Drive. It seems that if i searches for the name of a pic followed by the words, "Google Drive" or "Google Docs," the internet will provide 1 with a link to the film, which volition then be copied to i's own Drive business relationship automatically, set to watch, for free.

Obviously, this goes against Google Drive's Terms of Service. In the tech giant'southward own words,

"Bulldoze allows you to shop, share, and stream video content, but should not be used every bit a replacement for a content distribution network. For big-calibration public streaming, YouTube is a meliorate fit. Drive volition restrict usage when it appears that information technology's beingness used for large-scale public streaming. Repeated violations may upshot in additional action, including terminating your account or ability to use Bulldoze" (Google Back up).

Google frowns upon "file sharing" of this kind because information technology undermines the spirit of the services they provide, the purpose of which is to provide usa all with storage, convenience, and the utilise of powerful tools — all of this complimentary unless yous opt to pay for a college tier of services. Sharing copyrighted cloth through Google Drive involves their company in illegal activity, piracy, without the company's consent. And the same goes for other cloud storage providers.

So we know sharing is bad, just what about making personal copies? Well, Google Drive and similar platforms have developed methods of detecting copyrighted material stored in their servers… precisely to prevent that kind of affair.

The Fair Use Defence force

Many people will tell you that information technology'due south alright to duplicate copyrighted content as long as y'all don't share it, or equally long as you got it 2nd-manus instead of pirating the file yourself. This advice usually cites the Doctrine of Fair Use, which, co-ordinate to FindLaw, falls under Title 17 of the US Code. Off-white use is what allows a YouTuber to legally include clips from copyrighted films in their movie reviews. Information technology's a defence force against accusations of copyright infringement, and whether information technology applies to a particular instance is adamant by the following criteria.

The fair use defense may be approved in court if:

1. just a minor portion of the original content is used in the work in question.
2. the primary purpose of the work is parody, comment, or criticism.
3. the piece of work is used for education, scholarship, or research.
4. the work is a grade of news reporting. (FindLaw)

It'due south important to notation that the Doctrine of Fair Apply is in place to protect content creators, educators, and researchers from copyright infringement, non to permit u.s.a. store our movies on the cloud. According to Louis Kroeck, author for LegalZoom, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), at that place is only one mode in which a person can duplicate copyrighted content without breaking the law:

"C reating a copy of a copyrighted work for your ain ease of use is likely to be considered copyright infringement. Just if you are making a copy so that you may utilize a copyrighted product in case the original is stolen, damaged or destroyed, your conduct may autumn within the doctrine of fair use" (Kroeck, 2017).

In other words, the law permits you to create exactly ane copy of purchased content for backup purposes simply. If your heart is pure, you won't actually use the dorsum-upward unless the original breaks or is stolen. If your eye is even purer, y'all'll delete the copy you made in the event that you sell or give abroad the original material. Such is the letter of the alphabet of the police.

If you lot expect, you lot'll notice what await like solid loopholes, similar this: Angela Floyd, another writer for LegalZoom, writes,

"What the DMCA does, through [Digital Rights Management], is make the circumvention illegal, not the actual copying" (Floyd, 2017).

For our budding pirates, this seems promising. The trouble isn't the content, information technology'due south getting around the protection of the content. Merely it amounts to the same thing. In fact, it's illegal fifty-fifty to create software that circumvents piracy barricades, fifty-fifty if said software is never used. As ever, copying protected content is an "at your own risk" activeness.

The Takeaway

The things to annotation hither are:

1. You can legally have copies… as long as you lot didn't make copies.
2. Any copies you have must exist for the purpose of replacing the original in the case of loss or impairment, not for sharing, selling, or "personal ease of use."
3. Even if you lot successfully save copyrighted material to a service like Google Drive, being caught may result in the deletion of your account or in legal action, depending on the circumstances.

While Copyright Police is a legal grey surface area, it's not equally greyness equally many seem to believe. For specifics, see the Digital Millennium Copyright Human action, linked beneath.

As a rule, if you have to justify information technology in your caput, it's probably non legal. Lamentable near that. I really am.

Wrapping Up

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in more than Under the Sun content, you lot can find information technology on my Medium Profile:

Keep an heart out for my upcoming article on elementary particle physics, or to read my latest article on vetting online sources, click here:

This is Liam O'Riley signing off. Come across y'all next time Under the Sun.

References

About Piracy. (due north.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2019, from https://www.riaa.com/resources-learning/about-piracy/.

Corruption programme policies and enforcement — Docs Editors Help. (due north.d.). Retrieved December 29, 2019, from https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505?hl=en.

Digital Millenium Copyright Act. (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2019, from https://dmca.ucr.edu/faqs.html.

Floyd, A. (2017, November 21). DMCA Fill-in of Copyrighted Content. Retrieved December 17, 2019, from https://info.legalzoom.com/dmca-backup-copyrighted-content-22827.html.

Kroeck, L. (2017, November 21). Copyright Law: Making Personal Copies. Retrieved December 17, 2019, from https://info.legalzoom.com/copyright-law-making-personal-copies-22200.html.

What is Global Copyright? International Copyright Basics. (n.d.). Retrieved December fourteen, 2019, from https://world wide web.rightsdirect.com/international-copyright-basics/.

Text of the Digital Millennium Copyright Deed (DMCA). (northward.d.). Retrieved Dec xviii, 2019, from https://www.aclu.org/other/text-digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca.

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Source: https://medium.com/@studiooriley/storing-your-movies-on-the-cloud-legally-97557928940

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