@magicjohnsonsvariety wrote:
@7606dennis wrote:
@a_c_green wrote:
@luckykey3 wrote:
@a_c_greenI just thought of something. I have some old VHS tapes of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show that is shown once a year that I've recorded ... so if I were to sell them they would be difficult to see on the flat screen TV's? I'd test them out on my flat screen but my tape deck no longer works ... and I don't want to sell poor quality to anyone ... IF I decide to sell them, that is.
I wouldn't call them "difficult to see," but they would be grainy at best, and if played back on a different machine than the one that recorded it, you'd probably have to deal with tracking issues and perhaps a video noise bar of visual static along the top or bottom edges. You might need to adjust the monitor for proper display of the old 4:3 picture image, which in the correct orientation on a 16:9 screen would have a vertical black bar on either side of the image, not stretching it horizontally.
Also, as others have pointed out, you can sell used videotapes for reuse, but the programming on them is protected by copyright and is not supposed to be sold.
I would advise wiping the tapes of any recorded material prior to offering for sale, just in case one of the copyright owners decides to take you to the cleaners.
Of course, using the excuse that the tapes are being sold as blank as a way of circumventing copyright law when actually selling the recorded copyrighted material would be a very serious issue, I believe.
I believe people use the term "sold as blank" to imply that it was a blank tape at one time and can still be used as one again. Whatever happens to be on it is what it is.
Ebay has a rule about describing items properly....so in order to comply with that rule one would need to disclose the content on the VHS. Some buyers might want to know they aren't going to be receiving any offensive content.
Anyways, who's to say what is copyrighted and what isn't. There's plenty of non infringing content out there such as commercials, news reports, public domain, home movies of who knows what that people look for.
Actually, when it comes to the decision to what is protected by copyright that rests with the courts. However, most broadcast programs bear a copyright notice and are registered with the Copyright Office. The fact is that if the tape has something recorded on it, even though it is capable of being recorded over, that tape is not blank. Should that tape contain any copyrighted material, the owner of the copyright would have grounds for legal action against the seller. Because the copyright was registered, the rights owner could not only claim statutory damages but punitive damages as well.
While someone's home movies do receive a statutory copyright at the time they are created, they may not be a problem for the seller selling his own tapes. However, taping shows off the TV is a different matter.
If memory serves, several years ago the record companies went after people for copying songs that they had purchased for their own use. Unfortunately, they hadn't purchased the full rights to the material and didn't pay the royalties to the artists and the copyright owners and began to use these songs for commercial purposes. I believe that the courts sided with the record companies and meted out some hefty damages.
What would happen if the owner of some copyrighted piece of material decided to buy one of these "so called" blank tapes and discovered that it contained a copy of their copyrighted material? In order to protect their rights, they would almost certainly be required to file suit against the seller or lose their protection under the copyright act. This wouldn't go well for the seller, I wouldn't think.
"It is an intelligent man that is aware of his own ignorance."
One other point that occurred to me after posting the above, as I am now of an age where I keep discovering that things I grew up with are now disappearing all around me (fax machine, anyone?): not a lot of people even have VCRs anymore. Best to unload old VHS tapes (especially household ones) while they have any reuse value at all.
