http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9945643-38.html

Why can’t Jammie Thomas in Minnesota cite 17 USC 109 and claim the right to redistribute the copy that she got from somebody else? Then the RIAA would have to prove that Jammie gave away more copies than she received.

In other words, as a P2P user, I can claim every copy of every work that I download was a legal transfer of ownership from the previous owner to me. I can’t help it if the previous owner (illegally) kept a copy for themself when then sent it to me. Furthermore, if somebody takes the file from me, I will delete my copy so as to comply with 17 USC 109. Of course I might go fetch another copy of the same work from somebody else, but I’m free to do that. Now the RIAA has to track every transfer in/out of my computer and show that I have sent out more copies than I have the legal right to “resell”.

It seems that, as long as the total copies in circulation do not exceed the total copies published, then there is no distribution infringement. Furthermore, even if you can prove circulation exceeds publication, you can’t really identify who is making the extra copies vs. who is abiding to 17 USC 109.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080523-court-smacks-autodesk-affirms-right-to-sell-used-software.html

Autodesk tried to argue that eBay merchant, Timothy Vernor violated the terms of the End User License Agreement by reselling copies of AutoCAD. The Judge ruled against Autodesk. I don’t know why Autodesk did not try to cite 17 U.S.C. 106(3) and claim Tim was violating their exclusive rights to distribute or transfer ownership.

More on First Sale Doctrine: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=210&invol=339

I’ll be interested on that…. many thanks

MPEG4 is a big standard that includes (among other things) lots of video compression algorithms. One of those is H.264 which is found in MPEG4 Part 10.

AVCHD is a standard file format that includes video compressed using the H.264 algorithm.

So there is some overlap. The MPEG4 standard says nothing about the AVCHD file format but it does define the AVCHD video compression algorithm.

Many companies advertise ‘MPEG4 playback’ but that actually has very vague meaning. What they probably mean is that the device can play DivX files or MP4 files. It’s unlikely to include AVCHD. However, most (all?) Blu-Ray DVD players can play AVCHD files. You’ll probably want a Blu-Ray player or you’ll have to convert your AVCHD files into some other format.

I am planning to get a AVCHD camcorder. I plan to archive my home videos to a portable drive and use a Digital Media Player which connects to the portable drive and stream the video to an HDTV. Most of the consumer units that I found do play WMV, MPEG2 and MPEG4 but not AVCHD. I am trying to avoid having to converting from AVCHD to WMV or AVI.

Is AVCHD the same as MPEG4 or is AVI the same as MPEG2 or MPEG4?

Thank you.

Nothing is stopping the labels from providing their own great user experience that integrates well with iTunes (the application, not the store). For example, say I’m Mega Pop Records. You create a Mega Pop account and give me $0.99 for a song. I give you a custom, Mega Pop RSS feed of your purchases. You add that feed to iTunes and presto, all your Mega Pop purchases land on your iPod. Purchase a new song, sync your ‘Pod and magically the new songs appear. The iTunes RSS reader does all the heavy lifting.