Re:Promising? (Score 2, Interesting)

TV and radio are truly strange delivery mediums for copyrighted work. If some salesperson walked up to your door, knocked, and then handed you a ten dollar bill without any sort of agreement, you'd own the bill. A salesperson might do that if they wanted to make sure you'd listen to their pitch, but you wouldn't have to listen. You could just close the door because no agreement was made.

Television and radio networks offer TV shows and music in the hope that people will then listen to a sales pitch. As a result, when they deliver a show or song to your house, you own that copy of the show or song. Because you own that copy, it is legal for you to make a backup of it, or format shift it, or time shift it, and hand that exact copy to a friend. All of that is legal because of the right of first sale. The fact that time shifting is legal has been affirmed in several court rulings.

Don't get me wrong though. You only own the exact copy that was broadcast. If you duplicate it, then hand an extra copy to a friend, you're illegally distributing a copyrighted work. Of course, that brings up the whole ludicrous nature of the beast beccause the network really gave you an undefined number of copies, since you could have any number of recording devices in the house. But, if you try real hard to ignore artificial nature of the boundaries, it all kind of makes sense.