Actually, it's not stealing, Kevin. If you record or copy a song or a video for your own personal use, and you don't share it, sell it or give the copy away, it's perfectly legal to do that:cheers:. It's the distribution of that copy that makes it a breach of copyright law.
It's the same for any copyrighted work of any type. For instance, if you purchase a used computer from someone, according to the law, they need to include with the machine all the discs that support the operating system and all the peripherals sold with it, even the original O/S disc (Windows, Mac, etc.). If those aren't sold as part of the deal, then technically they have sold "a copy" of that software on the machine and kept the original. Fine point, and the copy police aren't chasing private vendors of used computers. But you get the point, I hope.
A good example of stealing but legally okay, years ago I was participating in a focus group for a new do
entary that was to be filmed. The project was also a kind of social re-insertion program for youths and I was really interested in it because it mixed camera work, writing, singing and everything that I like.
So for months we have been working with a production studio to produce and create the do
entary, and during writing sessions two stories came up which was going to be the main subject of our docu-film; adoption, insertion, street youth, drug abuse and racism all at once. It was what we call a 4 seasons do
entary, therefore 4 times 45 minutes.
I am a natural fiction writer so I was able to convey on paper pretty much all that I feel in word (if it's in French obviously). So I wrote 1/4 of the story, which is about 15 pages of the whole script (the whole scene in fact) I also wrote a song related to this scene, the director new that I am a poet and I write in proses (only French though don't ask me to do that in English LOL your eyes will bleed :rofl
so he asked me to write a song about what it was to be adopted and living among the Caucasian, which I did wonderfully I didn't have to borrow anybody's story I was living it.
When everything was done, the credit did not mentioned that I wrote the song, instead it was attributed to another team member who happen to turned the song into a hip hop form (never asked me) and he didn't changed any of the lyrics because not everyone can write in proses... but funny enough my name for this song did not appear at all.
Another aspect is the the 15 pages written on the script was all credited to the director who in fact copied everything we wrote and turn it into a script form WOW that was a lot of work for him
. The do
entary is being sold in Canada and we the author didn't get a darn penny out of it.
Unfortunately all this year and a half uncredited work went to some other people who legally stole my brain juice and many of others. But my brain is still the same, and rich of that experience I know what to do... I can still write poem in prose and I can still write stories therefore I can do it on my own and take the credit that belongs to me. :cheers:
