At CinemaCon this year, the Motion Picture Association Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said the organization is going to work with Congress to establish and enforce a site-blocking legislation in the United States.
Read the fine print on your DVD’s/CD’s and you’ll see he’s right. The MPAA and record labels 1000% assume that everything you “buy” is a limited license. We can argue all day about what it functionally means - legally or otherwise - but that’s just the truth man.
It’s because it’s a limited license delivered in a physical format.
U.S. Copyright law requires that all videos displayed outside of the home, or at any place where people are gathered who are not family members, such as in a school, library, auditorium, classroom or meeting room must have public performance rights. Public performance rights are a special license that is either purchased with a video or separately from the video to allow the video to be shown outside of personal home use. This statute applies to all videos currently under copyright. This includes videos you have purchased, borrowed from the library, or rented from a video store or services like Netflix.
Read the fine print on your DVD’s/CD’s and you’ll see he’s right. The MPAA and record labels 1000% assume that everything you “buy” is a limited license. We can argue all day about what it functionally means - legally or otherwise - but that’s just the truth man.
Let me ask you this: if you “own“ your movie, choose whatever format you like: Why do you have to pay a fee to screen it to multiple people if everyone isn’t physically in your home and only to your family? It’s not like my cell phone stops being my property when I leave my house.
It’s because it’s a limited license delivered in a physical format.