SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT v PAUL OWEN & ORS

[Jeremy Barker]

Alan Braggins wrote:

> > From: Philip Rowlands <phr@doc.ic.ac.uk>
>
> > You do own the media. You don't own the software on the media. You own
> > a license to use the software. Without a license, it would be illegal to
> > copy it to your hard disk, RAM or CPU instruction pipeline.
> >
> > This is moot for music CDs, as no copying is performed in the normal
> > "use" of the content (well, not to any fixed form).
>
> But using a computer game that runs from the CD and isn't installed
> onto a hard disk doesn't do any copying to a fixed form either.

The game program and data is copied from the CD to be executed.  When UK
copyright law was rewritten in 1988 they had the foresight to specifically say
that transient copies would infringe copyright - subsection 17(6) of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.  The actual wording of the act is as
follows:

Section 16 (The acts restricted by copyright in a work)

"16.--(1) The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the
following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following
acts in the United Kingdom -

    (a) to copy the work (see section 17);

    ..."

Section 17 (Infringement of copyright by copying)

"17.--(1) The copying of the work is an act restricted by the copyright in
every description of copyright work; and references in this Part to copying
and copies shall be construed as follows.

(2) Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work
means reproducing the work in any material form.

This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.

...

(6) Copying in relation to any description of work includes the making of
copies which are transient or are incidental to some other use of the work."


> (There are audio CD players which buffer the music in RAM.
> e.g. http://www.meridian-audio.com/m_bro_cd.htm "For all formats the
> data is read asynchronously in blocks using a high-speed DVD ROM
> drive, checked for integrity then triple-buffered through memory
> to ensure output timing is completely independent of disc replay
> mechanics.")

Which infringes copyright unless there is a licence from the copyright owner
to do that.  With stuff like CD recorded music it is reasonable to assume
there is an implied licence to copy the data from the carrier medium in order
to play the recording in the usual way.  Similarly with a game there has to be
a license of some sort to use it on the game playing device it was sold to be
used with.  But is also reasonable to assume that the licence does not extend
to doing this for any other purpose or with any other device.

jb