So are they allowed to make point in time backups / snapshots of their phone or is that also “copyright infringement”? Usually copyright infringement focuses on distribution for piracy and/or fraudulent sales — this is neither.
Yes, users can copy this data for backup purposes, that is covered by fair use.
Usually copyright infringement focuses on distribution for piracy and/or fraudulent sales — this is neither.
I'm not sure what you mean. Copyright infringement is the act of infringing on one's copyright. It's not a question of focus.
Copyright law does focus on certain aspects of it but it's not up to Facebook to decide when it's copyright and when it's not. The law is pretty clear here.
This is clearly distribution and clearly not licensed copying.
The purpose here is largely irrelevant.
Further, this is clearly unauthorised access and removal of user data. This is quite likely a criminal act under US hacking laws.
FWIW the sibling comments are correct under USA's Fair Use but in the UK there is only a very restrictive Fair Dealing which last I looked did not allow backups without permission unless there is no digital protection in place. There is a right under S.50A to make a backup of a computer program but when paired with the rest of the act it's unworkable.
In the UK you can't (you could for a while) rip a CD/DVD, apps like iTunes are contributory infringers.
Backups are a special case exempted from copyright. What is happening here is clearly not a backup for personal use but redistribution to another party for commercial use.
Comments
Nice angle but I guess the defense is that the user explicitly gave Facebook permission to read those files.
If I buy a book, I'm allowed to read that book, but I am not allowed to copy it.
You are allowed to copy it, you just can’t sell copies of it.
You are not allowed to copy it, or sell copies of it
Under fair-use laws (which vary country to country), you can usually copy a small portion of the work for non-profit educational use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
The first line of wikipedia: "Copyright is the exclusive right, given to the creator of a creative work, to reproduce the work"
You probably won't be in trouble until you start trying to distribute your copies, but the prohibited thing is copying. Hence the term copy-right.
Who says Facebook is copying it, not just reading it?
It's not an angle it's literally copyright infringement.
Users aren't given the right to distribute their copies.
So are they allowed to make point in time backups / snapshots of their phone or is that also “copyright infringement”? Usually copyright infringement focuses on distribution for piracy and/or fraudulent sales — this is neither.
Yes, users can copy this data for backup purposes, that is covered by fair use.
I'm not sure what you mean. Copyright infringement is the act of infringing on one's copyright. It's not a question of focus.
Copyright law does focus on certain aspects of it but it's not up to Facebook to decide when it's copyright and when it's not. The law is pretty clear here.
This is clearly distribution and clearly not licensed copying.
The purpose here is largely irrelevant.
Further, this is clearly unauthorised access and removal of user data. This is quite likely a criminal act under US hacking laws.
FWIW the sibling comments are correct under USA's Fair Use but in the UK there is only a very restrictive Fair Dealing which last I looked did not allow backups without permission unless there is no digital protection in place. There is a right under S.50A to make a backup of a computer program but when paired with the rest of the act it's unworkable.
In the UK you can't (you could for a while) rip a CD/DVD, apps like iTunes are contributory infringers.
Backups are a special case exempted from copyright. What is happening here is clearly not a backup for personal use but redistribution to another party for commercial use.
Permission? They're system libraries. If it can run, it can access those.
read, not copy. They upload the files up to their servers.
They read it and write an identical version somewhere else. That sounds like a copy to me.