Re: Video Rental

You write:
>
> Dear colleagues:
>
> I'm an attorney practicing in Costa Rica, Central America. Our
> copyright regulations require the purchaser of home videos (for
> example a video rental store or club) to have permission from the
> copyright owner in order to be able to rent the material to its
> customers. My understanding is that the regulations in the US are
> different in this respect. Am I right? Are there other
> jurisdictions with similar regulations to ours in Costa Rica?

In Australia, most videos are sold with a restriction on them saying they are only for personal use and not to be rented. Renting is an exclusive right of the owner of the copyright.

  http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s103.html

The whole act can be found at

  http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/index.html

Rental copies of the same videos cost considerably more than the same video sold purely for personal use (~AU$75-200 v. AU$20-30).

That shrink wrap licence thing might raise its ugly head once again here because that licence is not always visible on the outside of the packaging.

Regards,
Tim

Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B. (Melb)      | Multimedia Database Systems, CITRI  |
tja[_at_]citri.edu.au  B.Sc. (Hons Melb) | 723 Swanston St      ----------------
Phone: +61 3 9282 2487              | Carlton 3053         |  simul iustus 
Fax:   +61 3 9282 2490              | Victoria, Australia  |   et peccator 
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