I think they’re drawing a distinction between personal use and commercial exhibition.
If you own a legal copy you can use it for personal uses like a projector on a wall. But you couldn’t charge admission fees to your little movie theater. iirc there’s some weird laws for commercial venues based on the square footage, where restaurants and bars under like 500sqft. have more leeway in what music/tv/movies they can play without obtaining a commercial license for the media
I guess the MPAA isn’t as ruthless as the music one (forgot their acronym). I recently found out you can’t even perform karaoke over the internet legally, even if you’re not charging admission, unless you get a license for the songs you’re performing. Same with doing covers unless it’s live.
If somebody projects a movie onto a public wall, is it illegal to watch it without paying?
There’s laws for this. IIRC, as long as the person playing the movie owns it and isn’t charging anyone to watch, it’s legal.
Owns it in what sense, though? Owning a copy that he can play in the projector, or owning the intellectual rights to the movie?
I think they’re drawing a distinction between personal use and commercial exhibition.
If you own a legal copy you can use it for personal uses like a projector on a wall. But you couldn’t charge admission fees to your little movie theater. iirc there’s some weird laws for commercial venues based on the square footage, where restaurants and bars under like 500sqft. have more leeway in what music/tv/movies they can play without obtaining a commercial license for the media
I guess the MPAA isn’t as ruthless as the music one (forgot their acronym). I recently found out you can’t even perform karaoke over the internet legally, even if you’re not charging admission, unless you get a license for the songs you’re performing. Same with doing covers unless it’s live.
That’s some straight bullshit, imo.