Boycott SmartFlix!

Just so everyone knows . . . Travis just attempted to buy another copy of the BootCamp DVD, knowing full well we don't wish to sell to him, and giving yet another seemingly unrelated name and address. I will not give that name or address here, but I guess we can see what his "high ethical standards" are.
 
I'm confused, don't DVDs sold in the US contain disclaimers that, by default, display the copywrite status of the DVD as either: for rental, or private use (and the inherent restictions therein)? Prosecutable to the full extent of the law?

In Australia every DVD you buy tells you that it cannot be copied and is for private use only and cannot be used for commercial gain (heavy fines applying).

Can someone clarify this for me please?
 
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Most DVDs here contain that warning.

But the First Sale doctrine is something else entirely. Don't know if there's an equivalent in Australian law.
 
I sympathize, Steve, but let's not give the dude any undue attention. He probably just takes hits at his site as encouragement.
 
or we could all order the same dvd. once he runs out of legitimate copies he'll send out some he burned off the computer. then we have a lawsuit for piracy.
 
I dunno guys. This site doesn't seem to be providing that good of deals, to me. The Total Training After Effects Series of 3 DVD's rents for $38.22 per week. I could buy it on eBay for a little over a hundred. I won't deal with this SmartFlix place because, frankly, buying the DVD's is a much better value, as is usually the case with these sorts of things. I think Total Training also offers some courses online for a flat yearly fee. Right now they are limited to design / web courses, but other courses could be be coming soon. Ya never know. Point is, business models are adapting. People still need training.
 
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Hi everyone, just found you by Googling Smartflix looking for more information on a thread below.

I notice that Smartflix (Travis J I Corcoran) responds to this thread http://paintermagazine.co.uk/forum/...ghlight=&sid=cee17259a02cea472a76150073acfdef here earlier today.

If you want to add a comment please do, he seems to be hoodwinking a few people on there who seem to think he is providing a great service.

Regards. Keep up the good work I'm just astonished he can get away with it.
 
The Facts about Video/DVD Rental

The Facts about Video/DVD Rental

Hello, this is Ralph Liliedahl of Liliedahl Video Productions. As many of you may know, our company produces art instruction videos (the word video is used interchangeably with "DVD" since it is a Digital Video Disc), for not only my wife, artist Johnnie Liliedahl, but for some of the best known artists in the U.S., including Dan Gerhartz, Morgan Weistling, David Leffel, Sherrie McGraw, Scott Burdick, Scott Christensen, Gregg Kreutz, Robert Johnson, Zhaoming Wu, Huihan Liu, Jim Wilcox and others.

We have certainly had legal interaction with SmartFlix, formally known as Technical Video Rentals (TVR), and can provide some factual information that may be of interest to everyone.

First, our videos are expensive. This is because they are produced with the idea that they should provide the viewer with the best art instruction that the artist can provide. This is done by filming with at least 3 digital cameras, which allows the viewer to follow the brush, and artist, at all times and produces an experience that is, many times, better than seeing the painting done in person. Also, we seek to provide an experience that will provide the viewer with something they could never have in a workshop due to the limited time in in that environment, such as seeing more of the finishing of the painting. And, of course, many of the DVDs are filmed in the artist's own studio, when possible.

This effort, along with (1) the professional video editors on our staff and the high-quality equipment we use, (2) the unusually large Royalty we pay each artist for each SALE, who truly deserves to be compensated as well as possible for each performance because of the time and effort they've put into learning their craft and their professional status and accomplishments and (3) the amount and level of expensive advertisement we guarantee the artist we will do and which is required to SELL the DVDs, requires that we charge more for our high-quality DVD's than one might expect or hope. However, do keep in mind that the artist receives a LARGE share of this selling price and that we spend a LARGE amount on national advertising in order to sell the videos. This doesn't leave much for profit, I can assure you.


The law which seems to allow SmartFlix to rent our, and other's, videos/DVD's, is called the "first use" act, which was implemented LONG ago when only Hollywood could make videos and only Blockbuster rented them. The act essentially says that the "original purchaser" of a video may dispose of them in any way they want and, unfortunately, "dispose" has been legally interpreted to include rental. Unfortunately the law, at that time, did not envision a situation where small, independent producers would make, duplicate, and distribute their own videos and who could be, essentially, put out of business by someone renting them.

Let me make it clear that the only benefit to the artist, or to us, is from the original purchase of the DVD. Anyone renting that DVD to others after purchasing it is NOT required to pay ANYONE any further licensing fees and, in particular, does NOT have to make a royalty payment to the artist for any future rentals of their videos/DVDs, so the artist is performing for free. Persons who buy and then rent the videos are simply making a living from the hard work of the artist and producer, without contributing anything to the process other than facilitating the rental process.

We have resisted selling original DVDs to them, when we know they are the purchaser, and will continue to do so as we feel this practice is unfair to the artist and to us. All of our videos, and the printed, supplemental instructions included in some of them, are OFFICIALLY registered with the U.S. Copyright office and if we ever find that they anyone is illegally duplicating either the DVD OR the printed material contained within, we will have grounds for taking legal action against them and, since they're registered with the Copyright Office, be able to recover damages. But as long as they're only renting original DVDs which they, themselves, purchased FROM US, then it seems that we cannot take legal action to prevent it.

Now that technology allows artists to make their own videos and, perhaps, try to derive some income from a career in which they've invested much and, now, hope to create another source of income from their creative passion, it seems almost cruel that they would be deprived by the rental business from receiving any compensation other than the original sale. True, the rental business might buy a few DVDs from the artist, but that doesn't help one's feelings when they are renting those few DVDs over and over and, thus, preventing further sales of the original DVD by the artist.

We appreciate that some folks cannot afford higher priced videos, but I doubt that they, usually artists themselves, would approve of rentals if they knew that they are depriving the very artist they admire and want to study with of the fair Royalty payment they should receive by renting the DVD rather than purchasing it themselves.

None of the artists whose videos we sell have given their consent for rental and they are ALL angry about it, since it deprives them of just compensation for their performances.

One thing is clear. If the rental business has enough of a detrimental effect on ours, and other's, sales, then there will no longer be any reason to film such videos. I believe it's called "killing the goose that laid the golden egg?"

:angry:
 
Hey folks, never posted here before and found your forum while researching the legalities of smartflix which I'm sure is the way many others have found their way here.
This may sound too simple and stupid but it could be a new way of doing business and give us the loophole WE NEED.
How about selling a lifetime or 50 yr rental to our customers rather than selling the product outright. That way they don't actually own it and then they can't rent it.
All feedback welcomed & appreciated.

Joe T
 
Here is my idea:
Create your Instructional DVD as "software" that can only be run on a PC or a Mac with registered DVD Key and not in a regular DVD player. The "software" can be as simple as a flash player with a simple interface. I think Andrew Kramer's first few Video Copilot DVDs were set up like this. Although It was set up more like some linked HTML files with embedded video content.

Add an EULA and Licensing agreement to the "software" stating that the License is non-transferable.

Heavily enforce your copyright on anyone breaking the DRM, or distributing the "software" or the supplemental files (which are not a purchasable video dvd and therefore not covered under the first use act)

You don't see Smartflix renting photoshop or maya or windows for a reason. You can't rent or sell something that is a license. That's piracy! And the Department of justice spends money to prosecute those people.

Digital downloads are also considered as a license and not an object. Maybe something like itunes or steam would be a good outlet for licensing mp4 files.

oops cwebster suggested much of this 3 pages ahead. I guess i should have read the WHOLE thread. :/
 
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nice post.........
smileynormal.ico
 
lpgautogas said:
nice post.........
smileynormal.ico
Click to expand...

Thanks for waking this tired old thread back up. I'm new enough that I didn't know about Smartflix and their ilk. Clearly something for any content creator to be aware of.

Any good examples of EULAs for video out there? I want to have some idea what the high points are when I talk to my lawyer.
 
Have you had someone rent one of your videos for you? It might be interesting to see if it was indeed the original DVD that you sold them. If it were to turn out to be a copy of your dvd....that would be infringement no?
 
BrianMurphy said:
Have you had someone rent one of your videos for you? It might be interesting to see if it was indeed the original DVD that you sold them. If it were to turn out to be a copy of your dvd....that would be infringement no?
Click to expand...

Yes -- renting out an unauthorized duplication is copyright infringement -- not because of the rental itself, but because of the unauthorized copy.

But the rental of a legally purchased original copy is perfectly legal, as it should be.
 
The copyright owner controls all rights and can grant specific rights to the purchaser of the work. One can explicitly restrict secondary distribution rights in the copyright notice header. For instance you can rent a commercial movie DVD and play it at home or for a private party of any number of people, but you can't legally play it in a commercial venue like a coffee house theater and charge admission. This restriction is in the copyright header of every DVD you buy. Rental is a commercial redistribution activity and can be specifically restricted in your copyright notice. It is not part of fair use for private purchase if you explicitly restrict it.
 
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Jeff Anderson said:
Wow!! These guys are horrible!!! How is this any different from me buying a CD (legally) and then renting it out??
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You can do that if you want. I personally don't see a problem with this. They're buying material at full price and then renting out what they purchased. To me that's completely fair. How would it be any different then purchasing and renting our cameras, lights, audio gear, computers, and other electronics?


From what I'm hearing in this thread, equipment manufactures should get a cut of the revenue every time someone rents a camera or a microphone. How does that make sense?
 
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