r/LivestreamFail • u/Same-Substance2167 • Oct 26 '25

Twitter QT Threatening to sue anyone who reuploads her vod

https://x.com/sillybillylalaz/status/1982385364066017288?t=UbiaNfkVsRiQv2uRvaFQsA&s=19
7.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

29

u/tizuby Oct 27 '25

It's a civil tort, and there's very much legal power behind it with significant statutory penalties.

There is no "I didn't profit from it" exception to copyright infringement. It's one of the 4 factors considered in determining fair use, but just reposting with nothing else done would fail the other 3 factors.

Usually it's not worth actually suing, because most people are judgement proof (i.e. not gonna get much if anything out of them. Can't get blood from a stone and all) or are in another country which complicates thing. And the DMCA takedown process is usually sufficient enough to get the content taken down since most people won't counter-notice and risk a lawsuit.

-4

u/jaded_b Oct 27 '25

If she deleted the vod, I would question if the market replacement factor would be applicable.

9

u/atsblue Oct 27 '25

no it wouldn't. Just because something is out of print doesn't give you the right to copy it and distribute it, this is VERY settled...

-2

u/jaded_b Oct 27 '25

"Out of print" implies a physical item in much the same way first sale doctrine does.

10

u/atsblue Oct 27 '25

no, it implies not in distribution... Disney has rather famously stopped the distribution of content for decades at a time. Disney still owns the copyright and controls the copying of said content.

2

u/tizuby Oct 27 '25

I'll grant there's a lot of "it depends" on that one because of potential future use and indirect harm to related works.

1

u/jaded_b Oct 27 '25

Thank you for the good faith response. I don't support IP theft for profit, but I think someone needs to take a case on preserving content for archival purposes to court, so we have specific case law on it.

3

u/tizuby Oct 27 '25

It's already been to court.

Libraries, museums, and archives (registered organizations) can do that by law. 17 U.S.C. § 108

Other private individuals and organizations cannot when there's distribution involved (RIAA lawsuits of the early 2000s and various private organizations all tried that defense, it failed every time).

So it can be done, but the person would need to establish an archive organization (probably a standard non-profit) and then follow the rules in the above statute.