DishSubLA:
For arguments sake, let's say that Apple, Google and Amazon have each sold approximately 5 million copies of Adele's Skyfall. I have no idea what the actual number of copies they've sold, and that is largely irrelevant. They all "store" these for us in their infrastructure. By your logic, to stay in compliance with copyright law they must have 5 million copies of that song in their infrastructure, one for each copy purchased. Flat out, they don't.
Of course they all will have more than 1 copy but they'll have a lot closer to 1 copy than they do 5 million copies.
Once you start viewing the purchase of this song as an RTU (Right to Use). This same model could very easily be extended to a "cloud dvr" where far fewer copies than the number of RTUs are stored.
The smart providers will have a number of copies geographically dispersed to better serve their customers.
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What you've said makes sense, but the court was EXPLICIT in NOT expanding DVR services under the same umbrella as your example of Amazon, etc. That, however, is EXACTLY what the MSO WANTED to do and ARGUED (using your good logic) they could do and not violate copyright, but the court ruled that such a model for a DVR service DOES indeed violate copyright. Then later, the model of saving 10,000 separate copies of show was challenged, for each household to access and view was found to NOT violate copyright. This time, the copyright owners LOST and the consumer won something. This also applies to Aero who are streaming LIVE LINEAR broadcasts using ONE antenna per subscriber, and their coming DVR service is based on the 10,000 copies of the same bits per each subscriber. The MSO's are PAST the Amazon model for DVR and accept it as DONE, and have moved on to, and HAPPILY accept the inefficient, but legal model of everyone getting their own separate recording for their DVR service with content save on PERSONAL space on the MOS server.
Your example is NOT a "personal" RECORDING device, such as a DVR, not streaming devices and services. Sorry, but there is NO COMPARISON to any of the other types of methods we access content. Your example of Amazon is not the DVR model. They are totally different animals under the law. The DVR service is more directly linked to Universal Studios vs. Sony than subsequent rulings relating to file sharing sites or peer to peer, specifically, personal RECORDING devices owned or used by individual to record copyright material as they "air" form LINEAR services such as OTA, MVPD services. This does not address purchase of copyright material form iTunes, or Amazon MP3, which function more as retail stores, nor what you do with it subsequently, the ruling is limited to DVR functionality as we know it today: an individual has some from of recording device that they use to record the linear broadcast OTA or MSO.
What may be difficult to get our minds to wrap around is how utterly inefficient and almost silly the ruling is because, for OUR point of view, what't the difference if everyone accesses the same ONE copy of a TV show after having gone through all the hope to program the DVR? The real world result is the same. Keep in mind the content owners are completely averse to the one recording for all in a DVR MODEL SERVICE. In fact, again, that is the very reason they sued the MSO. However, the LAW is a funny thing, and the ruling states that having one recording to be accessed by all in a DVR--REPEAT-DVR "cloud-like" service is considered a VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT. However, the court was pretty explicit in its ruling that in a DVR--REPEAT--DVR "cloud-like" service, the notions or attributes of "PERSONAL" and "PRIVATE", as a TEST (only FAIR USE is guaranteed under the law), such as when our recorded content is stored at home using videotape or an HDD, must be maintained for it NOT to violate copyright. The court explicitly DENIED the use of one recording for access to all (that proposed mode is why the MSO was sued), but in a subsequent ruling found that if each household INITIATED the timer for recording and the MSO saves that recording ONLY on that household's PERSONAL, PRIVATE part of the server to access for playback, and that process repeated for each case of the same program to be recorded by additional households, it was rules as NOT violating copyright. This is NOT MY LOGIC; it is the logic of the court directly addressing the "cloud" DVR service.
OUTSIDE of DVR services, this ruling does NOT apply. There are separate rulings relating to peer to peer and file sharing sites. Of course, in a streaming service model, a single copy or few are accessed by many and that is legal, but those are NOT DVR services. Streaming services and iTunes and other services where you pay to download and save to other devices are more like a RETAIL STORE, and certainly not a personal recording device. If a DVR service, something that acts as a personal RECORDING device--NOT a download from a site to your mobile device or to your personal cloud space, but a linear recording device--used that model, it would be in violation of copyright. I suppose the key term would be "TIME SHIFTING" that a DVR provides. There is no "time shifting" from any of the other non-DVR retail stores on the cloud where we download or stream content. PLACE SHIFTING is something different that courts have ruled we have some rights to exercise.
It is what it is: the LAW, and it doesn't always make the best sense and often can NOT be applied to similar examples that would seem, upon spurious examination, seem to be the same thing, but, of course, it isn't.
