OT: Boycott technicalvideorental.com

Hi, I'm Travis Corcoran, founder and president of Technical Video Rental.

I'd like to address a few issues, and reassure folks here that we're not ripping off Rudy's estate ... or anyone else.

The assertions that have been brought up here include:

  • we have illegal copies in our inventory
  • it is illegal to rent out videos without paying royalties
  • we purchased "just one copy" of some videos from cbbaga.ca, and then did something unethical

Addressing these in order:

We do not have a single illegal copy of any video anywhere in our inventory. We've communicated with dozens and dozens of vendors and reassured them of that, and also told them that if they ever want to do an audit of our inventory for illegal copies, we'd be happy to help. We've got over a dozen 3" binders filled with receipts for every purchase we've ever made, and we can document the legal origin of every one of the tens of thousands of DVDs in our inventory. I take copyright violations very seriously, and would NEVER engage in such activity.

As some others have pointed out on related threads in the metalworking usenet group, it is perfectly legal to rent out videos, assuming that they were legally purchased. This is called the under the "First Sale Doctrine", and it has been part of the law for a century. TVR consulted with a lawyer before going into business, and we are a member in good standing of the VSDA - an association of video rental stores. Glenn Ashmore points out that Blockbuster pays a royalty to the studios. This is not exactly correct. As a business decision, Blockbuster decided to negotiate a deal with a few studios, so that instead of buying copies of videos outright (the way that Technical Video Rental and most other video rental stores do), they instead get free copies from the studios and then pay them a small fee for each rental. This is *not* a royalty scheme.

I'd also like to address one particular commenter directly. Adam Smith tells a distressing tale of how Technical Video Rental purchased one copy of his mother's video, and then illegally pirated it.

The truth is quite different.

TVR purchased

3 copies of Bookbinding Intro course 2 copies of Bookbinding Intermediate course 1 copy of Bookbinding Advanced Course 2 copies of Endpapers 3 copies of Bookbinding with Leather 1 copy of Restoration and Repair

as well as other titles.

...thus putting thousands of dollars in the hands of the original vendor.

We have the receipts to document this.

To give an example of our good faith dealings, I'll also point out that we contacted the vendor (cbbag.ca) regarding the fact that their DVD prices were $125 higher than their VHS prices (which the website said was because of high DVD duplication costs), and helpfully suggested some DVD duplicating services that they might have good luck with.

At some point the vendor decided that they wished to prevent would-be bookbinders from having access to videos except through themselves, and they then silently stopped filling orders from TVR.

Since that time we have not added any additional copies of videos from cbbag.ca to our inventory.

We at Technical Video Rental are quite proud with the good relations we have with the vast majority of our vendors, and we're proud of the fact that we make high quality video training much more widely available to the folks who seek it out.

And, by the way, I'm not just some suit running a company. I'm a hobbyist woodturner, I've taken a turning class at the North Bennet Street school, I've got a Powermatic lathe in my woodshop, and one of the reasons I started TVR was so that I could get view a lot of woodturning videos that interested me ( such as...

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me,

Travis J I Corcoran, President Technical Video Rental, Inc.

Reply to
tjic_google_com
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I remember that post some time ago. What isn't clear to me is if you folks copy the video and rent the copy or if you send the original video out. If you're sending out the original, then everything is on the up and up. I can understand too, if you bought three copies of a video and duplicated it three times, sending the duplicates out but keeping the "masters" on hand but not rented. I'm sure they get pretty beat up. Can you clarify what exactly you guys actually do?

OK, so I went to cbbag.ca and found some video rentals but no DVD rentals. The only reference to DVDs I found there was this notice:

"All tapes are vhs. CBBAG is working on DVD conversion to reduce the postal rate for envelopes under 1" thick, and for those with only DVD players. CBBAG Members will inform when these become available."

I think I'm missing something here. Or something doesn't add up. Or something. Maybe I'm just missing the page w/DVDs on it. Got a URL?

Also appreciate the open-source stance on the web site but that's a different sermon.

S'later...

...Kevin

Reply to
Kevin Miller

My comments are interspersed below.

These are to the message Travis posted on rec.knives, which is a little bit different than the one posted here. I don't believe that the differences are significant.

I never said that. I have no reason to believe that technicalvideorental has not purchased all of the videos that they are circulating.

I never said that.

I did state that a single copy was purchased of each title, I stand corrected on that point (by your remarks below), that more than one copy was purchased of a few titles. The fact has no bearing on my criticism.

I did say that. I believe that ethical commercial dealings are based on a shared understanding of the terms of a given agreement between the parties. I believe that at least some of your suppliers do not understand that "fair use" allows you to rent their work when you purchase it, and would not sell to you, if they understood your intent. You may choose to disagree, but I, personally, therefore regard your practise as unethical, even though it is legal. The fact that you do your video purchases (or at least some of them, in any case), using your personal name, rather than your business name, shows that you agree that some, perhaps most, of your suppliers would not be willing to sell to an outfit called "technicalvideorental", because they are hoping to remain the sole providers of their work.

Already stipulated that this statement is correct, see above.

With regards to the use of the word "pirate" I quote from my earlier communications: "... Personally I'd rather give my money to the authors than to pirates, (even if legal pirates). I don't mean to imply that they are in violation of any agreement or EULA that CBBAG had on it's published material, they are not. ... " I hope that it is clear from the whole passage that I was not stating that TVR was illegally copying the videos, but I do regret my use of the word "pirate", and apologise for it.

Would you be willing to sell them back to us at the original price? CBBAG will buy them, if you will sell them.

It was never CBBAG's intent to sell the videos to a video rental service. What CBBAG _did_ do, was change the terms of their agreement, so that purchasers explicitly waive their fair use "right to rent".

I really don't doubt that most of technicalvideorentals suppliers are willing. Perhaps you should include in your listings on each video whether the author has objected to your use, explicitly stated that they have agreed to it, whatever the status is.

Reply to
Adam Smith

Does the number of copies you purchase, or the price you pay for them, allow you to rent them out for profit or to copy them and rent them out? I am unclear in this area.

If so, can I do this also? I have a wall of dvd movies and television shows.

Reply to
Jules

I am wondering if the name of the company "Technical Video Rental" could have tipped anyone off as to what might become of their videos. Or maybe a check from a company with the same name, or the words "video rental" in the name. Or maybe multiple copies of the same video....

Our local Woodcraft used to rent videos, and most were clearly marked where to get the videos for purchase directly from the producer of the video. The ones I saw had a web site and info at the start and finish of the video in case it turned out to be a "must have".

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Under US and Canadian copyright law, any legally purchased copy of a video may be rented out.

The copyright law does NOT give anyone besides the original author the right to duplicate the video...and TVR does NOT ever duplicate videos.

Can you do this?

Absolutely - if you own a legally purchased movie or TV show, you're free to start a competing company.

TJIC

Reply to
tjic_google_com

Good luck enforcing that.

If you want to keep them from renting your videos, drop the price to where it makes more sense to own than to rent. That will kill the rentals. Your actual dup & shipping costs shold be in the range of about $5. You could profitably sell for about $10 whereas he cannot rent for anything less than about $5. Why not rent them out yourselves? Your cost is well under his.

Bill

Reply to
Bill

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