Who's responsible for the copyright violation?

to your response: sure you haven't (or perhaps have not decided to read enough into the response to see where you stand.)

my question to you is: why did you bother asking if you feel completely innocent in all this?

I completely do not understand what your trying to say here.



Is it wrong to present your opinion when asking a question?

Last I checked "The Tron Guy" isn't being sued by Disney, maybe he's obtained permission from them. He's certainly benefitted in a few ways from his slightly over-the-top enthusiasm.

Is Disney suing him? Have they granted him limited rights to use both the name of one of their films and the signature costuming apperance portrayed in it? Does he fall within the 'fair use' clause? I dunno.

"Am I safe wearing my bootleg Mickey Mouse costume?"

Probably, you're beneath their notice.

But, seriously, how can people wear copy-cat forgeries and maintain any degree of self-esteem?

The original question was who is liable for copyright infringements. The answer is both the buyer and the seller, in the described situation.

Ignorance of the infringement is not a defense.

Whether you will get caught, let alone punished, is immaterial to the question asked. It's a different question altogether, with a completely different answer space.

To Feldspar:

The law does not enumerate common sense, nor does it enumerate all the billions of different shades of gray situations. If you come into the possession of an infringing work, that is prima facie evidence that you had something to do with creating and/or obtaining said work, and is enough by itself to get you served with a suit, according to the law. If there is enough incentive, financial or otherwise, for the copyright holder to go after you, they will. Whether they will get anything more than the infringing copy destroyed is another matter. The infringing copy is illegal ("infringing" implies it being so) to exist; it is also illegal to possess.

In practice, I will stipulate that it is not common that someone reporting you for being in possession of a single infringing copy of a protected work will result in anything significant occurring, but it can. There are examples of cases in the court record, the type of work notwithstanding. I don't have the links to the cases right here in front of me, though given enough time, I can find them again, because I have seen them reported on in the past. I also have been advised of same from my IP attorney, and, if you have any doubts yourself, I would advise you to consult your own. I am not an attorney, and what I say on the subject isn't meant to be definitive, but it is (mostly, I believe) correct.

I looked up "The Tron Guy" out of curiosity and it looks like parody which is arguably defendable against copyright infringement claims under what is known as the fair use doctrine in copyright law.

Yeah I tend to agree, comments about Disney vigorously enforcing its copyright notwithstanding. I'm well aware of Disney's aggressive stance. Disney is in fact the reason why the duration of time required for copyrighted material to pass into public domain was extended in the United States. People often refer to the federal law which extended the duration as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.
If it were a bigger metaverse population with a bigger market where it might be worth Disney's own effort to either make and sell avatars or license the right to make and sell avatars to others it might be a different story but right now it is chump change and free advertising for Disney.

Although they are popularly described as being lawsuits about "illegal downloading", they are actually about illegal uploading. The people are using "peer to peer" file "sharing" programs, where it not only downloads the song, but also makes it available for other people to then download from your computer. Perhaps some people are unaware of how those programs work, and think it's just downloading. But unless you go to some trouble to turn it off, it is having your personal computer act as a server, and people are downloading the music off your machine, too. (Everyone involved is acting in this way, so rather than a client-server situation, where everybody is downloading from some central place, you are all acting as up/download "peers".)

Recently, a judge in an RIAA case ruled that merely having the unauthorized copy of the music on your machine was not enough, even if you were running the peer-to-peer file "sharing" software. Just because you made your (illegal) copy of the song available on the network for others to download, you are not guilty of infringement. Now the RIAA has to specifically prove in detail that not only did you have the unauthorized copy on your computer, but that some other person actually in fact downloaded it from you.

That's because merely posessing an unauthorized copy of a song, and even going so far as to put it up on a network whose sole purpose is for other people to infringe, is not a copyright violation. You have to actually make and distribute a copy to a specific person, otherwise you didn't infringe.

The person you got it from infringed, of course.

The cases are about both, because the defendants are generally doing both for the exact reasons you specify. The main reason is because the RIAA sees more of a potential for success (and financial return) in cases where someone "passed it on multiple times" than simply downloaded a song by itself. That doesn't make downloading a song, or having an infringing copy any less illegal, simply that they chose not to go after that segment of infringement.

In the Argument against Jammie Thomas (which the RIAA won, btw), the following citations appeared regarding downloading:



Thus, downloading songs, even without intent to reupload, has established case history of being illegal.



Actually, there are two opposing rulings, almost back-to-back. The ruling you are referring to, in London-Sire vs Doe, was one ruling. The other, the same day, in Elektra v. Barker, the judge ruled that an offer to distribute a file on a P2P network can infringe the distribution right, even if no one ever actually downloaded it from you. As a result, different courts will ultimately have to harmonize the two stances, so it is unclear where it will go from here at the moment.



Unfortunately, you draw the wrong conclusion from two conflicting decisions. I will stipulate, at best, possession of an infringing copy of a song or other work is a murky issue (except in the case of software; mere possession of an infringing copy of a piece of software is actionable, and has been acted on successfully a number of times by organizations like the BSA). I do believe that it is still illegal (and it is explicitly stated in Copyright Law in some parts of the world, most notably India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UK), though, even if there is no US case law precedent, it is still prima facie evidence of infringement by the possessor. IE, it is VERY likely that the possessor of the infringing copy is the one who caused it to come into being. Thus, in the situation where a copyright holder files suit against someone for infringement, possession of an infringing copy is pretty damning evidence in and of itself, though it may not be sufficient to win the case. Either way, the best policy is to avoid having/obtaining infringing copies, and, at the very least, any infringing copies in your possession determined by such a case would most likely be removed from your possession.

Copyright law is primarily civil law, so there is no presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and liability is automatic.