Here's Latios with a lesson in Copyrights (because I went insane in 2003 over Pokemon anime bootleggers).
About reproduction.
1. The hard part about reproduction is, when is it right, and when is it wrong.
2. The reason why music reproduction is allowed is back in the days of prerecorded tapes, tapes were fragile devices. Put them on a large speaker, boom erased. Within months, boom distortions. It's a wonder why the court hasn't changed this law given the logic of the next point.
3. The reason why game reporduction is not allowed is because the original media they're on is not subject to fragility as tapes. Indeed, many NES games back in the 80's still work perfectly, minus any battery backup device they used. The case actually might not be so much justifable, considering how fragile CDs and DVDs are compared to cartridges.
4. Recording stuff off a TV is fine, why else is there VHS? In fact, that was the very reason why it exists, minus the whole Betamax fiasco.
5. If you do make a reproduction, it's only legal if it's for yourself or for your immediately family for some special reason (the example I remember was a man creating a mix tape for his brother who was getting married). Since it's only for yourself, technically, you're not distributing it. Though with TV VHS recordings, it's a gray area.
About distribution.
1. The creator and publisher has all distribution rights to the product. Nobody else, unless gotten explicit written permission from the company or the creator, can distribute the product in any shape, form, or fashion.
2. Downloading anime means killing the potential overseas company, and the main company losing money on potential selling of DVD's. While it won't affect them much (I don't think) for a raw TV recording, copying a DVD and uploading it hampers the sales.
3. Nobody other than the company itself is authorized to distribute the product. The way the TV program's creators make money is by selling the product. How can they make money if their product is litterally being given away?
About Editing
1. Modifying the content is illegal due mostly in part that it would go against what the original copyright owner intended. Though censorship may be allowed, simply because the distributor has the right to not distribute the product (which if popular will have no other choice but to comply) unless it's modified, and of course, to comply with national laws.
2. Another justification why modifying is illegal is because you're taking someone else's work and planting it in your own (AKA, plagarism).
About Fair Use
1. There's a condition in copyright laws called fair use. Meaning, you can use copyrighted material for specific purposes only. If you want to use a passage from an encyclopedia, you can provided you give credit, and you're not making money off of it. Otherwise, you'd have to go through a waiting period of requesting, and then waiting for a response. This was established because technically nobody could use anything that was copyrighted for any purpose, when such material could very well be the most perfect example.
2. If used for educational and/or informational purposes, it's under fair use.
3. If the company does not have the potential to lose any money. Falls in conjunction with #2.
4. If there is no other way to present the information (tricky).
5. If it's of a much lower quality than the original (though it has to fall in line with the others).
Why uploaded anime is illegal:
Because the person who uploaded it is acting as a distributor, which was established that unless you're the holder of the copyright, you can't do.
Why AMV's are "illegal" to upload:
Because they contain content in which was edited, is not for education/informational use, and is typically in the same quality as the original. Not only that, it contains a full-length song, which was established that if you do reproduce the music, it must only be for yourself.
