If someone record a TV program (for example: ESPN) on a DVD and then
sell the DVD to other people.
Who has the right/power to take the legal action against this person? 
Local Police, FBI, CIA, the buyer or the TV program owner?  
What law the person is breaking?

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Request for Question Clarification by cynthia-ga on 06 Jul 2006 23:30 PDT

That would be the copyright police!  LOL, seriously,
copyright-holders/owners are their own police. If the copyright owner
finds you, you will probably receive a strongly worded cease & desist
letter, followed up with a lawsuit if you did not comply.

Just who are the copyright police?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Soapbox/Just-who-are-the-copyright-police/2005/06/15/1118645854663.html

Copyright police train sniffer dogs to find DVDs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/11/gogs_hunt_dvds/

Legitimate DVDs, etc. always carry a Copyright Notice at the start and
this gives dire warnings that counterfeiters will have committed a
civil and/or a criminal offence.

In the US, the FBI are mentioned and in the UK it's an organisation
known as FAST (Federation Against Software Theft). Whether or not they
ever take any action, I don't know.

Clearly, copies taken from TV will not include the standard Copyright
Notice but I guess that the FBI and FAST could also take action.

In fact, piracy is a world-wide business and I suspect that neither
the FBI nor FAST would have any jurisdiction over Chinese pirates, for
example.

In the United States, copyright is among the legal concepts that's
been codified as part of permanent federal law--in Title 17, to be
exact.

That title allows for both civil and criminal penalties for copyright
violations. As far as criminal law goes, it appears that copyright
violations are among the legal matters given to the FBI's
jurisdiction. Presumably, the copyright holder could initiate civil
proceedings against infringers.

"Legitimate DVDs, etc. always carry a Copyright Notice at the start..."

Not only legitimate DVDs, it seems. There was this amusing story of a
recent FBI raid of movie piracy rings
(http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/piracy_ny063006.htm ) where the
bootleggers apparently included the FBI warning on their illegal
copies...)

Go figure.