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Video Information From Disinformation
The movie industry, at least as embodied by the eight big studios that make up the MPAA, has an attitude about home movie viewing of "fair use, schmair use." Just because you bought a movie on DVD, and the hardware to play it back, the MPAA doesn't want you to watch it except with playback mechanisms they've approved. And despite the relative fame (or is it notoriety?) of software to allow viewing DVDs under Linux, or to convert the data-hungry DVD format to leaner alternatives, using it is beyond the ken of most computer users -- Yes, even Linux users. Not to worry.
Nick Hodulik, Director of Technology for disinfo.com writes:
" [...] Anyway, I thought that Slashdot might be interested in a dossier that we are featuring this week. The dossier covers the basics/history of the DivX codec, Video Compression, and DVD piracy. In addition the dossier features numerous links to tutorials and further information. I'm excited about this piece because I feel that it not only is a good introduction to this genre, but it also provides the reader with access to just about everything needed make and play DivX encoded files. The dossier is currently being featured on the front-page of disinfo.com, and is also accessible at [T his page].The brief history and explanation of DeCSS and DivX is geared to readers unfamiliar with them, and probably contains little new information to regular slashdot readers. On the other hand, the collection of links -- leading to information about setting up video playback on your system, about the DeCSS saga in more detail, and about next-generation DivX codecs -- is well-chosen and worth exploring top to bottom.
As far as I'm concerned it's simple. Since DVD is not a consumer friendly product, I refuse to buy into it. I won't buy a DVD-ROM, nor a DVD player, nor will I buy any DVDs. Not only are they restricted in a way I do not like, they are about the same price as two VHS videos.
/. justify posting articles about how unfair DVDs are, followed by articles about new DVD releases?)
Sure, I miss out on some content. I miss out on setting up a digital theatre. But in exchange, I get to tell the MPAA that I don't support their practices, and never will, and I get to tell them in the way that bothers them most -- by not giving them money.
So for all the people that complain about how restrictive DVDs are, and how wrong it is for the MPAA to behave as they are, how do you justify buying DVDs to yourself?
(And how does
I may have problems in the future if games start shipping exclusively on DVD. I don't yet know what I'll do if that happens, but you can bet I won't be buying video DVDs.
--
goldfish
See my point?
I find that DVD Digest offers some great tutorials and programs. It isn't that tough, especially with FlaskMPEG. I however prefer to use other codecs other than DivX.
Sorry to say however, its only for Wintel.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Idea: watch the stupid movie, then return it to the store and ask for a refund complaining about the stupid ads.
I've never encountered one of those but that would annoy me as much as spam.
>One more thing: why do I have to pay the copyright for the DVD when I paid it when I bought the same movie on tape?
Not that I agree with it, but it's at least defendable that the DVD contains more material than the same movie on tape. Now the other way round would be harder.. a tape contains only part of what's on a DVD..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I think there is very little to stop DVD piracy and other such things. Even if Big Business uses federal law, my server is not covered by it. Why? I'm Irish. And if the EU adopts anti competition laws (which they never will) and outlaws fair use then I have friends in Russia and Austrailia who have servers. Basically as long as there is no standard world law about somthing, you will always be able to get anything from a server in Outer Mongolia. However they could outlaw the downloading of certain software (which would mean that they have to evesdrop our connections). This has happened in the case of certain types of porn (which I agree with) but in Ireland (and I'm sure other places) the authorities will never be allowed to tap connections. Thus any Genie which escapes will roam rampant over the Internet. But remember this could backfire on us (I don't know how, but this type of freedom requires a lot of responsibility to handle)
Pretty much right on. This case is important because it's about the rights of a corporate entity to restricr products after sale in ways that has never been legal before. If reverse engineering is decalered illegal in the USA, this could bring about a new "Dark Age". When was the last time a corporation invented something truly Earth shattering? Most great fundamental life changing inventions/innovations come from imdividuals. (Edison, Franklin, Ford, Einstein etc). The right to reverse engineer is really the right to build on previous work. If everyone has to start from scratch with EVERY new invention (unless a corp with cross-licensing of stupid patents), it's easy to see nothing will get done. I can see the world of "Demolition Man" and "Rollerball" coming true... Let's all stand for our Corporate Anthem...
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
no further comments... <grin>
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
we've all been screwed over by the government as they keep extending, even retroactively, the copyright term
Duh ! Why do you Americans, when you get screwed by big business, always blame your governement ? Those copyright laws were made BY corporations FOR corporations, they just bought a bunch of loosy officials that are there because YOU, the American citizens, are not voting the way you should.
Your sentence is really typical of the US : long rant about how your rights are taken away by corporations and capitalism, then you finish your rant by putting the blame on the governement. Well, I'm sorry, but your gov don't give a sh* about what you do with your DVD, it is the MPAA and Hollywood studios who do. Go after the REAL enemy, and if you don't like your governement, VOTE, or better, get into politics.
That sounds like an ex post facto law.
Hmm, US Constitution, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3:
An "ex post facto" law is one which affects events before the law went into effect.Example - I cross the street, in the crosswalk, with the signal, but I am wearing a t-shirt which says "I want my DeCSS!" This is legal, I'm crossing the street in accordance with local ordinances, and my t-shirt is legally protected free speech.
But someone *cough* MPAA *cough* doesn't like that, so they get a law passed which says that crossing the street in protest-wear is illegal, and that it always has been illegal. But I'm a nice boy, so I don't cross the street in my DeCSS shirt anymore.
However, the MPAA really wants me, so they use the video tape of my original crossing to haul me into court. I crossed the street before the law was passed, but that doesn't matter, because the law affects acts commited before it was passed. In this way, politicians and companies can make today's lawful act into tomorrow's crime, but still arrest those who committed the act when it was legal.
I can be arrested for acts which weren't crimes when I acted!
The fragment of the Constitution listed above prevents this sort of thing from happening, when it is enforced. It isn't being enforced very well, in my estimation. Copyright being extended on works written before the law which affects them? Sounds ex-post-facto to me. The 1993 tax changes affected income from January 1993 onward, but the law wasn't enacted until several months later. Sounds ex-post-facto to me.
Anything which is retroactive is ex post facto. And un-Constitutional.
Louis Wu
"Where do you want to go ...
Last I heard, the Lumiere brothers were responsible for the first motion picture with a movie projector. Rotoscopes were certainly popular before then and Edison may have been involved in developing those, but it's a heck of a big jump from a rotoscope to a movie projector.
Next you'll be trying to tell me Bill Gates or Al Gore invented the Internet! OK, it's a bad parallel since the ARPAnet actually was developed at US universities and funded by the US DOD
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Lay off the bad crack, my friend.
News flash: DeCSS was written as a windows program to crack CSS on dvd's, and it was done _because they could_. These guys didn't have dreams of a DVD player for linux in their heads or anything.
Welcome to the REAL world
Good point.
If I purchase something, is it not MINE and soley MINE becase I have paid the money for it. This should mean that I can do anything I want with it.
It's kinda sad that if I buy a DVD, I could get sued for trying to play it on my Linux system, even though the DVD is MINE! It's MINE I should be able to do whatever I want with it because I own it. If I want to use it as a frisby, that's my right. What happened to freedom in this country??? The large corporation made us pay for it.
Why does the little guy always get stomped on? How can any large corporation make any money without the little guy anyway?
Unfortunately for large corporations, the internet is too powerful and too vast to control. In other words, THEY BETTER GIVE CONSUMERS WHAT THEY WANT OR THEY WILL BE SCREWED! They could be making a lot of money on comercial Linux DVD players right now, but they are missing out. Sorry, too late, DeCSS is free, I'll just download that instead of paying $50 for your comercial product (if a comercial player was ever released).
I sure hope that you're not a manager.
I can't think of too many things worse than a manager who is a fan of Machiavelli.
Except once I worked for a guy who absolutely loved the Godfather series of movies. He would quote from them constantly, and he'd use examples from the movies to illustrate his points in meetings. I still remember the day when the guy in the cubicle across from me came to work and there was a horse's head in his chair.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Well, when you rant, you gotta be prepared for an anti-rant... :)
By that argument, it would be perfectly fine to call someone a nAzI or FAscisT because the difference in case indicates we really are not talking about 19th century dictatorships here.
Evidently, we're not talking about 19th century dictatorships; Nazism and Fascism are 20th century phenomena.
Why would someone choose to promote ambiguity?
Maybe, just maybe, the particular guy at Marketing who was in charge of the product name had never heard of the original DIVX. That's not very unfeasible, considering the nature of Marketing departments in general. (Ever heard of the Chevrolet Nova?) As somebody once said, don't attribute to malice that which can be equally well explained by stupidity.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Anyone read this on the FAQ.
Q: What is DeCSS, and how does it work?
A: DeCSS is akin to a tool that breaks the lock on your house.
Exactly. Some are trying to get into their own house, but MPAA sold them locks with no keys.
Mark this as off topic please.
I wonder whether the decision to create this page had anything to do with the current 2600 / MPAA legal battle. Though 2600 have several arguments supporting their case, one point they often make is that it is difficult for the average linux user to use DeCSS for piracy, (find that somewhere in Goldsteins deposition for example). In my opinion it is unclear whether this site will aid 2600's case or hinder it.
DivX is a microsoft creation, right?
deCss allows you to rip movies off of DVD's, but the resulting movie file is way too large to be useful to anyone for transportation. And they get sued for making a utility that allows for piracy.
I'd say that DivX's ability to make the movie size small enough for transfer (at least more reasonable than before) makes me curious why MPAA isn't going for them. I mean, RIAA is going after mp3 and all.
Let me guess... Because microsoft is too big? Gah.
DivX is a real hack of a standard - basically, it's just a leaked version of the MPEG 4 codec from Microsoft, and a MP3 audio stream. You need a pretty fast computer to decode it, and it's only decodable on computer. I personally would rather use my nice big TV to watch movies.... SVCD is far better in my opinion - it offers most of the features of DVD (menus, overlayed subtitles, multiple audio tracks), and nearly every DVD player out there will play an SVCD. SVCD compression isn't as good as DivX (space wise, not quality, which depends on the encoder). SVCD is MPEG 2 compression which is fairly standard across all computers - the DivX codec on the only linux player is a hack on the Windows codec, making it x86 only. DivX seems like a fad to me - the codec is so new and not standardized that I doubt it'll last too long before the next fad compression technology comes out. Seems like the old audio compression format battles of a couple years ago - the open standard (mp3) prevailed over others (AAC, .rm, etc)
Partly. General mutt, but, yeah, some Scottish. (Clan Graham, in fact, but I've learned there are two basically unrelated Clans Graham, and I can't say which ... my brother claims some direct ancestor is featured as a character in Braveheart, and dies in the climactic battle, but I can't say I know how he researched that!)
And I like the word "ken" anyhow. In fact, look how many 3-letter words there are that share the same 2nd and 3rd letter!
ben
den
e'en (OK, an archaic contraction, but still)
fen
gen (commonly accepted shorthand for "generation")
hen
Jen (shorthand for Jennifer but also a name of its own sometimes)
ken
men
pen
ten
yen
zen
I think in the construction [noun or consonant] + [vowel] + n, *en wins hands down. And most of them could be used in Scrabble!
Boy this sure is strong coffee, mmm-mmm.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
We are losing a right by not being able to watch a movie.
No you are losing a privelege(sp).
Did you not read anything he wrote? The basic system of copyright is a privilege granted to people who create things so that they may restrict what the public does with it. There are exceptions to exactly what they may restrict, which falls under fair use. If copyright did not give the creators the privilege, then you would be free to do whatever you wanted with it. You have the two concepts mixed up - it's the copyright holders that have the privilege, not the public.
It is a choice to purchase an item in a free market: purchase grants property rights. The balance between intellectual property rights and physical property rights are encoded into law (including precedent law). To suggest that my rights are merely privilidges is the beginning of hostility. I am offended.
I has been seen in the past, as your examples state, that something DOES win out; what "wins out" is whatever senario will realize the most revenue. Apparently, at least in those previous circumstances it was realized that catering to the new technology would do just that. Will this trend necessarily continue? I wouldn't hold my breath on it. But I do hope you're right.
P.S. I like your postscript....a little Carnivore-bait.....hehehehehe
pipe-bomb, mass-destruction, Federal Building, cyanide, nitrogen rich compounds, fuses, Communists.....heheheheheh....this is FUN! murder, death, destruction....ah....Fire! Death, Destruction, people running and screaming in every direction.....skunks and raccoons sleeping together....hehehehehe
Guyote was here.....
I don't buy DVD discs or drives. I'm not going to either...
Bravo! I too refuse entry into a sullied swimming pool.
This is one of THE most important cases in the history of US civil rights law, yet most people are unaware or uninformed... Last night, I watched the "futuristic" movie "Rollerball" (for those who haven't seen it, it stars James Caan and is about a future world controlled by corporations who ask only one thing of citizens "don't interfere with management"). On Turner Classic Movies of all places too;) Anyway, IF a cartel like the MPAA is allowed to control not only distribution, but HOW a movie is played, this is a VERY Bad Thing (tm). Imagine General Electric selling you a light bulb, but including a shrinkwrap license informing you it could only be used in an approved Light Fixture (tm). GE and all the other makers of Light Fixtures require confiscatory royalties of any company wanting to produce one, which keeps the prices of them artificially high (due to lack of competition). One day a 16 year old kid decides to make his own light fixture to use the light bulb he's bought from GE, because for whatever reason he's unhappy with the choices in the market. He discovers that it isn't any harder than connecting two wires to the light bulb. He spreads this information on the Internet, and gets sued by GE and all the other light bulb manufacturers... How is this example, as facesious as it is any different from what is actually happening in this case? This is about the fundamental cicil liberty of an individual to USE a product that is purchased in a non-destructive, non harmful manner, in a similar manner in which similar products have been used for many years. If the MPAA wins, the fantasy of Rollerball may be more real than ficton.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
The fundemental principles of copyright do not anywhere claim that it's a right for creators to make money. It's not. The point is for works to promote the arts and sciences, chiefly by there being very many works which are in the public domain and are totally free for anyone to copy and use at will. In order to achieve this, Congress may permit authors and inventors short-lived and limited monopolies on their works and inventions.
Methinks its about a ballance: promoting (maximizing) the public good while doing the least necessary for the artist to allow the artist to continue generating. The original intention was that copyrights would be short term. If you wanted to be cutting edge you bought it new. Else you'd wait for the expiration of said copyright and get it for *free*.
Ah...those were the days! Actually Dover Reprints are today more similar to the intent of copyright: they reprint math and science books that have fallen out of print at amazing prices.
So then it would appear that the only course for a good citizen is to act to legislate the bottleneck out of exsistence. How do we do this? Petitions? Boycotts? Letters to Congress? Legal defense funds? Volunteer time to the ACLU?
>closed standards like that only hurt business.
How? It's not like this is Sony saying that only Sony products can use a memory stick while their competitors stand by watching. There are no competitors standing by watching helplessly. They are all in on it. The hardware producers make sales, the movie format producers make sales. You don't want to buy DVD? Buy a VCR and video cassette tapes... it doesn't matter the money goes to the exact same place.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
I guess the idea is really who cares? So the MPAA doesn't want you to watch stuff on whatever. Ok just don't buy the hardware in the firstplace. Sometimes it seems that people act like you are losing some right by not being able to watch a DVD movie. It's not like your day is incomplete without the 15th anniversary release of Teen Wolf with extra footage.
I've heard about another format called SMR... which according to one friend is of higher quality than DivX. I don't use Micros~1 Winblows so I'm not really in the loop when it comes to movie piracy...
the real at&t mix
It has been in the courts many times, and the good guys usually won. But with the DVD situation, they didn't start in the courts, they bought some legislation first: DMCA. With the legislation there to back their court cases, the threat these assholes pose should be taken very seriously. This strategy successfully worked to suppress DAT.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Actually, the biggest thing I learned from the double-nickles law is that the "law is an ass." Just like first-year law students. :-)
A bit more details: I grew up in Orlando, and Florida was experimenting with metric speed limit signs due to the large number of international tourists. (They've since gone back to stone-age units alone.) So we had plenty of street signs like "30 (50)", but one always stood out as being very odd: "55 (88)". The problem was that the obvious sign, "55 (90)" couldn't be used because it would legally permit a speed of 56.1 mph (or thereabouts) and That Was Not Permitted. I guess we were expected to believe that a cop would pull us over if we were going 56 MPH and ticket us if we had a domestic driver's license, but let us go if we had an int'l license.
But this teaching us that some laws are optional - nah. People, teenagers especially, have considered speed limits optional since the first speed limit signs were posted. Hell, I'm almost 40 and I still think that today (albeit for other reasons - I now focus my wrath on the yuppie neighborhood that got a major street's speed limit dropped from 40 to 25, not the wide open rural street where the speed limit is "only" 75).
Nope, teenagers have always learned that laws are optional from their parents. It's disgusting that people walk into the front door of the porn shop - they should use the back door like all self-respecting citizens! They should crack down on drunkards/druggies/whatever, not social drinkers/potheads like us!
Hell, consider one of the canonical teen movies - "Porky's." A key point is catching the moralizing preacher and mayor watching a porn flick. That was pulled out of real life, and it's why (imho) most people are somewhat cynical about the law and law enforcement.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
With minor differences, this is a standard lease agreement. It turned the car industry upside-down, for a period of a couple years. Now, it's about equal to the purchase-outright agreement. The benefits and problems are a personal decision to the buyor/lessor. But atleast they have a choice.
using it is beyond the ken of most computer users
ken? Are you scottish, Timothy?
This is usually caused by a bad disc (the lockups) or by purchasing a DVD player from a company that has very poor quality control. Buying a good quality product is much more important in the world of digital video as small problems can make themselves very apparent (Panasonic and Sony are 2 very good DVD manufacturers, however, the format is still maturing and problems will be found CD/VHS/LD are much more mature). The advertisements/FBI messages can be annoying but are hardly consumer unfriendly.
Bill
Actually, if you're working on coding an ac3 or mpeg2 decoder, an unencrypted vob file is a great asset. I have several ac3 files on my hard drive that I have used to test and debug my multichannel ac3 decoder.
A real player is being written. DeCSS was a part of the development process.
we must all remember that this is not the first time 'the law' has been used as a device to throttle new technology
Not true. 'The law' is a frequent tool to stifle new technology. For example, one law in the early days of the automobile required that a driver, when coming to an intersection, dismount, look for traffic, shout a warning in each direction, fire a pistol in the air, and only then proceed. This was obviously an attempt to make the use of 'horseless carriages' such a pain to use that no one would want to. Another example was the early suits again Sony for the Betamax, claiming that it was going to be used as a piracy tool. Even more recently was the suit again the Diamond Rio (the MP3 player) for the same reason. The establishment has a long history of whacking threats with the law, and they're frequently helped by our political 'leaders'. As Machiavelli said in The Prince: We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things while those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.
Woops. The first sentaence should say, "Unfortunately, all too true."
For a site speciallizing in "disinformation", I was rather surprised/disappointed that disinfo.com has done just what the MPAA has done and equated decryption (and the accessibility it gains) to piracy. Wrong! As has been discussed here (many many times) bypassing CSS does not automatically lead to piracy.
Unfortuantely, the DivX part of the article seemed to be a "Ha! You can't stop us pirating movies any more than you can stop us pirating music!"-type rant. This is not helping...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
I guess the idea is really who cares?
I'm not altogether concerned about it being movies, so much as information that's being restricted. What happens when some publisher decides to start distributing e-books in DVD-like format? According to the logic of (and precedent pursued by) the MPAA, even if the information on that disc is in the public domain, by accessing the data thereon in either an unanticipated or unintended manner, the reader would be committing a federal offense. (This in spite of the legality of the purchase said reader made in the first place.) Again, who cares, so long as the information is available in other, less restrictive formats? There's always the potential that those formats could cease to be available, for whatever reason; although the likelihood of that happening in some cases isn't all that high, it's still concerning.
All that aside, it's a ridiculous restriction on published information and private property; would you buy a book for which the publisher demanded that you read with their special reading lamp? And if, for whatever reason, you bought the book (perhaps because it was the only format in which it was available, or the best, cheapest, most easily available, etc.), would you really restrict yourself to buying and using their lamp? I bet I'd be out under a shade tree on a nice day, reading by natural light, or using some awful department-store bedside lamp - and I think most people would, too.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
I have that exact quote from Machiavelli framed nad hanging in my office.
I'm glad another found it...
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
They'd react by passing anti-trust laws that forbid collusion in doing business. Which is exactly what's happened. Unfortunately, it either doesn't always apply (professional sports leagues like the NFL have gotten themselves exempted, for example), or it isn't equitably enforced.
MONTHS
What? Some of the high quality Ricoh media is rated for _centuries_.
I have lots of burned CD's (crappy bulk media) that are a couple of years old, and they read fine.
No, they must be stopped by the consumer. You don't like the company - boycott it and encourage your friends to do the same. What *has* to be stopped is using legislation to force you in using products that you don't like (e.g., only "licensed" DVD players).
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
With minor differences, this is a standard lease agreement. It turned the car industry upside-down, for a period of a couple years. Now, it's about equal to the purchase-outright agreement. The benefits and problems are a personal decision to the buyor/lessor.
If offered a choice, some people WILL choose the option that YOU wouldn't.
[
There are benefits, that is without doubt. They come at a price of some freedom, and I'm not willing to pay that price. Yes, I can buy a player without region locks, and without macrovision. And probably even one with real digital out, though I'm not sure about that. But doesn't this say to the MPAA, "I don't mind you trying?" What, then, of the relative difficulty of producing a DVD? When you buy into DVDs, you buy into the current set of producers, and no more. CDs, on the other hand, are a digital distribution in an easily duplicatable format, and an open specification. Anyone can produce a CD. Yet for a new producer of DVDs to arise, there are a number of licensing issues. Supporting DVDs is restricting choice. You are right about one thing. My personal boycott is not going to make a difference, except to me. Even if the entire /. community chose to ignore the unquestionable benefits of DVDs, it would still be a relatively small group. I am just hoping (vainly) that DVDs will be replaced by an open, unencumbered solution. Oh, yes, in nearly no time I won't be able to watch movies at home (without breaking the law, which I don't intend to do; even if I disagree with it, breaking it won't help). I'm ok with that, I'll miss out on those special editions, and things like the Transformers movie (I remember seeing that when it came out in the cinemas; the original transformers always bring back nostalgic memories of my childhood) -- I won't, however, participate in something that goes against my principles, no matter how tempting it is. -- goldfish
A few moments after posting, I realized that I wrote 19th century, not 20th... Argh. No, actually that should be, "DUH!". Honestly, I am usually a moderately intelligent guy :-)
:-) It's all in fun.
And the quotes with "righteous" and "evil" are just the literary equivalent of passing wind - please pardon me while I vent
Thanks for your thoughts.
A dingo ate my sig...
He was being a bit facetious there. Disney consciously disables the fast-forward controls at the start of their DVDs so that you actually have to wait through the ads before you can watch the damn movie.
As they say, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."
I do vote, but the candidates generally suck. As for getting into politics, not likely. I don't go to church or follow any particular religion. That alone is probably sufficient to keep me from winning any elections in this country.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The thing is, they won't be prosecuting anyone for breaking an ex post facto law. Since they extended the term before the original term ran out, the copyrighted works will always be covered by current law. That's not the reason this is so disgusting. The reason is that it doesn't follow the intentions of copyright, which are:
"To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
If the works are already created, then extending their copyright term cannot provide anymore incentive to create them. The authors created the works under the copyright laws at the time, which obviously provided sufficient incentive. To extend the copyright term on them does not serve any useful purpose to the public, and therefore should not have been done. Additionally, Congress provided no evidence or justification for extending the copyright term. Why was it needed? Do they have evidence that the current laws weren't providing enough incentive? The US has long been the leading creator of copyrighted works. I think Congress would have had a very difficult time justifying their law with the intent of copyright as written in the Constitution. So they just decided to claim that it was done in order to harmonize US copyright law with the international community. This doesn't fly either. They aren't allowed to do whatever they want just because other countries are doing it. I'd love to see the justifications for ANY of the copyright extensions that have become law.
If anyone is interested, here's a couple links:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/ eldredvreno/
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
hey, slashdot could be sued for free speech if you display something like this here.
Remember the Micrsoft threat with comments regarding kerbos? The mpaa does have enough balls to sue slashdot unlike Microsoft.
Laugh all you may but I am serious.
(I think I'm getting more off topic each time I post. Apologies.)
IP bothers me. It bothers me because I think things are wrong at the moment. Having someone able to claim ownership of an idea, and prevent others using that idea, is awful to contemplate. Conversely, as you point out, the people who create art forms such as music or books need to eat.
So I buy books instead of borrowing from the library, and while I download MP3s, I delete those I don't like, and buy the CDs of those I do.
I don't believe that anyone motivated purely by money can produce good art. A good book has the author's soul in it; a good painting captures a mood or feeling. Good music is something the artist created for themselves. So your hypothetical artist in a post copyright world produces a song, and gets a warm glow inside, followed by a hunger pang. Now, how do they make money so they can eat?
I don't know, and this is what bothers me. I do know that the current copyright system bothers me just as much, because it gives control to a few, restricts the flow of art, culture and information, and denies competition. One only has to look at the patent debacle to see how copyright is problematic to small business.
Actually, one answer is historical -- patronage. Also known these days as R&D. Someone who provides a service wishes to enjoy fine art, and so they pay an artist to produce that art. The artist doesn't get rich, but they can do what they love, and not starve to death. Similarly, a company funds an R&D department, in the hope that some of the ideas generated will be useful.
--
goldfish
DivX, as far as I know, is a hacked version of Microsoft's MPEG4 codec. The homepage for DivX is here, and not on Microsoft's site.
I'd say that DivX's ability to make the movie size small enough for transfer (at least more reasonable than before) makes me curious why MPAA isn't going for them. I mean, RIAA is going after mp3 and all.
Interesting.. they should really reform copyright law into distribution law.
I'm sure that would create new problems but at least it allow you to do whatever you want with a product for your own uses.
The entertainment industry defines our entire culture
I groped around for a witty response and then decided that there was really nothing more to say.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Well, DAT tapes are still hopelessly crippled to this very day, with the recording undustry getting money for each one sold to cover the cost of "piracy". True, the RIAA has won some of the battles, but like a parasite, tends to kill its host. But I wonder to what extent?? The RIAA still gets a bit of revenue for every DAT sold, whether it is for computer backup, studio use, or otherwise.
How long can the hardware manufacturers keep this up?? The R&D is considerable, and then the RIAA comes through and makes these devices unattractive to consumers. Yes, people want to record music, and most of them for non-illegal reasons. I have ripped my CD collection to MP3 so I can keep a copy at work without having to lug around the CD's and damage them. I never have the song playing more than once at a time, etc...
Also, record and movie sales are boosted by the availability of new technology. Just thinking of all of the old vinyl that I have replaced with CD's over the last 5 years makes me cringe. With DVD as a new "standard", many VHS movie buffs will have to have "Army of Darkness" on DVD now.
What the RIAA is looking for is not a preservation of their time-worn business model, but revamping of their buisness model. Not only the control of the medium, but the use of the medium.
The belief that we as consumers will pay $300 for a machine, $10 for a disk, and $4 per view is insane. However, people do it all the time. The DVD's will still be laden with commercials and product placement, and the companies will make money each time you play a movie or DVD.
The only benefit over the above scenario is that the companies are trying to do away with the physical medium, i.e. the $10 disk. In their world, the disk would be replaced by your net connection, but the price per view is $8 per. They defend this pricing by saying that more than one person could be watching at a time, hence it's still a bargain...
Our entertainment industries are clearly out of hand, and the forecast is grimmer for the future.
Wow, did I stray off topic or what??
~The Ham Man
Patola (Cláudio Sampaio) - Solvo IT
IBM CATE
SAIR GNU/Linux Certified
Patola (Claudio Sampaio)
Unix System Administrator
> Congratulations for not prostituting your ideals, but I hate to break it to you: the MPAA does not care about you one bit. Your boycott does not make a difference.
Speaking as Yet Another Dvd Boycotter, I haven't ever, don't, and won't buy DVDs. I know it doesn't hurt the MPAA. Do you think we're trying to change the world? It's not about bringing the MPAA to its knees. It's about having self-respect and not supporting something that we know is wrong.
I haven't bought a cd in almost a year and will not again, unless it's used. I have to admit I've gone to the movies a few times this year, having a girlfriend kind of makes it tough not to, but I have cut back a lot on movies, and will keep doing so.
I have entertainment. Between Alan Dean Foster, Larry Niven, Micheal Flynn, Jerry Pournelle, Orson Scott Card, and Napster, I stay pretty entertained.
In the past, new tech (vinyl, VHS, CDs) have won out over the large corporations, but for a very simple reason, which has nothing to do with copyright. Rather, the music (or in the case of DVDs, video) has existed in tangible form. As such, it requires resources, materials, and special equipment to duplicate (yes, CD burners count as special equipment). In other words, there weren't too many people who could "steal" from them. The recording industry could look the other way, and write off the losses.
In the case of online, digital content, that simply isn't the case any more. Anyone with a net connection and a hard drive can make a copy of the newly-released, newly-ripped DVD. Because their bottom lines are now seriously threatened, whether or not their sales increase due to Napster users previewing music is irrelevant. They have a powerful argument that the long-overlooked piracy is really a danger to their existence, and may win the day in court.
Courts are about upholding the laws, and the laws are the written representation of the status quo. The music and movie industries are certainly the status quo.
Be watchful.
-- Dave
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
As far as I'm concerned it's simple. Since DVD is not a consumer friendly product, I refuse to buy into it. I won't buy a DVD-ROM, nor a DVD player, nor will I buy any DVDs.
.001% of the potential DVD market for whom the politics have any bearing at all on their purchasing decisions. And of them, you comprise the 10% who actually refuse to buy DVDs as a result (as you notice, even the extreme Slashdot anti-DVD crusade obviously wasn't important enough to prevent wide-eyed praise of MPAA member Disney for their DVD release of Princess Mononoke in Japanese or something (who knows, I'm no anime guy)).
Congratulations! Clap, Clap, Clap, encore!
You now comprise the
Congratulations for not prostituting your ideals, but I hate to break it to you: the MPAA does not care about you one bit. Your boycott does not make a difference.
Perhaps you boycott simply because you coulnd't live with yourself seeing a DVD player proudly displayed atop your television. In that case, more power to you. But I hope you're not deluded into thinking that boycotts of you and people like you will bring the MPAA to its knees anytime soon. Boycotts must be MASSIVE before business even blinks an eye.
The problem with the MPAA is that they own the rights to Bladerunner, Dune, and all the other movies I would like to be able to watch at 1024x768 on my monitor (or on my micromirror projector, when I can afford one). Since I've been working for a company that builds high end professional digital video equipment, I'm afraid I've become a bit of a snob when it comes to video quality. Where can I legally get the movies I want to watch in a high quality digital format if not from the MPAA?
The real problem with the MPAA is that they have forgotten the lesson they had to learn with VHS, that the only way to prevent piracy is to provide the product at a reasonable price. Nothing is 100% of course, but how many people will pirate a movie they can buy for $10-20?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Anybody know what happened to the other one? hehe.
Kill, Tux, kill!
> you paid for the content on the DVD that you are DeCSSing...
Well, it's more like you licensed it... you didn't buy it. You bought the right to *use the data in a specific manner.*
It sucks, but the studios, who distribure the software, do have the right to control how you watch it. If a Linux player chaps their hide, tough for Linux users. I don't LIKE it, but it sure seems like this is within their power.
- Make region codes so that folks need to buy either the software or the hardware twice.
- If region code fails, sell region-free players, you can sell twice as many players as you would without region code.
- Make it illegal to make any copies even for home use. The decay time for DVD is 20 years so you can re-sell the whole repertoire every 20 years.
- If copying became possible invent another media that is not compatible with the previous one, but it has some extras people like. (3D)
One more thing: why do I have to pay the copyright for the DVD when I paid it when I bought the same movie on tape?Is there an EULA printed on a DVD cover? I doubt it. I don't own a DVD but on CDs I own there's no such thing.
--
Well, I guess 1-gig drives aren't worth very much now, even
Well, the four letters that bother me more are really DMCA, it's just that the MPAA is one of the annoying DMCA suitors. You're right, no encryption / obfuscation will hide data forever, but the point is no industry should get to dictate private use of purchased materials. That should be a matter of contract -- if Tower Records starts exclusively *leasing* their stock, with terms in big print and agreed to by all purchasers, then Fine -- everyone enters with informed consent, even if the terms are silly. It's true that no one's forcing you to participate. But if you can purchase a movie and can't use it for reasons that are political more than they are practical, that's crummy.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Well put.
This is the big issue I have with both the RIAA and the MPAA: their attempt to control how and when lawfully purchased DVD's or CD's are used, and more to the point of this current topic, on what hardware.
Ta hell with 'em, sez I...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
The MPAA would lose all control they have of the DVD format, and the money that comes with it. That's why they're fighting so strongly against this.
Why do they say it's all about piracy? Because that's what the courts understand. There are copyright laws that have been around forever, and it gets their attention. Who really thinks a judge would listen to a case about a company losing money & monopoly control because other companies that produce DVD players can get multi-regional DVD decoding for FREE!
So the next time you hear some twisted or totally false accusations, remember that this is what they're really trying to keep, and accusations of piracy is the only way to do it.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
There are numerous sites on the net that explain how to do this.
And those VideoCD's get traded like crazy on schoolyards, etc. OK the quality is maybe not as good as a DVD, but it still looks sharper than a VHS cassette and it looks quite sharp on a computer screen.
Not to be a um.. well a troll, but do you have any evidence or links or something to back this up? I agree that some CDRs are made very shabbily (The aluminum on FujiFilm CDRs frequently peels up after small amounts of use), but the majority I've seen look to be able to withstand time for at least a few decades... I would expect professionally pressed CDs to last most of my life barring any regretful gouges or scratches.
I only say this because there are a few CDs that I've had for years now and no sign of deterioration (what are the signs anyway?
Just curious.
Yeah, I guess I haven't run into this, but it certainly does suck. My Apex seems to be able to skip through ads that don't allow going to the title screen (it has other issues, but that works). I've also never played the regular version of Tarzan, which seems to be the most notorious offender. But unskippable ads are a disc-by disc issue, just like bad encoding and lame menus.
I mean, it's a reasonable thing for the format to provide hard-to-skip "this film has been formatted to fit your TV" blurbs, the infamous FBI/public performance warnings, licensing screens, and the like. Creating a hard-to-use disc by abusing that feature is the studio's decision. I think per-disc quality issues are likely to take care of itself.
The region coding thing, as goldfish mentioned in another reply, is probably the most egregious feature of the DVD format itself. Myself, I guess I've been living with this in video games for years and made my peace with the fact (and it's certainly easier to get a region-free DVD player than a region-free PlayStation), plus I'm in Region 1. But that's what I'd call DVD's most inconvenient feature. So I bought a region-free player last year and have yet to watch any out-of-region movies on it. :)
I respect your strength of conviction on this issue - however, I had thought taht if you bought a DVD burner it was possible to produce DVD's on your computer that any player could read? I know that some companies produce region-code free DVD's that will play on any player. I could be totally wrong about that as I have little Practical knowledge of creating DVD's.
I forgot to add one more thing, I think the strongest way possible to say you DO mind them trying things like region lockouts is to give money to the EFF - I have donated a fair amount of money to the EFF and will donate more this year. Supporting the legal fight is the most direct way to attack them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, a DVD is a wonderful thing, but you cannot call it consumer friendly with the restrictions it has. Region locking is not for the consumer; see the recent Princess Mononoke article, for example -- the region locking prevented fans importing the DVD, and the only region 1 edition was dubbed. That's not consumer friendly. Why don't you try and get the original version of Run Lola, Run, or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? Seen Asterix and Obelix on DVD yet?
The simple fact that there are workarounds to the restrictions put in place show that those restrictions are not good for the consumer. So the product, no matter how shiny and exciting, also has features that hinder the consumer.
--
goldfish
The backup thing... I guess I'm not on the same wavelength on. I don't have backups for my books, records, CDs or CD-ROMs, VHS videos, LaserDiscs, Genesis or Dreamcast games, or DVDs, and don't see why I should bother making them. It seems to be more trouble to back them up than to replace one that did go bad (not that any of them have, knock on wood). Then again, I'm not one for life insurance either...
Anyway, region coding is a hassle but the current implementation is a good balance. For the majority of people who don't care, it encourages local distribution instead of middleman importers. For those who would much rather just have the same thing us Americans get, code-free players are now widely available if you don't mind picking a particular model or voiding your warranty (hey, there has to be some kind of trade-off). To me, that system is a reasonable compromise.
BTW I can't find anything like that on my books, as well as on CDs (I already said this). The blurb on my VHS tapes only restates portions of (US) copyright law. There's no license to agree to.
If you have a DVD handy, please post the exact text of this so-called "license" (I hope it isn't copyrighted :)
--
Not. Here is how to get a VOB file off a CD so we can actually watch what we paid for. (quick example, don't expect it to work for you).
s /livid && cvs login && cvs -z3 co -P css-auth
/dev/dvd && ./reset /dev/dvd && ./tstdvd /dev/dvd /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd && ./tstdvd /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd/video_ts/vts_01_1.vob /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd/video_ts/vts_01_1.vob | ./css-cat -v1P -> 01_1.vob
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxvideo.org:/cv
cd css-auth && make
umount
mount
mv title-key title1-key
dvdinfo
cat
mpeg2player -vob -f 01_1.vob
Just replace 01_1.vob with - in the last two lines to watch it realtime.
Let's just say this is one CLI program that doesn't warrant a GUI interface.
Not that it's alone ... it's illegal to unscramble cable, too.
But there's a big difference between descrambling cable and DeCSS: you paid for the content on the DVD that you are DeCSSing, but you didn't pay for the premium cable channel you are descrambling. Therefore, it is within your right (fair use) to descramble the DVD, while it is not within your right to descramble the cable channel.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I have to disagree with some comments above...
DVDs are a very consumer-friendly product. They provide more entertainment per dollar than any home video product ever has and has grown faster than VHS, LaserDisc, or CD. Movies over the net is not usable yet (and I have a broadband connection...it still can't hold a candle to my DVDs)
I do want to be able to watch DVDs on a computer running Linux, but so far I have found running movies off of the computer is a pitiful version of what I can do on my home theater system. If we keep pushing the MPAA and all it's parts will eventually give way to Linux-friendly DVD solutions, as they are in this to make money.
To say DVD isn't consumer friendly shows some true misunderstandings.
Bill
The players and movies are cheaper and of higher quality than LaserDisc, and they allow very straightforward access and many special features. I just don't see how DVD is not consumer-friendly. Now, the format's not hacker-friendly, granted... oh wait, yes it is. Now Divx, that was consumer-hostile. Now it's gone. DVD, so to speak, rules. I'm waiting for another box full to arrive this week (thanks, DVD Talk).
Point taken, but there are other ways of protesting besides boycotting.
We love DVD's because of their great quality, and don't want to see them go anywhere. So, we write the MPAA and tell them how f*cked up they are, we write our government and tell them how f*cked up the MPAA is, and we use DeCSS to our hearts content, meanwhile laughing at their attempt to control this great new medium.
But let's not give up on the technology altogether, because the MPAA will be there with whatever technology comes along next.
-
You only buy a licenced copy of the disc so the mpaa can have all rights over what you do with the disc
Actually you are buying the whole disk. There is not a single mention on any DVD that I've seen that the terms of use differ in any way from those on video, books etc.
Also, it is illegal (at least here in Finland) to unilaterally change the terms of a purchase - especially without informing the purchaser...
As a general tip, it is unwise to strip powered cables using one's teeth.
What kind of a company would want to force people to use their hardware to play their media? It's kind of a monoply... well, duh.
Sony has tried this one. Notice that Memory Stick can only be used by Sony devices. And it's a cool invention, but closed standards like that only hurt business. Furthermore, depending on the severity of the issue, I would say it often leads to a long, boring court case (ie, MS)...
What these types of people couldn't learn from the good folks at GNU. Blah.
Earlier this year however, two European hackers discovered that Xing inadvertently exposed the elusive CSS encryption key in their latest DVD player. Within weeks the anonymous team released a small software program named (appropriately) DeCSS, which allowed anyone to access the contents of a DVD
They don't have a clue, do they ?
This whole thing is not about DeCSS , CSS has be cryptanalyzed to the death, but MPAA is going after DeCSS because if they can use the DMCA to ban distribution of curcumvention devices, then they have a better change of bannig this stuff
Basicly, with the link above, you can download sourcecode for programs that will retrieve ALL the 408 playerkeys on your DVD disk!!!
That's playerkeys. Keys that will work on all DVD disks. And you can do this even if you don't know a single key in advance. All this takes just about 15 minutes on a Celeron 550 MHz
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
somewhere along the lines the digital stream will have to get to analogue so the vast majority of devices (TVs) can display it. Even if the display is fully digital, there's no end to end protection. ergo I can copy it at some point in the datastream...all it does is give the movie studios some false sense of security (which is worse than no security at all IMHO).
'I' can physcally replicate anything, its down to laws and policing to stop piracy, not some half arsed technology. (clothes have the same problem, its not just 'technology' that suffers from this problem). 'Security' is about technology, procedures and policy. If the policy isn't right you are screwed (ie certain governments seem to turn a blind eye to mass copying). If the procedures aren't correct you're screwed (policing those garage sales/car-boots for pirated goods - ie go for the big boys not the 'home' copier).
If the product's any good in the first place the vast majority of people will be honest and pay for a proper copy (assuming the price is fair - if its not the producer looses out), Stephen King's latest work will be an interesting test of this technique. If the legal owner of the product sells it at a fair price they sell lots, make money and cut out piracy. Why do DVDs cost so damn much - because the movie studios put a huge mark up on them, drop the prices and you can lots at a small profit AND dramitically cut piracy in one go.....
You can download the DivX sourcecode here.
DivX Related Files Updated 05/08/00
Microsoft MPEG-4 source code (775K)
ISO MPEG-4 source code (775K)
MPEG-4 Encoder/Decoder source code (9MB)
Windows Media Player For Mac (2MB)
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
If I'm not all wrong, DivX uses MPEG2 for the video-compression and MPEG1layer3 for the audio (please correct me if I'm wrong...)
Wouldn't it be interesting to try OGG-compression for the audio-stream instead? To my knowledge, mp3-_en_coders are non-free, so using OGG instead would at least make things a little better from this point of view (from my understanding, again feel free to correct me, OGG is an open spec which does not require licensing)
Are you going to open your source for us?
wanna fsck?
and they allow very straightforward access and many special features. I just don't see how DVD is not consumer-friendly
You have to wait ten minutes for e.g. Disney discs to even load while your television is turned off while the disc's ads play.
<O
( \
X Adopt a bird today!
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can never hope to profit from your ideas. Not even from the effort you expend to realize those ideas. How can you? You shoulder the burden of realization while the hanger-ons reap the benefits. Yep. Recognition sure feels good on an empty stomach.
Anti business? Sure. But RMS's slant doesn't hurt big business. It hurts the little ones. It hurts the guy who want's to spend more times with his kids by letting the distributors do the work. It hurts anyone who don't already have the assets to compete.
Why? Because RMS can't see IP pass its present form. Think about it. If copyright goes away, but I still want you to pay for some creation, I make the expression of the creation tangible. Like a book. But I go even further because a book you can scan and still redistribute. What if your next book came on silicon? Or your next movie? Or your software?
What if your silicon book came with its own embedded processor and executed itself with the output being an AV stream. (And now, you won't be able to simply copy the stream. Check out Intel's patents on crypto. They advocate a method of encrypting a stream and decrypting it by the display circuitry itself.) You reader could then be as dumb as your TV. What if your computer's CPU was simply there for horsepower? And the real program resided in a card half the size of a credit card?
The point is that large companies have the ability to nullify RMS's entire argument. In doing so, they would make the barrier to entry almost insurmountable to all but organizations just as big. In such a situation, the Internet wouldn't mean squat. Are you going to press your own wafers to make a copy of a video?
So what's the ultimate end? A fringe group of idealistic creators who labor for the masses (who, incidentally, could care less).? More likely, a fringe group of idealistic creators who labor for each other. Hm. Sounds familiar.
But this will only happen should RMS machinations succeed. He already has his merry band of followers who chant the "is it GPLed?" mantra. Nevermind, "does it work?" or "who the hell is this programmer anyway?"
RMS hasn't left school. He's a college kid, albeit an old one, with too much time on his hands. He receives an allowance (grants, fellowships, etc) from his daddy (universities, companies, whatever). The only stipulation is that he has to get off his butt and go talk to a crowd already sold on his ideas.
If this rant is a little harsh, it's because I'm tired of all of this us vs. them rhetoric. There's nothing wrong with coding for free or profit. Nothing wrong with using free or proprietary software. What ever scratches your itch.
...some discs take 10 minutes to load? For example, insert a Disney disc and the player locks up (becomes unresponsive to panel or remote control input) for 10 minutes while displaying advertisements.
<O
( \
X Adopt a bird today!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I disagree with what the MPAA is trying to accomplish, but some DVD's are just worth the money.
Without even going into the piracy issue, it's simply a plain fact that a DVD can be marvellous. When you really are a movie fanatic, DivX doesn't cut it:
Sorry, but I won't settle for DivX.
While all of this seems outrageous behavior by the MPAA, we must all remember that this is not the first time 'the law' has been used as a device to throttle new technology.
When records were introduced, musicians decried the invention as the end of live music. They fought to prevent music form being sold on the 'dictating machine' that had just been invented. Records won.
The movie & television studios went after VCRs when they first arrived. "How dare people record television?" they asked. VCRs won.
The RIAA went after Diamond when the Rio was released. Guess what? The MP3 players won.
So who will win the Napster/DeCSS wars? The new technologies will. The genie is out of the bottle and it can't go back in.
Big business will always rather use 'the law' to fight changes to business modles rather than reinvent themselves. They will eventually have to accept the idea of people copying movies just as making cassette mix tapes is accepted.
We, the consumers, will win out in the end. We have the dollars/pounds/rubles they desperately want. Eventually they will give us what we want. record companies WILL sell MP3s of live performances and movie studios will sell enhanced DVDlike movie on the net.
Look at what happened to a bad technology, the Divx DVD system. Consumers saw it for what it was, an attempt to wring every last dollar of out of the consumer with no benefit. Divx is out of business.
The most important thing we can do as individuals is write our government reps and tell them our views. The MPAA & RIAA have lobbiest in their offices all the time. Make sure they see more than one side of the arguement.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
You sound like a regular poster, except that you are afraid of being mod-ed to death with that (-1,Flamebait), so there!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Doesn't matter to me why DeCSS was created. As long as I have full access to the DVDs I purchase. Just as I have access to VHS tapes and CDs, etc. I don't plan on having the MPAA or anyone else tell me when, where, or how I can view the material on those DVDs. If I want to rip them to my hard drive, then I will. If I want to watch them using Linux, then I'll do that too. It doesn't really matter what they want me to do with the DVD anymore than it matters what a book publisher wants me to do with the book. I will do what I want (within the bounds of fair use rules) because I bought it and it's mine. As long as I'm not distributing copies or holding public screenings of movies, then I haven't broken the law (except the DMCA perhaps, but hopefully that bit of idiotic legislation will get dumped by the courts). Of course I'm rather tempted to throw all copyright laws out the window seeing as how we've all been screwed over by the government as they keep extending, even retroactively, the copyright term. They're ripping us off, we should be able to rip them off too.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
(and might not to certain others!) :)
... it's illegal to unscramble cable, too.
a) reverse engineering. The DMCA has some bad provisions in it. I've got nothing against the MPAA's members getting together and making it so annoying and inconvenient to view movies with other than approved hardware that doing so isn't worth the bother. Well, actually, I do have *something* against it, but I say that's within their rights. To make this into a point of law ("You're not even allowed to *try* to watch that movie on other than our approved hardware, mister!") I think is a terrible precedent. Not that it's alone
b) I've bought quite a few movies, but have no DVD player, having returned the two crummy Apex 600s which at least allowed me to briefly watch Casablanca and Annie Hall before dying. I'd like to watch movies on my monitor, or in the living room, without spending a few or several hundred more dollars on a player which does nothing an 80-dollar internal drive ought to be able to do.
c) Big studio releases -- is there really a 15th Anniv. edition of "Teen Wolf"?! Horrible! -- are one thing, but if the DivX format is widespread, we could see more independent, small-time filmmakers able to cheaply distribute their work on cheap CD-Rs. HOw many do you know who could mass-produce DVDs? With the right coupons, you can usually find blank CD-Rs for what, 30 cents apiece? Same goes for computers-as-VCRs; if I could put a few hours worth of shows onto a CD-R instead of a VHS tape for my personal timeshifted viewing, I'd prefer it. I could watch it on my desktop, on a laptop (when I get one -- anyone have a G3/400 PowerBook for sale, cheap?;) ), and I bet soon on DVD players which also playback the DivX format. Yes, I know it's not the same as the CircuitCity P.O.S. -- but how long did it take for DVD players to also play V-CDs and (finally) MP3s? Why not (the new) DivX?
So it's not the movies per se that are all that important (to me), it's the availability of readable formats and of high-quality compression for all the various uses it could be put to.
There could be a DivX-Plus (again, why not?) which mimicked features of DVD like greater interactivity / scene selection, etc -- would make a good format for instructional videos, say.
Them's my thoughts, which may have large holes in them.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The link shown is actually a valid mpaa link. The href= thing must be some kind of typo. 8-)
However, the mpaa link talks about optical disk raids in thailand and has no information whatsoever about Linux.
IHBT IHL IWGMCAL
(I Will Get My Coat And Leave)
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---
"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a sick mind." (Terry Pratchett)
By reading this text you agree to bend over and take it up the ass.
Can you not watch VHS on your computer if you have a tv card in it?
Insert mind here.
Believe me, the only person you are causing grief for is yourself. By waiting, you are going to end up paying hundreds of dollars for special editions of things like Army Of Darkness, Repo Man, Spinal Tap, and so on. And shut yourself out from widescreen editions of almost every movie you can imagine in the meantime (perhaps you see that as a benfit, some do).
Given the benefits dervied to the user from DVD's, there is NO WAY for a boycott like that to be successful or even noticable.
If you really don't want to feed them money, buy a player with the ability to undo region controls and macrovision, then buy all your DVD's used. I personally think supporting a player that removes the controls over DVD you dislike is the only viable way to send a message. I personally though of this angle to late to help myself, but it is not too late for you!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The record, movie, and software companies must be stopped by legistlation before it's too late.
After the battle against Circuit City and DIVX ended with victory for the righteous, I think we all celebrated in some way. Like a vampire with a stake in its heart, or a werewolf finally slain with a silver bullet, DIVX would be forever dead.
(mild rant)
So, what happened? Apparently someone with a really sick sense of humor decided that this Microsoft code rip should bear the badge we have come to hate and despise. Even Microsoft doesn't deserve that...
Ok, ok, they changed the capitalization from DIVX to DivX. By that argument, it would be perfectly fine to call someone a nAzI or FAscisT because the difference in case indicates we really are not talking about 19th century dictatorships here.
Or to turn this around, using the term DivX would tend to dilute the connotation of concentrated evil that we have painstakingly built for the (Circuit City) DIVX.
Why is this irritating to me? Because the purpose of language is to communicate, and words have meaning in order to facilitate understanding. Why would someone choose to promote ambiguity?
(/mild rant)
A dingo ate my sig...
but almost-DVD-quality movies fitting onto a single CD is great...especially because dvd-rips now look much better and are less than half the size they used to be ;-). DivX isn't meant to be a replacement for a real DVD...it's a pure piracy issue when you're talking about DivX.
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.