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Australia Rules DVD's are Films, Not Software
divereigh writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that an Australian Federal court has decided this case in favour of the Australian Video Rental Association. The Association had taken Warner Home Video to court for trying to classify DVD's as software and thus double the price for those sold into the rental market."
DVD's are a storage medium. They are what someone makes them to be (ie. Movie DVD's, Software DVD's, etc).
Trying to classify Movie DVD's as software is sort of... dumb.
Does this mean Region Code Enhancement, which uses scripting to check whether the player is region 1 (and IIRC only region 1), would be banned in Oz?
sulli
RTFJ.
Since I'm not in Australia, this doesn't affect me directly, but it's still a moral victory (now if we can just convince a judge in the US to accept an Australian court finding as precedent...)
Basically, the decision ruled that DVD movies cannot be treated as software simply because they are digitally recorded, and because DVD players have processors. I wonder if now AOL Time Warner will try to "modify" the DVD standard in order to make DVDs into "software" so they can go ahead with their scheme anyway. I doubt customers (meaning me) would go for that, since it would probably mean that people would have to get newer-model DVD players, but I wouldn't put it past them to try it.
As for the price disparity between rental DVDs and videos:
Why must they be pigeon-holed into either category?
Common sense prevails
A Movie on DVD = a movie
A book on DVD = a book
Music on DVD = music
Art on DVD = art
Computer programs = software.
Sure, the DVDs may actually come with some executable code on them, but by and large, THE BITS OF THE DVD REPRESENT DATA.
This data is consumed by software to generate media, but IT IS *NOT* SOFTWARE.
Any good software engineer knows that CODE and DATA should be SEPARATE. I'm glad the court recognizes this as well.
No, illegally distributing DVD content is STEALING. Decoding DVD content is just PLAYING what you PAID FOR. Get that through your NONEXISTENT head.
This case doesn't have anything to do with the price consumers pay to buy a DVD. AOL-Time-Warner can still charge whatever they want for DVDs. This is all about rental- AOL/TW was trying to make it illegal to rent out retail DVDs, so that rental stores would have to buy special "rental" DVDs that of course cost an arm and a leg. Read the article!
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I just don't understand all the negativity here. Here's how I see it: WB was playing games with what a DVD really is in order to squeeze more money out of rental places in questionable ways. They lost that right, and were punished. Customers at rental places are renting MOVIES, no matter what kind of 'software' is on the DVD. They're not renting DVD's to solve a problem, virus scan their hard drive, or render images in 3D.
Most DVD's aren't worth owning. I don't want to spend $40 or so on a DVD unless it's the type of thing I think I'll come back to again and again, like I did with T2. However, I do rent quite a few DVD's. And what Warner Bros. basically did was try to take that right away from me by jacking up the prices on their DVD's specifically for rental stores. That was not right. Tough noogies if WB doesn't get money for each rental. If their content isn't worth owning, that's their fault. Don't punish the consumers for it.
I do have concerns of the ramifications this might have in the future, though. So far, I'm encouraged though. By defining DVD's as movies, then movie rights are seperate from Software rights. At least Warner Bros. can't grease up some politician to take movie rights away that affect how I use software.
"Derp de derp."
"You're buying a LICENSE to play the DVD on a LICENSED DVD PLAYER"
I certainly didn't agree to that when I bought my DVD.
In fact, on the back of my "Matrix" DVD, here's what it says:
"For sale or rental for private home use..."
Since I didn't RENT this DVD, I did what? C'mon, you can say it...that's right.. WARNER is admitting they sold me the fucking DVD.
And since there is no indication on the package that I don't actually own my copy of "The Matrix", then what assumption will a reasonable person make about this exchange of money? That's right: WARNER fucking sold me a copy of "The Matrix" to do with as I please. I can decrypt it. I can loan it to my neighbor. I can use it as a frisbee. I can sell it to the used DVD store. WARNER has no further claim over my final disposition of this DVD.
Its LEGAL because I FUCKING OWN the DVD because everybody FORGOT to include the langauge that this is only a license to use, not actually an ownership.
You are such a sheep. Honestly.
There is nothing in our law stating that it is illegal to play region one DVD's in region 4. The whole region encoding thing is nothing more than a matter of standards compliance.
Except the typical terms for the CSS licence amount to "If you don't comply with the standard, including the region coding and Macrovision® encoding, you lose your CSS keys on all future titles, and we have paid your Parliament millions of monetary units to get an equivalent to the American DMCA with a few SSSCA provisions thrown in with that, so the only way you can DeCSS discs is through this license, nyeh!"
If it did, then you wouldn't be able to buy region 1 or region free players in Harvey Norman would you?
The MPAA is probably already buying laws making it illegal to ship DVD-Video titles or players outside of their respective regions.
Will I retire or break 10K?
At first glance, I found this to be an interesting story on its own, because of the way it addresses the boundaries that the digital world is creating as it goes. But in another way, it's also the most boring story I've ever heard, in that this is the most predictable storyline you could come across. It's being repeated all over the industry:
1. New format for distribution threatens company that used to make easy profits without much innovation.
2. Company seeks to sue/tax/threaten promoters of new technology for infringing on its rights to make a profit.
3. Consumers/users actually like new format, saves them money, time.
4. Company actually ends up shooting self in foot, because its entrenched in old technology, refuses to embrace new opportunity. 5. Users adopt new technology anyway, leaving company in the dust.
I mean really, can't we do something different for once? Let's get over our petty interests, and have some vision, maybe? This has been / is being repeated everywhere you look: Napster vs recording companies, internet phone calls vs telecom companies, hybrid cars vs US car companies, xerox copiers vs carbon paper manufacturers, robots vs assembly line workers, Gutenberg vs monks...
I mean there's a long way between
- DVD with nothing but menus
- DVD with some add-on apps (screen savers etc.)
- DVD *and* a solid app. Harry Potter DVD + Harry Potter game? Could have happened. Won't, but could be.
- DVD wtih an application like Premiere, with some example trailers
- Pure application DVD
Where does it stop being a movie and start being software, when can you sell it under the first sale doctrine, when would an EULA of no resale be binding? I'm curious at least.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings