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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."
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.
Can be found here. It is dating back to Novemeber 05, 2001.
--Metrollica
So it's really consumers 1, video rental stores 1, giant corporation 0.
That's missing the whole point. Of course DVDs are better than VHS, and the companies put more work into a DVD release than a VHS release. So they should cost more--I'm willing to pay it. But all DVDs should cost the same--the cost of a buying DVD shouldn't depend on who you are, and that's exactly what they were trying to do. If you're a regular guy, you pay X amount, but if you're a video rental guy, you have to pay twice as much for the SAME thing in a different color package.
As for the price disparity between rental DVDs and videos:
This ruling probably won't benefit consumers because, as someone else has already pointed out, DVD's will cost more to rent than VHS tapes regardless of how expensive it is for the rental chains to purchase them. However, I think it's gratifying anytime someone manages to beat the film industry in court.
Do people actually rent DVD's? Because of the higher cost of renting them, I've found that it's usually best just to buy the movie outright. In most cases, I find that a movie worth watching is worth watching again. So I think it would be kind of nice to have a movie library.
I think the main difference between a piece of software and a game is how much interactivity is offered. The first CD-ROM games that I played, back in the early 1990's, were "Spaceship Warlock" and "Hell Cab". While these were computer games and as such would be classified as software, they interactive experience entailed essentially clicking on things every once in a while and the rest of the time watching the story unfold.
The main difference between "playing" these games and watching a movie was the fact that they had a "choose your own adventure" style of playback; i.e. you could dictate the basic actions of the main character. So I would conclude that most DVD movies are indeed movies and not pieces of software, because they are mostly non-interactive, and for the most part, people by them to watch the movie and not play the silly little games included.
I think my sig has never been more appropriate than now. Check out my site if you want to know about backing up DVD's.
The future isn't what it used to be.
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."
uh, australia? what the fook does that have to do with the United States?
:-)
Speaking as an Australian, I hold some hope your painfully US-centric attitude can be rectified.
Last time I checked , we were using something loosely defined as the World-Wide-Web , not the United-States-Web, so I think it is entirely relevant, as one day a reference to this particular decision could help you.
Your comment portrays a bad image of the U.S. to the rest of the world. Wake up. The sun does not shine out of the US's collective posterior.
Don't make me have to come over there and kick your ass to prove it
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I was involved in this case as an expert witness, so, if anyone has questions I'd be happy to answer them.
Its called the "doctrine of first sale". Essencially it says that once you buy a copy of a work (book, video, etc), the seller can not stop you from lending, renting, or reselling the copy to someone else.
What was happening in this case was that Warner Home Video was selling two versions of DVDs... one that was not for rental and the other that was for rental. The for rental version was, of course, more expensive. The difference? A little sticker on the disc. The Australian video rental industry took Warner Home Video to court over this and won. Warner can not dictate what the purcahser does with the video disc. Warner was claiming that DVDs were software and could have use restrictions placed on them, ala a EULA. The court ruled that Warner can not claim DVDs as such.
First sale in the US came from a case (early 20th century?) between Macy's department store and a book publisher. The publisher indicated that on the book that it could not be sold lower than a certain price. Macy's sold it from a lower price and the publisher took them to court. The court decided that once the publisher sells the copies of the works, they have no say over what is done with them.
As far as I know, the fist sale doctrine has never been applied to software. I don't think that any of the "no resale" clauses of many EULAs has been contested in court. Presumably, there aren't many EULA violations claims made by publishers because they probablly aren't enforceable and the whole might of groups like the SPA and BSA are built unpon these unenforcable claims. Not bringing them to court allows they claims to continue because most people threatended with them will cave before any real legal action is made.
Incidentally, this is probablly what Warner's claims were based upon--the assumption that no one would challenge them.
"Broadcast Quality" is a meaningless term. [...] for broadcast, dvd is better than anything you'll see on TV.
The FCC requires all on-air programming to conform to a strict definition of "broadcast quality", one which has absolutely nothing to do with the downstream picture you see on TV, cable, satellite, etc. This definition involves a series of quantifications (luminance s/n ratio, chroma s/n, resolution, differential gain, differential phase, subcarrier color framing, RS-170A sync, comb filtered inputs, subcarrier frequency drift, multiburst response or bandwidth) that are best highlighted when viewed under a vectorscope or a wavescope.
No, DVD's are not "broadcast quality."
Does this mean Region Code Enhancement [...] scripting [...] would be banned in Oz?
No, it just means scripting isn't considered software, which we all knew already. Sorry, kiddies.