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Star Wars Episode II DVD Release on Nov. 12
Nerftoe writes "The DVD and home video of hit movie "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" will land on retail shelves on Nov. 12, the movie's backers at Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox said on Thursday. Lucasfilm and Fox have put together a two-disc DVD set that features six hours of additional material including a documentary about the movie made by Lucas and the movie's other filmmakers and eight scenes that never made it into the movie."
shudder
help fill in hidden movie endings @ End of the Credits
I know there will be lots of bitching about the original three star wars movies not being released yet. And I agree with that, but I want to bitch a little about the indiana jones trilogy not being released on DVD. Its really dissapointing not to be able to get those, and it seems like it wont be on Lucas' radar for quite a while.
I thought it was just eps 4-6 that weren't going to be released for a while. The best reason I heard (not necessarily the most plausible, though ;-) was that he wanted to make the DVDs "special" and he didn't have the time to do them "right" for quite some time. So, instead of putting out one version now, then adding a few things on and putting out a special version, then putting everything in and calling it a Collector's Edition, he's waiting until the Collector's Edition is the only one.
If it's true, I see nothing wrong with it.
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
Can we have fewer scenes - Phantom Edit II? Get rid of all that sappy shit and a real movie emerges.
sulli
RTFJ.
... if they'd make a version that's MST'd.
I don't want more footage, I want LESS! That movie was like 2 and a half hours long.
"Derp de derp."
In other news :), the Lord of the Rings DVD is coming out on tuesday (or monday midnight for some stores).
:)
Initial reviews are saying that it basically kicks all ass, and will be the new reference DVD for home theater-philes. And mind you this isn't the upcoming 4-disc extended version.
Star what? Attack of the what?
-Mani
The only way he can prevent the DVD from being pirated to death is if it includes tons and tons and tons of stuff on it. There's still value in buying the disc if it has extras that people don't pirate. (Take notes, MPAA)
I think he wants to be able to provide all that with Eps 4-6. It'd take time, and he's focused (well in a PHB sorta way) on Eps 1-3.
"Derp de derp."
Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
In quantity...
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
This isn't actually a new thing. Kubrick showed a different cut of 2001 in New York than he did in LA when the movie premiered. And of course George continues to revise episodes 4/5/6. The scary thing is that George is considering usign all-digital cinema to dist 'patches' to films. After the film has been running in theaters for several weeks, he can remotely add new sequences and then announce 'all new footage' so that Star Wars fans will have to come back for another viewing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well.. he is putting the DVD's out in order. 1... 2... 3...
Only on Fridays. It's bad again on Mondays, sometimes on Wednesdays.
Je ne parle pas francais.
He's probably waiting until Episode 3 is done so that digitally correct the inconsistencies he's creating in 4-6.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
And if you're going to have an isolated score, may as well follow the example of the folks at Pixar and make it a combination score/soundFX track. The two really do work together so well that it would be nice to have them highlighted with their own audio track.
Oh well. Maybe in 2006 on the Super Special Deluxe edition box set rerelease...
And/Or charge a reasonable price for it. I'm thinking some of the DVD distributors are starting to clue into this - I've been seeing a few (obviously less famous [They put "Caveman" out on DVD????]) DVD's showingup for $7.99-$9.99 at the local superhypermegamart. That's NEW, not "previously viewed". Heck, that price range seemed just fine for "previously viewed" VHS's a few years ago...
When the price of a typical DVD (new) has dropped down to ~$10 or so (currently seems to be $15-20US for most of them right now) the only people who'll be left pirating will be unemployed small children abusing their parents' broadband connection.
Combined with your point, I'd say that what little real "piracy" there is of DVD's right now (far less than the MPAA claims, I suspect) will dwindle to near nothing in the next couple of years.
Unless, of course, cheap set-top "DivX;)" (or Ogg-Theora?) boxes with TV-out start showing up on the market...and maybe even then.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
That was the only redeeming feature of the DVD. It's still staggering that so many talented people could work so well, for so long, and with such great dedication (as demonstrated during the deocumentary) and still produce such a turgid movie.
Da Blog
Hopefully, they'll include some technical information about the gadgetry and animatronics they used. I, for one, am eager to find out what they used to build the robots that played Obi-wan, Anakin, Padme, and the rest... :-)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
If only we could find some way to provide some stats to prove this. I agree with you but as long as the MPAA can produce billion dollar figures out of their A$$, who's gonna get media coverage and political lovin ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Well, if so, they'll do well by it. It seems unlikely that as many people would go out and buy a second copy of FoTR (for how much?) as would buy AoTC for the first time.
I, of course, will be so there, though.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
-or-
They could sell the DVD at rental prices. That would prevent the lazy among us (myself included) from downloading it, and get a very high sell-through rate. High volumes like that would make them more money than they otherwise would with low volumes and high prices. Even though it's not a great movie, I'd likely buy the DVD if it was that cheap.
Given region codes, macrovision, and the MPAA's attitude to customers (should we go over the HDTV fiasco again?) would you like slashdot to keep covering mainstream (MPAA) DVD releases?
the "special edition" of LOTR with all the cut footage, etc, comes out Nov. 12th, the same day as AOTC...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
http://starwars.com/episode-ii/news/2002/08/news20 020801.html. It has pictures of both DVD and VHS boxes.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
til then I always thought the Start Wars II and LoRs DVDs in my possession are original.....they have Dolby Digital 5.1, scense selection, extras and credits...
:/
and Simplified Chinese sub-title selection...oops, you mean these aren't original?
They seem more expensive than ever, don't they? We know they don't cost anything to duplicate. Albums of older artists (Beatles) cost as much as new junk, so not ALL of it is going into production costs and marketing, so why do they cost more than they used to? Has the price gone up faster or slower than inflation? In the early 90s albums cost $13-$14, now they retail for $18.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I have 3 theories -
1) This is the output of a script that is fed various anti-fanboi posts and strings togeather clippings to generate new posts.
2) Its one of those odd humor pieces that pokes fun at Star Wars fans, their critics, and ignorant youth.
3) Its actually a post by an ignorant youth.
In any case, its funny. The only thing left is to figure out if one should be applauding the mastery or be amazed by the stupidity.
The bad news is that all Imperial troops will be replaced with ewoks, and all light sabres and other weapons replaced with walkie-talkies.
He's probably waiting until Episode 3 is done so that digitally correct the inconsistencies he's creating in 4-6.
Hmm... you must have the finished script for episode III, so you're absolutely certain that what we view as "inconsistencies" are in fact that. I've seen lists of so-called inconsistencies on the web and very few seem like things that can't be plausibly explained in the length of one more film and certainly nothing that will destroy the whole series.
And anyway, if we're going to lynch George Lucas for it, let's make sure we save enough rope for Tolkien. We'll have to dig him up to do it of course, but remember, he backtracked and fixed problems with his stories too (stories that are being cited as examples of perfection in this very discussion), including a well known revision to The Hobbit to make the Golem scenes work with his later plans.
Artists do these kinds of things. At the very least, reserve your judgment until you've seen all three of the new films.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
No, Lucas is too smart a businessman to not want that. By your math, he'd be able to sell 3 DVD copies of each of 4-6. Me, I don't see anything special about "special." Just put the damn movie on a disc. I don't want trailers, interviews or games.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
And your point is?
I loved Evil Dead, although the scene you refer to was in Evil Dead 2, but you should remember that Luke lost his hand in the Empire Strikes Back, five years before Raimi made Dead 2.
All art imitates/copies. It's a natural thing to do. The Fifth Element owes a *lot* to Metropolis, Dune, and the long-standing visuals of Coruscant made long before Episode I.
Your post smacks of one searching desperatly for a stick with which to beat the movie, and I have to wonder why. The movie is the cinematic creation of George Lucas. No one made you see it. If you went and didn't like it, so what? I don't think the trailers were misleading.
Personally, I liked Episode II and found the underlying political undertones interesting. The notion that the Senate is being controlled by moneyed interests ought to play well here, and please note that Lucas had that idea some twenty years ago, so it's not like he's trying to pander to anyone.
Especially not do-nothing grumblers like the loud vocal minority on this site who think much is owed them.
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
I wonder if they have Lucas on film begging Speilburg to come on to help with Episode 3.
Naw, he's too busy starring with Tom Cruise in the new Austin Powers movie.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Can we have fewer scenes - Phantom Edit II? Get rid of all that sappy shit and a real movie emerges.
One possibility would be to create a format and an app that will customize the playing of a DVD, playing it in a user-specified edit.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
...after applying Attack of the Edit.
Lucas should have named the movie "Attack of the Clone Room" just so he can totally confuse people who like Star Wars, Halo, and acronyms.
I bet they don't include any of the hilarious out-takes that the Star Wars graphics team showed at SigGraph last week. Things like:
:-) but since they can't show the 3D Hulk model in public yet, they re-used an existing model. Hence the shot of Yoda ripping his clothes off. Heck, he's green - what more do you want?
:-)
Aniken leaping on his speeder bike (live action) - then being swapped out for a 3D graphic 'stunt double'. When the graphic Aniken zooms off on the bike, a small error in the cloth simulation leaves him naked while his cloak flutters gently (and realistically) to the ground.
So they fixed that problem - but for some reason there is a sign error on the slipstream airflow over the clothing - so his robes flip forward over his head - and he's *still* naked on a speederbike.
Or the shot of Yoda where for some unaccountable reason his clothes appear to be attacking him while he's trying to look fierce for Duku's benefit...
Or the shot of JarJar when an slight oversight caused the cloth simulation on his robes not to be run at all - so his robes are puffed up like a balloon. It looks like he's wearing a crinolin hoop-skirt.
Or the half dozen outtakes of the shot where the big guy in the diner (with four arms) is simultaneously hugging ObiWan and pulling up his pants - but the cloth simulation isn't coping well with the contact forces from his hands or his butt - so his trousers fall down in take after take after take...
Or the animation done by one of the ILM team who is now working on the Incredible Hulk movie - she is doing *ripping* cloth (huh! I wonder why?
Or - well, you get the idea. I guess you had to be there.
www.sjbaker.org
I've had a pet theory for a while, and I'm surprised that nobody else has mentioned it.
I think Lucas is waiting for HD-DVD.
I, for one, would love to see the original trilogy become the reference standard HD-DVDs in 2006 or so. Originals, special editions, I couldn't care less as long as it's 1080/24p with 6-channel sound.
Um..... yeah.... this was a slashdot article only a month and a half ago. We remember
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I'd say that what little real "piracy" there is of DVD's right now (far less than the MPAA claims, I suspect) will dwindle to near nothing in the next couple of years.
Ever been to Malaysia? You can buy new-looking DVDs on street corners for $1 or $2 each. They look totally genuine from the outside, unless you look closely to see that the box art was printed on a color copier or laser printer. Once you open the box, you see that the disc's label isn't silkscreened, but rather printed on a stick-on label on the front of the disc. And pretty much every movie is a 2-disc set, evidently because it's more expensive to burn 2-layer discs.
The movies look pristine, though. These aren't shot-with-a-camcorder movies. They're duplicates of official releases.
And in Asia they're literally everywhere. DVDs, VCDs (those are incredibly popular), VHS, CD. They're everywhere.
I think piracy is just as rampant as the MPAA says it is.
Tell me that you realize how absolutely that contradicts what we've been taught about economics?
If Lucas released, say, a Collectors Edition on DVD it would sell many, many copies.
If he then proceeded to release the Definitive Collectors Edition, some people would buy it even if they owned the CE. More money.
If he then released the Platinum Edition, some of the fans who bought the other versions would go, and like good little sheep, buy the new edition as well. More money.
Just ponder to yourself, how many fans own the original trilogy on VHS, the THX enhanced version, and the Special Edition? Or how about any of the above two? I would not doubt that there's quite a few people. Lucas woud be a fool to throw extra money away. He may not know how to make a good movie anymore, but he certainly knows how to make a buck.
The real question is who gives a crap about Lucases' hamhanded "prequels". They both are terrible movies and are case studies of how little computer generated effects add to shabby plotting, storytelling and characterizations. Really, of the three originals, only the second has any interest or artistic merit outside of the aging geek world and nostalgic loyalties. The first seems almost 50's naive (and poorly acted) in its black and white archetypes. The third degenerates with farting and burping jokes and culminates in a teddy bear rumpus.
Let's be clear about the two prequals: CGI is never a replacement for a real plot, or real acting or well designed and shot action. Lucas seems to have an uncanny ability in being able to turn the best actors into foam-core cutouts with lines that convince me that Lucas is autistic and or tone deaf.
I think Anthony Lane (funny dude) of the New Yorker had it right in his review of Titanic a couple of years ago. To paraphrase, he said that CGI used in Titanic was humanized, secondary to the script, characters, relations and plot. I had the same feeling coming out of "Minority Report". The special effects were being driven by a solid and brain twisting whodunit framework. Two years ago, I exhilarated was by the paradigm shifting Matrix, which beats the pants off anything Lucas has directed. The Matrix changed the way geeks and movie buffs expected to experience Sci-fi, much as Blade Runner and further back, Metropolis, did before it.
Lucases' movies and this DVD are just joyless corporate exercises in brand extension and cash flow.
fanny. It's a different word in the united kingdom.
Me too - awful writing, non-existent plot, atroceous acting, annoying characters, horrible looking CGI, worst dialogue anyone's seen in a long time, etc. You don't really have to search for things to bash the movie for.
sic transit gloria mundi
There is only one word for Episode II, and that is "incompetent". It applies to the writing, the acting, the editing, the sound, even the score. Don't line George Lucas' pockets with money swindled by his amazing force. You're only proving that the force *does* work wonders on the weak minded. This movie made Ishtar look like Casablanca, if anyone has any idea what I'm talking about. It made Snow Dogs look like the Empire Strikes Back.
There are many better films--and you can find better stills of Natalie Portman on the internet.
Everyone who was involved in this movie should be fired, and then shot. I finally saw it last night at a theater that was showing it for free--and with pitchers of beer--and I *still* regret it.
Oh well. Wasted words, as always.
If it weren't for the CGI ref I'd think you were talking about Austin Powers....
What is your Slash Rating?
and except for the ET's that were inserted into a brief clip of Episode I, Spielberg has nothing at all to do with Star Wars.... and those were inserted by George Lucas as a tribute to Spielberg. Lucas, who (maybe you forgot) created the Star Wars universe and associated movies from which have spun numerous books/imitations/comics/art/role-playing and computer games/etc.
You need to goo back and take Star Wars 097 to refresh yourself on its creation, origins, and philosophy.
What is your Slash Rating?
You know, this is totally off topic, but it really pisses me off when people jump from the problem of DVD piracy to "our civil liberties are being stripped away!"
Which liberties are in danger, exactly? The liberty to copy DVDs? You never had that liberty, so quite grousing about "losing" it.
I've said this before; my opinion on this subject is no secret. I'm in favor of strong copy protection on media like DVDs and CDs. Vehemently in favor of it. If some jerk hadn't decided to crack CSS-- or, more importantly, if CSS hadn't been so easily cracked (thank you very much, Xing)-- we probably wouldn't have gotten a questionable piece of legislation like the DMCA. Reverse engineering and encryption circumvention is illegal now because people keep doing it! If they would stop, or at least if they weren't so successful at it, the law wouldn't be necessary.
The left-leaning parts of the Slashdot community* often argue in favor of strong crypto, but against copy protection. The irony of this amuses me. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I have the right to encrypt my data to protect it from theft or from prying eyes. Guess what? Movie studios also have the right to encrypt their data for the same purposes.
Now, I know, I just know, that somebody's gonna get up here and make a stink about how they want to make "backup copies" of their CDs and DVDs. You know what? I don't have a "backup copy" of my car. If I wreck my car, I have to either fix it, or if that's not possible, I have to replace it. I don't get a free backup car to keep in my garage just in case I get into a fender-bender. The idea that you should be entitled to make a "backup copy" of a CD or a DVD is just bogus. Take care of your things. If you break them, you can replace them or go without.
I say bring on the absurdly strongly encrypted HD-DVDs. Hell, if the Free Software guys really want to put their money** where their mouths are, they can start a GNU/CSS project or something. Let's put all those big, pro-crypto brains to work on an actual practical application of crypto technology and see where that takes us.
In short: civil liberties, my ass.
* Some would say that I repeat myself here.
** Please ignore the inherent contradiction. It's just a figure of speech.
I've seen some of the technical information on those robots. Apparently the lower half of the robot who played Padme was made entirely of hot grits.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
And maybe some hints as to why the senator/princess didn't give a shct that her fiance just admitted to slaughtering a bunch of children in a mad rage?
Table-ized A.I.
According to Auntie Beeb, the UK gets it on November 11th. Strange - we usually get releases about a month after everywhere else! Woo!
The more advanced the technology, the more open it is to primitive attack
Van Ling who produced the T2: Ultimate DVD and the Abyss Special Edition DVD also produced the Ep I and Ep II DVDs.
This sig intentionally left justified.
I don't give a crap if I'm not allowed to download an MP3 of a song that I haven't bought. But, if I buy a CD, there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to make a tape/mp3 of it.
Well, now, that depends, doesn't it? Copying the CD to a CDR, bit-for-bit, would be one thing, but making a tape or MP3s from it is something entirely different. Making a tape or an MP3 of a CD is more than just "time/space shifting" (which is a whole different argument). When you make a tape or an MP3 of a CD, you're actually creating a derived work from that CD. It's different from making a copy. Copyright law, on its face, forbids you from making a derived work without permission of the original work's copyright holder. So I think you're on shakier legal ground there than you realize.
The rest of your post is well-written and thoughtful, but it all starts with "legislated DRM is bad" and goes on from there. You're basically making a slippery slope argument, and I don't buy it. Basically, everything would have to go wrong in order for your scenario to come to pass, and I don't think that's likely.
There is just one little point, though, that I disagree with.
Stand behind the DCMA all you want, but when a security exploit has the ability to compromise public systems, to make the discovery and subsequent publication of those issues, whose sole purpose exist in the hopes of eliminating them, illegal, well, we really have our priorities screwed up.
Sounds like you're talking about this week's news of HP using the DMCA to squash news of a security problem in one of the OS's. That little item was reported often, and gotten fundamentally wrong almost as often. The person with whom HP has a complaint was doing more than just discussing the security flaw. He was actually distributing a piece of software that could be used to exploit that flaw. There's a line between talking about security flaws and actually taking advantage of them, and that guy crossed it. DMCA or no DMCA, I think it's reasonable that he should be prevented from distributing his program.
Episode I had some pretty sweet extras - stuff on how they did the fight scenes, how they did some of the special effects - a lot of it was very interesting (and more interesting than EpI!!!)
Hey... if that's what George would have said in the same situation, then it's realistic, isn't it? He is an awkward teenager stumbling over his feelings, after all... :-)
All art imitates/copies. It's a natural thing to do. The Fifth Element owes a *lot* to Metropolis, Dune, and the long-standing visuals of Coruscant made long before Episode I.
And Coruscant is a copy of Isaac Asimov's planet "Trantor" in the Foundation series.
Ask Lucas to add in something about Luke and Leia actually being illegitimate kids from a one-night stand... ooh... maybe that's what turns Anakin to the dark side!
And what would you say if it was indeed possible to make molecular-level backup scans of the physical objects you owned? This will be possible by the end of the century.
Would you still be vehemently in favor of not allowing me to keep my molecules/bits in working order? Or would you rather have me on the consumer treadmill by forcing me to buy my Ford (or Beatles album) over and over and over when not even necessary?
--
Power to the Peaceful
I must agree... doesn't compare to the warm fuzzies I get from the original trilogy, but EpII was by far better than EpI.
Damn, I knew -someone- would find a way to sell sh*t in a box someday. Go figure, it's go'na be George Lucas. ;)
(I guess this post will drop my good Slashdot karma down a peg.)
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
"Hmm... you must have the finished script for episode III, so you're absolutely certain that what we view as "inconsistencies" are in fact that."
It's not necessary to read the script to arrive at that conclusion. At BEST Lucas might be able to fix some of it up. But let's be realistic: Watch Eps 4-6, then watch Ep 1. If R2D2 wasn't in it, you'd have little to no reason to know you were watching Star Wars.
Let's face facts, Lucas doesn't understand Star Wars' appeal. If he did, we'd have fun movies intead of padded demoonstrations of what ILM is capable of.
I would disagree. At the very least, save any sweeping judgments about inconsistencies until the final movie is out. There are lots of interesting threads that look like they will be difficult to resolve, but give Lucas a chance to do so first.
If you think I'm being a shameless apologist, please don't. I have a strong interest in how Lucas is going to bring the new films together with the old. In fact, here's a list I found a week ago when looking up info on exactly that.
If he did, we'd have fun movies
I had an absolute blast watching both episodes I and II. What's funny to me is that a lot of the criticisms being levelled at the new films also frequently apply to the old. I think the audience has changed more than the George Lucas' approach the films.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
LOL! That was dumb. Okay, I think that link to the AD&D archive from this week has me stuck mentally in the Monster Manual. Sorry for the confusion. :^)
My point, then, seems to be that a good strategy for a writer is to claim he's merely interpreting ancient history, from dusty old notes, so no wonder if occasionally a few errors pop up in one's writing....
It's still the same thing. A revision is a revision is a revision. The thing is, I don't really have much problem with storytellers (in any medium) going back to revise stories a bit, particularly if they are telling an epic tale like SW or LOTR. It does puzzle me when fans can't seem to get over it.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Actually, I for one thought Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was more enjoyable than The Phantom Menace. I bought the former, not the latter. Quidditch (sp?) and authentic accents beat out podracing and affected accents.
As for Episode 2, it was rather mediocre. If the scene with Senator ex-Queen Amidala Portman had been longer and had better lighting, maybe even less leather, it might have made up for Hyperactive Bouncing Superball Yoda.
Copyright law, on its face, forbids you from making a derived work without permission of the original work's copyright holder.
WRONG! Copyright law does not forbid you from doing anything in the privacy of your own home. I can take the Episode II DVD, rip it to DivX;), replace the dialog with that from my (legally purchased) Monty Python set, and then re-encode it as Quicktime and run it backwards. There's nothing George Lucas or anyone else can do to stop me.
What is illegal is doing that and then distributing the derived works. Or selling my original copy and keeping the "derived works" - I have to destroy them or include them in the transferred property.
As for abuses of DRM law, how's this? A 16-year-old in Norway gets arrested and all electronic equipment in his parents' home siezed. Why? Because the MPAA told Norwegian law authorities that he'd written "illegal software". What had he really written? Software to decode a DVD for playback. I believe that he is now a legal adult under Norwegian law, and has since had Norwegian law authorities try to arrest him several times, under the laws for arresting an adult, for this same "infraction".
A man travelling to America to give a presentation at a technical conference is arrested. Why? He made a program to decode the encryption on Adobe's E-Books. Why? His company made software - required by Russian law - to enable the blind to read E-Books.
A technical magazine gets taken to court for having links to pages containing the "illegal software" written by that kid in Norway. And looses.
A professor doing research into audio encoding and watermarking discovers a way to break the industry's new "protection" scheme. He plans to present information about his research (which has interesting implications) at a technical conference. The industry threatens him with action under the DMCA, then "backs down". Not only do the courts decide that the industry's threat was perfectly valid, but the conference organizers refuse to let him on-stage for fear of legal action. He is unable to get his paper published, again, for fear of legal action.
An established, well-known programmer employed by an American company is afraid to set foot on American soil. Why? Because his work on a certant piece "fringe software", "widely known" to be used for "piracy" and publication of documents describing vulnerabilities in that software could get him arrested. Despite the cries of paranoia by the online community, several lawyers both in America and his home country confirm his suspicions.
Did he? Seems there have been enough revealed to suggest that he is making it up as he goes...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There are a great many pet theories about why Lucas is putting off the original trilogy so long.
Waiting for HD-DVD might work, but he just may be waiting for a more "secure" format to come along. Any high-definition movie disc standard has a strong chance of being tightly encrypted and would likely use the encrypted digital-out DVI standard.
And what would you say if it was indeed possible to make molecular-level backup scans of the physical objects you owned? This will be possible by the end of the century.
What would I say? I'd say you're being silly. You can't make judgments of policy based on fantasy. There's no evidence-- scientific, anecdotal, circumstantial, or otherwise-- to lead to the conclusion that such a system or process will ever exist. So the whole question is pointless.
However, just for fun, I'll go along with you.
You can't create a car out of nothing. So what you're talking about is just a different form of manufacturing; it's not an issue of copying at all. If you want to manufacture your own car to match the precise specifications of the car you bought, that's your own business.
Copying a CD or DVD isn't manufacturing. It's either copying, in the case of a bit-for-bit duplicate, or it's creating a derived work, in the case of making a tape or some MP3s or a VCD or whatever else.
Copying is expressly prohibited by the Copyright Act. You can't reproduce a work unless granted express permission, or unless you hold the copyright. Period.
The Copyright Act also grants the copyright holder exclusive right to make a derivative work from the original.
So making a copy of a CD, or making MP3s out of a CD, is expressly prohibited under the Copyright Act.
"But what about Fair Use?" you say? Fair use is not spelled out in any legislation, but has been created by the judiciary out of the body of case law pertaining to copyright disputes. There are four accepted criteria for determining if a use of a copyrighted work is fair, or if it's a violation.
1. the purpose and character of the use (i.e., was it done to teach kids, or for personal use, or to make money?)
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount of the copyrighted work used as a proportion of the whole
4. the effect of the use on the value of the work, or the potential market for the work.
So when you make an MP3 of a song, you're creating a derivative work for personal use (1 point for fair use) from a rightfully protected work (1 point for violation). You're taking the entire song (2 points for violation). If you took a small piece of the song, that would count toward the use being fair. If you took a large part of the song, that would count for violation, but only a little bit. Taking the whole song is clearly on the side of violation. But you're not intending to distribute the MP3 to anybody else (1 point for fair use).
It's a close call, but "space-shifting" a CD into MP3s is probably not protected by fair use. Of course, nobody will care unless an example of such a practice becomes actionable. I doubt that anybody's going to sue you because you dumped a CD into your iPod. But there's no legal justification for opposing copy-protected CDs, either, because preventing digital copying won't prevent the fair use of the works.
So yeah, I'm still "vehemently in favor of not allowing [you] to keep [your] molecules/bits in working order?" Because the method that you propose to use for doing so is harmless enough, but it's expressly forbidden by the Copyright Act, and it's not protected by the doctrine of fair use. In this case, the benefits of copy protected media (reduced shrinkage due to piracy, meaning reduced costs to the public, and also greater availability of goods to the public) outweigh.
No you can't make a backup copy of your car, but that's what car insurance is for.
So if I started offering DVD insurance, you guys would all stop complaining about how the MPAA tries to take away your civil liberties?
:sigh:
So you see, it's against the law for you to do any of those things without permission. It's a oft-repeated falsehood that copyright violation only occurs if you distribute the work. Distributing the work alters the degree to which the injured party is entitled to seek damages, but that's all.Title 17, section 106, says, in whole (emphasis mine):
Now, there are specific and well-defined exceptions to the exclusivity of the rights of the copyright holder. For example, in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios the Supreme Court upheld the District Court's decision that time-shifting in the privacy of the home is legitimate fair use.
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 amended Title 17 to state (paraphrasing here) that no copyright violation action could be brought against any individual for the noncommercial in-home use of digital or analog recording equipment. So in that specific circumstance, you're right. You can make copies of music for noncommercial purposes, using audio recording equipment, in the privacy of your home.
But in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc., however, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made two very interesting findings. First, they found that a computer, and by extension a computer-based portable MP3 player, is not an audio recording device, and as such is not covered by the 1992 amendment to Title 17. However, they also found that the use of a portable MP3 player to make personal copies of rightfully purchased music "is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act."
So the specific instance of making copies of rightfully purchased music CDs to a portable MP3 player is allowed. But that doesn't extend to "you can do anything you want in your own home." In particular, it has nothing to say about your example of turning a DVD into a digital movie file on your computer. Furthermore, altering the movie in the way you describe would clearly be in violation.
Of course, it's unlikely that you'll ever get caught if you keep it in you own home. But it's still technically illegal.
(You can-- and, evidently, should-- read Title 17 for yourself at http://www.copyright.gov/title17/.)
Now that that's out of the way, I'll address your examples of what you call "abuses of DRM law." I'm not going to address them individually, because they're all examples of the same basic principle.
Copyright protection circumvention is against the law. In other words, if a publisher takes measures to prevent the copying or other unauthorized use of their works, and an individual or group comes up with a system or device for circumventing those measures of prevention, then you've broken the law. If you share that system or device, then you've broken the law.
That's the law of the land. It was passed by Congress and rightfully signed by the President. If you don't like it, that's fine, but by definition, enforcing the law is not abuse of it.
If you stand up and say, "There are four ways to decode a DVD without a licensed DVD player," you haven't broken any laws. If you say, "Here's how you decode a DVD without a licensed DVD player," you may have broken the law, depending on how much detail you provide. And if you say, "Here's my program for decoding a DVD without a licensed DVD player," you have definitely broken the law. Furthermore, if somebody else says, "Here's his program for decoding a DVD without a licensed DVD player," that party has also broken the law, because they're also distributing your system or device.
It's another common misconception (we're surrounded by those this morning, aren't we?) that the DMCA makes it illegal to talk about flaws in encryption systems. That's not true. The DMCA makes it illegal to actually circumvent encryption systems, or to distribute systems or devices for circumventing encryption systems. They're very different things.
By analogy, it's illegal to break into a person's home. It's not, however, illegal to talk about breaking into a person's home. But in most jurisdictions, it's illegal to sell or distribute, or possibly possess, devices used to break into people's homes. You can talk about locks, you can talk about security systems, but you can't sell lockpicks. (Again, in most jurisdictions.)
And here's the most important thing: it's illegal to break into someone's home even if you only did so to demonstrate that their home can be broken into. You can tell somebody that their home is vulnerable. You can even tell them how, exactly, it's vulnerable. But if you get fed up with their reluctance to put double locks on their doors and decide to break in just to prove your point, then you've gone too far.
However, if you have legally purchased an original DVD and you'd like to play it on your PC (running Linux say) - then you need to be able to decrypt it. That's what DeCSS is for - and when I use it this way, I wasn't breaking any laws....until DMCA came along.
Gee, sbaker, what part of "licensed" is unclear to you? If there's no licensed DVD player software for your operating system, then there's no licensed DVD player software for your operating system. That doesn't make it okay for you to crack the encryption scheme and do what you will with the data on the disc. Legitimately licensed DVD players-- both hardware and software-- are widely available. The correct-- and legal-- course of action in your case is to play your DVD on any licensed DVD player. Period. If you don't have one, get one. If you don't want to get one, then don't play the DVD.
I really don't understand what's unclear about "you aren't allowed."
Any high-definition movie disc standard has a strong chance of being tightly encrypted and would likely use the encrypted digital-out DVI standard.
Agree on the encryption point, disagree on the DVI point. I would be amazed if HD-DVD players only included a digital video output. There's way too much gear out there-- including my HDTV-- that accepts analog component YUV video, and component output components (sorry) are very cheap to build and buy.
I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy DVD players with DVI outputs as an option, but I'd be astounded if they were the only outputs.
It's apparent that you don't understand the Audio Home Recording Act 1992.
I do. Do you? In the case of RIAA v. Diamond, 1999, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that computers, and by extension MP3 players, are not audio recording equipment, and are therefore not covered by the 1992 amendments to Title 17. The AHRA doesn't apply to questions of computer-based recording or encoding.
Otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to video tape a television program....
You're thinking of Sony v. Universal, 1983. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld that in-home time-shifting of television broadcasts is legitimate fair use. But that's very different from making MP3s from CDs.
They are quite clearly extendible to the mp3 recording for personal use.
Except the court doesn't agree. Again, see RIAA v. Diamond.
A more likely example would be Microsoft's attempts to prevent security groups from publicly announcing vulnerabilities so as to avoid any further publicity embarrassments.
Saying, "There's a security vulnerability in SurfOS 1.0," is okay. You can even get fairly specific. Saying, "Here's how you exploit a security vulnerability in SurfOS 1.0," is not. Saying, "Here's a copy of my program to exploit the security vulnerability in SurfOS 1.0," is also not okay.
As long as you stay on this side of that line, you're in the clear. But if you cross it, have your lawyer on speed-dial.
Now, that said, anybody can threaten anybody else with a lawsuit, with or without merit. Threatening somebody with a lawsuit isn't against the law, nor should it be. If you decide, for whatever reason, to back down because of the a baseless threat, then that's not a sign of a bad law. It's a sign that you had the wrong attorney.
"What's funny to me is that a lot of the criticisms being levelled at the new films also frequently apply to the old. I think the audience has changed more than the George Lucas' approach the films."
I doubt it. I just watched the original 3. I had lots of fun watching those. I watched AOTC and about fell asleep.
So what? Why does that mean that Lucas can't use the same idea?
Not at all! Did I say that? Nope. I was just reinforcing the point made in the parent post, which said "All art imitates/copies. It's a natural thing to do. The Fifth Element owes a *lot* to Metropolis, Dune, and the long-standing visuals of Coruscant made long before Episode I."
An authoritarian who's unable to understand why rule-breakers break rules? *gasp* :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Wow. You really are an authoritarian ass.
Security through obscurity doesn't work, and vague statements of insecurity certainly won't motivate a company to fix anything.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Different tastes, I guess.
I won't argue that the new films are better than the originals, but rather that they aren't as bad as some fans make them out to be. I recently watched Star Wars (i.e. episode IV) with my 6-year-old daughter. She really enjoyed it, but I was constantly struck by how much of the film's weaknesses I was unable to judge (and thus ignore) back in my younger days -- acting, pacing, plot holes, bad special effects (oh, yes, IV has a ton of grimace-inducing effects.) This doesn't ruin the film for me, but it makes me wonder what percentage of the fans out there now just can't slip back into that frame of mind, and thus the criticisms about the new films (much of which apply to the original films.) You sort of have to let go. Remember that Lucas has stated that he set out only to make the ultimate matinee fodder, not to produce the Great Sci-Fi Epic. My daughter loved the film and can't wait to see the other two. I can't wait to watch them with her. It's fun, and I bet she'll love the new films just as much.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
My skills notwithstanding, what exactly is the problem? This very bad movie (not my fault, that Lucas blew $300 mil to make a very bad movie) contains some bad CG (again not my fault). There are movies that have some really good CG, and the bar for very high-budget, intensly hyped movies has been set much higher than what we saw in Episode II. I think I am understandibly upset that I've spent money (even if not all that much) and expended time to see people do their job badly.
sic transit gloria mundi
Unlike anti-gravity or cold fusion, we know that molecular manufacturing is possible, because every plant and animal on Earth is a working proof of the physics.
So you think that soon you'll be able to "grow" a car? Truly amazing. What a time to be alive.
Except, of course, for the fact that that's absurd. Organic chemistry is fundamentally different from inorganic chemistry. It's a long way from a pancreas to an assembly line. Creating proteins in catalyzed chemical reactions is one thing, but assembling components on a macroscopic scale is something else entirely.
But let's start simple. Show me a self-sustaining molecular-scale process that can produce, say, a six-inch cube of manganese. That should be pretty easy, right? After all, plants and animals have been doing "molecular manufacturing" for hundreds of millions of years.
No offense, friend, but you seem to have left most of the science out of your science fiction.
Are you sure that's what you meant to say? I've got quite a lot of "dirt" under my property that can be reassembled into the form of a truck (proprietary design or open)--not an infinite supply like with bits, but an abundant supply of molecular feedstock nonetheless, which can also be infinitely recycled because atoms don't wear out.
Okay, again with the high school chemistry. What you're talking about has a name: it's called alchemy. And it's impossible. You can't just turn an atom of silicon into an atom of iridium, at least not on a large scale.
So without magical alchemy at your disposal, you'll have to use plain old mining. Of the dirt under your house, the vast majority of it is what's called "soil solids." These solids are made up, chemically, of 50% oxygen, 30% silicon, 7% aluminum, and a measly 3% iron. The other 10% is made up of organic matter (carbon and nitrogen, mostly) and nearly everything else. Literally. All the elements from hydrogen to uranium-- the naturally occurring elements, in other words-- can be found in plain old topsoil, albeit only in trace amounts.
The vast majority of the mass of your car is steel (i.e., iron) and aluminum. So if you wanted to make a car out of the stuff under your house, you'd have to dig up enough iron and aluminum to roughly equal the mass of your car. According to the Alcoa people, the average car's frame contains 1/7th of a ton of aluminum. (Actually, they said that one ton of aluminum can make seven cars. Flip it on its head to get tons per car.) So let's figure that you need 1/7th car's worth of aluminum and 6/7ths car's worth of iron.
Assuming that you can get the necessary aluminum and iron from the same load of dirt, that comes to approximately 57 tons of dirt.
Compacted dirt weighs 110 pounds per cubic foot. So 57 tons of dirt would occupy a volume of about 1,030 cubic feet. That's a cube a little over ten feet on each side. In other words, big. Very big.
Once you've gotten that out of the ground, you still haven't tackled the problem of how to get the iron (which is probably all tied up in iron oxide) and aluminum (ditto) out. I'm going to assume that you'll resort to "nanotechnology" or "molecular manufacturing" at this point and hand-wave that problem away.
As I said before, if you want to try to manufacture a car out of the stuff under your house, be my guest.
I don't really get it... As high-speed internet connections become more popular and capacity increases, there's really nowhere to go but up. Another $5-$10 price drop may moderate that, but I don't think it will do much. Although piracy will always be more widespread among those with less disposable income and more free time on their hands, with the current state of affairs you really only need to spend a minute or two doing a search with your favourite p2p client and it will take care of the rest; not exactly a big time expenditure, even if you throw in a $0.75 CD blank and 10 minutes for burning.
I don't think the lack of a set-top DivX player is holding back piracy much... First of all, some will still prefer the picture quality of their monitor to the advantages of screen size and comfortable seating available in their living rooms. But, more importantly, VCD/SVCD-capable DVD players are already filling that role to a small degree; what will happen when DVD[-+]R drives and media become more affordable, and burning your DVD rentals is just a click of the mouse away?
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