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Adam Bresson Demonstrates Fair Use at DefCon
nigelc writes: "Adam Bresson showed how to make copies of copyright-protected videos in a speech at DefCon. To quote the article, 'I hope he's got a lawyer and that they talked to somebody'" From the article, it sounds like Bresson simply used a video conversion box to defeat MacroVision -- something my notorious criminal father has been doing for years.
From the article:
Now Canopus has offices in the US. I figure that Bresson would probably not be prosecuted, basically cause there's no money involved. However, since Canopus has a branch in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if they were sued.
After all the best way to stop all of us "pirates" is to eliminate the tools we use.
Slashdot - Come for the creative thought, stay for the lesbians!
...and gets tried and aquitted in open court.
We very much need a test case with a judgment in favor of consumer rights.
We need a legal case to which we can point, when we're arguing what our rights really are...
Personally, I've used one of those anti-macrovision boxes (I got mine for $50) and it works great. I didn't create the technology, and I've only used it in the privacy of my own home, excercising my 'fair use' rights as a consumer, so I should probably be safe.
The methodical corporate destruction of consumer rights must be stopped.
-- This sig for rent.
Has there ever been an industry which has survived solely on the basis of legislation?
The recording and software industries suddenly find themselves without the natural protections of severely limited bandwidth or formats which discourage copying. As such, their business models (which have only really existed for the last few decades) seem dangerously out of date, especially on the music side. Video games and movies are still somewhat protected by large size, but with the proliferation of available bandwidth this seems only like a matter-of-time issue (although non-console video games and other computer software have some other outlets, the effectiveness of those recourses is also open to question).
So, it appears that their only tool to perpetuate their current business model will be legislation like the DMCA. Can anyone think of an industry where this survival-by-lawyers tactic has worked for more than a few years? Or are they destined to slide out of business as they know it?
Of course, we live in a historically litagous time where the law and lawyers have more power than ever, so maybe part prescindent isn't relevant. It seems entirely possible to me that they could stave off any sort of mass-advancement just be completely crushing those who oppose them (am I going to risk any real threat of a massive fine just to copy a few CD tracks?).
If the RIAA had owned the buggy industry in 1900, I think we'd all still be whipping our horses to get to work in the morning.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
What happened there?
fifth sigma, inc.
No, but if you get a scratch on your car, you can get it fixed without buying a whole new car.
Of course, the analogy is ridiculously flawed -- you can't easily compare 1s and 0s to large, resource and labor intensive objects like cars.
However, pretend the auto industry made money by designing cars and then licensing the right to build a single car based on that design (selling, of course, to people who have complete assembly lines in their sheds). People would use their own equipment to create the car based on the data provided.
If I wreck my car, shouldn't I be able to go build another? I bought a license for one Ford Focus, so as long as I'm not cranking out Foci for my whole family, I'm not taking any money out of the hands of Ford or it's designers. All I'm doing is reusing the data to create another instance of the product I've already licensed for my personal use.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
There is no law on the US books that outlaws defeating Macrovision.
Macrovision is in the analog domain, and the much touted copyright "protection" law is only in the digital domain, hence the name:
Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
So he broke no law. So who cares?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I would think a tape with macrovision means the manufacturer doesn't want you to copy their tape.
You want to copy it for backup purposes.
I think I see 3 problems here...
I think before any DMCA type stuff is added to any kind of media, the media producer needs to be held accountable for replacement. I've never seen this happen however as most of them simply tell you "Return this to your place of purchase"
Problem is, the place of purchase has no easy way of RMA'ing defective merchandise.
Wait a minute!
*light bulb*
I think I see an easy solution to all this. When you purchase something you should be able to anonymously register your product online (HINT HINT!) When it goes bad, you go online, login, report it bad and get a POPRMA# (place of purchase return merchandise authorization #)You take your bad merchandise back to the store with your POPRMA and the store validates the POPRMA and destroys the media.
Now that the media producer has a valid POPRMA, they just mail you a new tape.
Unfortunately, reality is record companies (major labels) are all bloodsucking thirsty vultures that would eat your grandparents. They would soon as rather write off the sale with no recourse than be held accountable for it.
Despite all the good the internet can do, greed, jealosy, and evil are still a part of the human collective. Despite how easy of an idea this may be to implement, these negative instincts are rooted in the core of many peoples brain. You get a lot of money, you want a lot more. Bob has big nose, you want one bigger.
So until mother terasa is running the Media moguls, we're all fucked.
Ive used the device for the past fews years to defeat Macrovision, and for legitimate purposes. The tool itself is not illegal. Since the TV in my room doesnt have composite or component inputs on it, I have to run it through my VCR. When I first got my DVD player, I noticed my video would fritz out, so I put a stabalizer in line with it to eliminate the problem. Now I can watch DVD's no problem, and what do you know, its not being used illegally. I doubt the company could be sued, since this kind of technology has legitimate purposes, such as Time Base Correctors in video decks and editing stations. So I doubt the manufacturers of the tools would be sued... but in this day and age of MPAA payed lawyers, I wouldnt doubt it, but theyd be shooting themselves in the foot when their editing decks no longer have SMTPE sync capabilities.
Both TVs in my houses are aging units that only take input from an AV cable. I need to either use an old VCR that can withstand that cheap protection crap, or what I'm using now, a 5-switch RF modulator/SVideo/RCA plug box.
Fsck that protection crap. If I didn't think it was futile, I'd never by DVDs out of protest....
Over here almost all DVD players can bypass region encoding, and a many can bypass macrovision.
There are dozens of websites with details of how to disable region codes. Most just need a particular sequence of keypresses on the remote. You would have to try very hard to buy a player that couldn't be made multi-region.
We are region-2, but I would say that 50% to 75% of the DVD's in most peoples collections here are region-1. Even British-made films are released as region-1 only because region-2 is too small a market to make it worthwhile.
Region-2 is shrivelling to nothing, and I'd be suprised if the other regions were different.