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.

Comments

I'm shocked

[A Cheese Danish]

From the article:

In his demonstration, Bresson used a device sold online for about $200 by United Kingdom-based Canopus. The box allows people to make copies of videocassettes and DVDs even if the video is locked with software to prevent such tampering.

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.

Re:I'm shocked

[NanoGator]

"After all the best way to stop all of us "pirates" is to eliminate the tools we use."

I hope that was sarcastic, heh.

In all seriousness, the way to stop 'unauthorized copying' (I refuse to call it piracy because there are fair reasons to do it) is to find it why people want/need to do it.

"People are downloading movies off the web, maybe it's beacuse they don't want to pay $20 for a DVD. Maybe we should sell a $10 no-frills DVD."

"People are ripping DVD's and saving them to their computer. Maybe they're doing that so that they can keep their DVD's safe. We should make it easy for somebody to get a replacement DVD if it gets damaged or lost."

"People are swapping movies they've never seen before on-line. Maybe we should make it easier to 'preview' the movie to see if it's worth buying on DVD. How about cutting deals with HBO so they can get movies faster?"

Imagine if they were to use logic like that...

I hope he gets charged with infringement...

[Temsi]

...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.

History

[Skyshadow]

This brings to mind an interesting question:

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.