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DMCA Loophole For Peer-to-Peer TV Show Sharing?
An anonymous reader writes "Fortune.com asks, "Is TV Show Swapping Legal? For those using TiVos or new Windows PCs, it just might be." Why? "The law that ensnared ... DVD hackers, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, doesn't specifically address the question of [personal video recorders]. But when it comes to the legality of hacking digital media, the law zeroes in on 'circumvention' -- did hackers have to circumvent protection to copy the video? Several hackers who have published their techniques online say they didn't have to crack anything to extract video from their TiVos""
To the perspective of the networks, don't they want MORE people watching their shows? Plus, taping shows is already legal, what's the difference with letting people put it on computer?
I wouldn't be surprised if a time-to-live feature is added to "swapping" devices. I.e., you can swap all you want, but the swapped copy has a limited lifetime and then erases itself. Like those disposable DVD's.
This could be easily done by the folks at TiVo or ReplayTV.
Even if the DMCA does not prohibit sharing TV shows, regular copyright law probably does. However, software and hardware which allows TV show sharing might be legal to sell if this article is right. OTOH, they didn't need the DMCA to shut down Napster, so my guess is that the TV networks will use similar contributory infringement arguments if they want to go after ExtractStream and friends.
I have a ReplayTV. Love it! Can share my files directly off the Replay to the net (with some firewall rules). Not to mention software like DVArchive that "emulates" another replay on my network allowing me to dump the files from the replay to my fileserver and share them back again for later viewing.
The dingo ate my sig.
Seriously, though, the governments and corporations of the world have taken advantage of us by pawning off all these "digital" versions of laws that are already in place. This is why the EFF keeps fighting it, and why everyone should too.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Although this may not violate the DMCA (depending on how courts construe "circumvention"), it violates several other criminal statutes. First, it violates the No Electronic Theft Act, which criminalized copyright violations even without a profit motive. While the Act requires a value of $1000 of content to trigger its provisions, courts have allowed this threshold to be met by production or "black market" prices rather than realistic costs. In addition, this may violate the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, which criminalized unauthorized access to servers. While this was intended as an anti-hacking law, perhaps it could be extended to unauthorized intrusion into one's own server (Tivo) if (and this is a HUGE if) owning the thing doesn't automatically authorize one to access it.
While the second of these is speculative, the first can and has been used to prosecute warez folks so I have no doubt the Justice Department of John Ashcroft would use it should entertainment companies begin wailing about TV piracy.
Make cheese not war 8:)
Actually, the networks aren't afraid of copies. They're afraid of *perfect* copies.
... Grrrr!" Valenti goes on and on about the danger of "perfect" copies. I've seen him speak twice -- a amazingly underwhelming experience -- and find him to be much to old to actually "get" what's going on.
s o-I-have-something-to-fuck-on-weekends executives will be a helluva lot *more* worried if one day we wake up to see goofy Donald Rumsfield breaking into 'Days of Our Lives' to tell us that we've just stopped and boarded an unflagged North Korean tanker headed for an unspecified port with 100 kilograms of plutonium on board.
Hence, the fear of digital.
Geriatric Jack "Maddog
He doesn't get what's going on. His staff does, but he's the spokesperson, and he's not a very good one. Valenti is much more interesting -- and actually engaging -- when he talks about his time in the Kennedy (that's right, JFK) White House.
But this digital stuff -- and the fear that Valenti loves to spread -- just doesn't resonate when Valenti is doing the talking. He's like some old guy talking about "The Pink Floyd" while watching a PF video and then pointing, saying, "Is that Pink? Is that guy Pink?"
He's the sort of guy that would do the much-maligned "Funky White Guy" dance -- squinting, sorta pursing his lips, lifting his hands, and trying to shake once or twice to the beat. It's not only not effective, but it's not funny. It's abymsal, in fact, and that's exactly the sort of aura that Valenti projects among the 20/30/early 40 crowd -- at least when he's doing his public speaking thing.
People look at him and have this: "Is this guy for fucking real?" look. We all clap politely but know nothing's gonna change until he takes his retirement, leases that new Lexus, and heads out to Tuscon or Phoenix or Palm Desert or wherever has-beens go to relax and prune-out.
The other issue -- at least when I saw him speak -- was the fact that Valenti was talking about digital copying as if it were a fate worse than terrorism. I mean, for fuck's sake, let's be real.
The neo-Islamo-fascist weapons trade is serious.
Kim "Look at my lofty bouffant hair-do" Il-Jung proliferating his plutonium and U-235 is serious.
Angry Chechen mobsters with lead-lined cannisters that are warm to the touch are serious.
But a copy of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- even if it's a perfect copy -- is not serious.
Yes, yes, I understand that a good portion of media America is concerned and worried about "proliferation" of perfect copies. But believe me, that same group of Italian-suit-wearing-hire-me-a-nice-young-intern-
And the other issue with Valenti is that the word "compromise" is simply not in his vocabulary. Several folks asked him about whether or not he could find a "happpy medium" and his response was always, no, digital copies must be protected. Period.
So he didn't score any points -- at least not with me and booze-whores I hang out with.