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DVD Copyright Case Mulled over by Judge
howhardcanitbetocrea writes "news.com is reporting that the judge in a closely watched lawsuit challenging the legality of DVD-copying software said she was 'substantially persuaded' by past court rulings that favored copyright holders, but closed a hearing Thursday without issuing a ruling in the case." This is a case that could very well determine the future of the DMCA, and the article does a good job of summarizing the arguments from both sides.
Amazing, one week we have solid interpretation of digital rights laws and their impact on Fair Use (Grokkster Case), and now this? I admit it isn't over yet, but some one please explain to me how the VCR is any different?
Perhaps it's just me, but the last few years has been painful to watch, perhaps my politically apathetic body needs to get into action...
Ahh hell, I live in Florida, the Mouse rules here with an white gloved iron fist!
Illston asked Zacharia to explain the conundrum of locking up copyrighted works behind encryption and then making the breaking of that encryption illegal, even after the copyrights on those works expire. The judge wondered if it would effectively extend copyrights to keep such works out of the public domain. Zacharia said it would not, because the copyright had expired. "But it's encrypted. If it doesn't stop being encrypted, it's still encrypted," Illston said, adding that such protected works still couldn't be legally copied.
I had never thought of this before. Think about it: If any work now has solely been release to the public in an encrypted form, then if anyone has copied/clipped/fair-use used the item, then the corporation can always go after the individual; therefore, copyright is completely irrelavent since encryption is enforced forever. Maybe I'm the only one who just caught this, but it seems no one has explicitly stated it this way.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
DVD's use variable bitrate MPEG-2 encoding, and even short movies can be >4.5 GB... I think it's being done as form of copy protection on commercial DVDs to sample the video at excessively high rates. I saw a single disc rip of LOTR the Two Towers that was on a DVD-R and the video looked great (it was a DVD rip from a disc submitted to the academy).
Look at movies done with Apple's iDVD (constant bitrate encoding) where 60 minutes can take an entire DVD-R.
.:diatonic:.
OK, so I bought hundreds of records in the 80's and I confined them to the dustbin (or lost them) when CD's became mainstream. Do you really expect me to pay once for tape, again for vinyl, again for CD's, and again for your next format, and the next... ?
The same for the MPAA! I bought a DVD and it developed a crack not through my own fault of abuse. I sent it back to the 'house' that produced it and never received a response.
Oh my question: When we buy a CD or a DVD what exactly are we buying ? (rights to view/listen ? a piece of plastic ? rights to put on another medium ?)
My answer: The right to spend money so these greedy assholes can get million dollar salaries, never answer questions, and buy lawyers!
If they sell me a DVD or CD, I'll do whatever I want to do with it. If I want to copy it, I will, If I want to crack the copy-protection, I will. If I want to sit around the house using them as frisbees I'll bloody well do that too. If they don't like it, then stop selling me DVD's and CD's. Make it impossible to 'buy' them, and start a renting agreement. Then fair enough, I'll pay my money, agree to the temporary license and leave it at that. So stop prenteding you are not selling me something. if you do, then it is mine.