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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.
Sony v. Universal. If it's good enough for the Supreme Court...
I've seen DVD X Copy at stores, and it has false claims on the box. It claims to copy the whole dvd onto one dvd-r, which is impossible for many commercial movies. Dvd-r's are single layered and only 4.7Gb(4.5 usable), but many(most?) professional movies are on double layer discs which hold twice that, therefore not fitting on a single dvd-r.
Probaby get a better decision that way.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
It is good to see a judge thinking things over instead of following precedent. Precedents have incredible force in our legal system and setting them should be done carefully.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
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!
The software allows people to exercise their right to make a backup copy of digital media; that's fair use. The MPAA likes to sell multiple copies of fragile media.
"If you can't excersize a right, you don't really have it."
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
There are thre software packages currently available to copy a full DVD9 disc to DVD5. All three will resample the video to fit on a single layer recordable DVD.
DVD2One is incredible fast, and gives the option of 'Movie Only' stripping menus and extras, or 'Entire Disc'. It can process an entire 8GB DVD in about 25 minutes on my 1.4 GHz T-bird.
DVD 95 Copy will preseve entire disc stucture (resampling video and giving option of discarding unwanted audio) Takes about 2-3 hours to process.
Pinnacle Instant Copy will also preserve entire disc. Takes about 4 hours to process disc.
Hope this helps,
.:diatonic:.
"A copyright holder has no right to prevent someone from engaging in fair use," Durie said, noting that the studios' position would prevent students from excerpting film clips for school projects or parents making backups of their work. "That, I would suggest, can't be right. That can't be what the drafters of the DMCA intended."
Yeah. There's no way that's what they intended...what's that? The MPAA wrote what?? Ahhhhh!!!
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Lord Acton
one please explain to me how the VCR is any different?
Encryption and the DMCA. If DVD's weren't encrypted this wouldn't even be an issue.
If the author hasn't already, I plead with him to please GPL the code. With code all over the internet, they will be powerless to stop it.
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!
comic book guy voice
Worst analogy ever
But there are still fair use arguements to circumventing DVD copy protection. Damaged DVDs can be expensive to replace... and circumventing the copy protection does not circumvent the copyright.
.:diatonic:.
Directly from the article:
"They just can't traffic in anticircumvention devices," Russell Frackman, a partner with Los Angeles-based Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp who's representing the studios, told the judge.
What exactly is an ANTIcircumvention device? I'm so glad to see that the judge was swayed by such persuasive reasoning as this...
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.
If she was pursuaded by the recent DMCA rulings, shouldn't she also be pursuaded by the SC rulings on VCR copying? Afterall, the fact that VCR's have a record button, means they are built in order to record. The fact they have a play button means they were also built to play (and in the process unencrypt) video tapes. If VCR's are able to play a video tape, why can't my computer play a DVD?
Welcome to the sideshow! Here you are argue that the DMCA does, or does not allow fair use as it existed before the DMCA.
:)
Avoid the Sideshow. Vote. Forget this arguement. The people who passed the DMCA need to go. Do something other than letting your butt get bigger reading postings and eating hohos. Write a letter.
If you don't like it like I do, take action. Don't wait for someone to save your rights like the EFF. Help them, by donating money, time, and help yourself by writing and calling.
For God's sake please don't complain unless you are willing to do something. I hope that everyone here who cliams to have some passion about this issue is willing to do something. If that is so we'll have no trouble making our opinions known.
PS: Sorry, about the butt...errr...crack earilier in my post.
-- James Dornan
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
is that you can split it into two programs. A DVD player, and a screen capture utility, which are both perfectly legal. Of course that would require a reencode, but that is what happens on 4,7gb+ movies anyway.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
One of the arguments of the case has been that it does not matter whether copyright is violated or not, as circumventing copy protection is illegal irrespective of the copyright.
But, as I understand the DMCA, there is a link though between copyright and copy protection, as the act only prohibits copy protection when it is applied to a copyrighted work. That is, it is legal to circumvent the copy protection when the content is not under copyright. But, some comments by the lawyers quoted in the article suggest that this is not true, and circumventing ANY copy protection system is illegal? Is that really the case?
A can opener or a book is a physical item. When you buy a can opener, you're buying one can opener. You actually posses that item. This is not so with DVDs, according to the MPAA and their cronies: instead, you are buying the right to watch the movie contained in that DVD. Therefore it's reasonable to claim that this right persists regardless of what happens to the physical medium the movie is contained on.
The movie is an abstract concept (i.e. "intellectual property"); the can opener is a physical item. The two are inherently different.
If they really sold you the physical media, and you were free to do anything you liked with it there would be no problem. (Of course, subject to existing laws, like you are not allowed to hit someone over the head with it and kill them, you are not allowed to violate copyright and sell copies of it, etc etc etc)
But, software publishers especially, (but even book publishers) try to apply additional restrictions, to the point that you don't actually own the physical media anymore, you are instead "licenced" to make use of the product for some period of time. In this scenario, the phyical media is actually irrelevant, it makes no difference at all whether it came from a CD "bought" at the local store or downloaded from the internet. If the CD gets scratched or you accidentally erase your harddrive, it does not affect your licence to use the content. That is, if you can obtain the content from some other source, you are free to use it. Thus, forcing people to pay the full cost of an additional licence just to get a copy of something they already had a licence to use anyway is double-dipping (especially when it is a download with a marginal cost of zero). An analogy would be, if you lost your driver's licence, instead of just charging some nominal fee for the replacement of the card, charging the full cost of a new driver's licence (or even making you do the test again).
Now, I don't necessarily agree with this model at all, but just stating how (some people think) it works.
I believe it is quite legal to copy or scan every page of a book, as long as you do not distribute the copy. I might be wrong though. It doesn't matter much because that is completely unenforcable anyway. But I think DVD's are different in this respect.
Originally, the copyright industry wanted a law that restricted acts of circumvention (with no distinction about what kind of circumvention it was). Defenders of fair use complained, stating that excerpts could not be made for commentary if it were impossible to copy portions of a work.
The legislature decided that protection schemes that prevented copying of material would violate the fair use doctrine and would not be specially protected by law. Instead, copyright holders would be granted legal recourse in case of a breached access protection scheme.
This is convoluted, of course, since you can't copy something if you can't access it. But legislators never seemed to get that far in their reasoning.
If you guys REALLY want to have a mind bender the judge is mulling over the fact that the DMCA might be unconstitutional due to the fact that it denies access to works even AFTER the copywrites expire. Here is the la times article on it.
district and circut court judges are bound by the law and the supreme court rulings. there is no ruling on the DMCA v. fair use yet from the top 9 but there is a law and based on that the judge must rule in favor of copyright holders. this case however will not be the end as an injunction to the ruling will be given while the losing party gets an appeal and then another injunction or a hold will be granted pending the acceptance of and ruling on the case by the supreme court.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Information does not tend toward freedom in the same manner that physical phenomenon tend toward equilibrium. It takes my active intervention to prevent equilibrium - on the other hand, it takes my active participation to spread (and thus "free") any information. Hence, I can just as easily (by your fallacious 'science' argument) claim that information does not want to be free. Neither of us would be right. It can easily be said that it takes more work to make work free than non-free, since I have to actually do something (create & spread) to make it free, whereas if I write it in my book & don't share it with you, that's a whole lot easier - or if I just keep it to myself in my little brain, that's easier still.
Put another way, which "takes more work": distributing a binary only with super-annoying copy protection licensed from some 3-man development shop (un-free) or distributing a binary with the exact snapshot of the source that binary was created with? Kind of shoots a hole in your argument that "closing" information somehow goes against the fundamental state of information, which requires it to be "free."
BTW, people aren't "stupid" because they don't agree with your "clever" philosophy. Maybe they just disagree - or furthermore you could be *gasp* wrong. Or not. But it's worth consideration.
Yes, but doesn't it only protect "effective access" controls? Given that CSS can be decrypted real time by a perl script that is so short it can be written on a T-shirt, surely CSS does not qualify as "effective"?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If you buy a can opener and it breaks, do you expect to get another can opener for free (ignoring warranties, assume it's been 3 years since you bought the can opener)?
/.ers were alive.)
Different animals. When you buy a 'device' you are buying the DEVICE. When you buy a DVD (Or CD or VHS Tape or Phillips Cassette or Vinyl record) you are buying a License to play the media and experience whatever is on it. The media itself is secondary to the License.
Since the price of the Media is pennies, I would say YES. If you (an industry) are going to charge me 50 times what the media costs because I am buying a license, not a media, I would expect you to replace the media at cost - if not free. Remember, the License didn't expire when the record got a scratch. (We won't go into the Recording Industry and their holdover "Breakage" clause - where they skim money off the top for losses due to the ancient phenolyte disks cracking in shipping. Something that hasn't been an issue since the vast majority of us
Likewise, when the "product" is released on a new media format (without change in the performance - EG. LP to Tape versions) I shouldn't have to pay full price -again- for a "product" I already have the license for. My license didn't expire. Why am I being charged for one again?
I doubt I'm explaining it well, but we can certainly hope we have a clueful judge here. The DMCA is one of the worst pieces of legislature to come down the pike in decades. If this case starts swinging the balance back in favor of the Public, then we have something to look forward to. To me, the DMCA, more than anything else, shows how much the Media controls our lives, our government, and our perceptions.
People don't make Legislators or Laws. The Media bundle them up and sell them to us.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
..except not giving money to the MPAA affilated companies to purchase these ridiculous laws in the first place.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
there's no WAY this is going to do anything other than stop the flow of income into 321 Studios,
They want to make innovators afraid to go into business, eliminating other players in the media business. They want to own and control all media from production to viewing, and this is just a step in that direction.
And it's awesome! DVDshrink allows you to set the compression levels on every single extra/menu/video stream individually.
It's fast like DVD2ONE...
Guide to DVDshrink
This is convoluted, of course, since you can't copy something if you can't access it. But legislators never seemed to get that far in their reasoning.
It is equally true that "If we can access something, we can copy it". No one ever seems to make that logic leap, either. Especially as applies to DVD's - If we have to decrypt them to watch them, we can also copy them. Or those copy protected audio CD's - if we can hear them, we can copy them.
~Will.
sig?
First, is CSS patented? I mean, it's gotta either be patented or be in the public domain, right? Is there another choice I'm missing?
Anyway, assuming it is patented, then the patent is up in 20 years, right? So, once the patent is up, who can legally argue that you broke the decryption?
Just some thoughts.
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Fair use, although codified by statute in the Copyright Act of 1976, was first acknowledged as a right by the Federal Courts (I don't know in what decision the term first appeared). Since, in the absence of statute, the only place the Courts derive authority from is the Constitution, then that's where the Fair Use doctrine stems from. The words may not appear anywhere, but rights that _do_ appear in the text have often given rise to other rights that don't. This is the same as "Right to Privacy" being derived from such rights as association, freedom from illegal search, etc.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
But he added that Ebert has no more of a right to make full copies of a movie than anyone else.
Ummm... OK. The implication is that he (and thus anyone else) does have the right to make excerpts, right? Which part of the DVD in question is unencrypted to facilitate this? The part that the studios want to have excerpted, or the part that the individual wants to excerpt?
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might use standard HTML or CSS.
This is convoluted, of course, since you can't copy something if you can't access it. But legislators never seemed to get that far in their reasoning.
Which in the case of DVDs is absolutely incorrect. CSS is a block encryption method, which means that if you copy a dvd block for block and maintain the position of a given byte on the disc, you never have to decrypt the data. There is nothing physically intrinsic to the original media that is required for decryption.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Why isn't this thing used more often? Seems to me this clearly makes the war on drugs unconstitutional. In what bizarre world is control of your own biochemistry not a fundamental right? How is altering ones mind with drugs any different from altering it with religion, study, or experience? In Madison's day, when *everyone* treated themselves with alcohol, laudanum, and hemp extracts, no one could imagine the absurd situation we find ourselves in today. This is exactly what the 9th amendment was written for.
Offtopic I know. I don't really expect the government to be logical.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So one side can say, "just because this right isn't enumerated, doesn't mean it isn't implied." And the other side can say, "just because this activity isn't enumerated as a right, doesn't mean is is implied." And turning to the 9th Ammendment doesn't resolve that.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
First off, I am not a lawyer: There are several problems with 321's case. Namely is that fair use clause does not specifically state individuals can make backups of copyrighted material (except software). Could the case be made that a Movie DVD technically software, much like a program on a CD? From the Cornell law website and the U.S. Code (Title 17): Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include - (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors ------- Section 108 appears to allow copying, but only by libraries: Sec. 108. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives (a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if - (1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage; (2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and (3) the reproduction or distribution of the work includes a notice of copyright that appears on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section, or includes a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright if no such notice can be found on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section. (b) The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section apply to three copies or phonorecords of an unpublished work duplicated solely for purposes of preservation and security or for deposit for research use in another library or archives of the type described by clause (2) of subsection (a), if - (1) the copy or phonorecord reproduced is currently in the collections of the library or archives; and (2) any such copy or phonorecord that is reproduced in digital format is not otherwise distributed in that format and is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library or archives. (c) The right of reproduction under this section applies to three copies or phonorecords of a published work duplicated solely for the purpose of replacement of a copy or phonorecord that is damaged, deteriorating, lost, or stolen, or if the existing format in which the work is stored has become obsolete, if - (1) the library or archives has, after a reasonable effort, determined that an unused replacement cannot be obtained at a fair price; and (2) any such copy or phonorecord that is reproduced in digital format is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library or archives in lawful possession of such copy.
Looks like we'd all better be mirroring our copies of DeCSS, DVD2one, DVDXCopy, InstantCopy, SmartRipper, DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, DVD95copy, Nero, RecordNow etc. before they get pulled off the web.
;o)
Better still, put 'em on KazaA to really piss off the MPAA
The DMCA/MPAA/RIAA are getting too big for their boots - they think they're some sort of new world government that can do anything if it MAY affect their profits.
#include <sig.h>
- "primary designed or produced for the purpose"
- "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than"
- "is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in"
When there's a gazillion CSS-protected DVDs on the market for which the DMCA applies, and just a few where it doesn't apply, then sure, the above qualifications will still cause the tool to be illegal. But the numbers matter, and it makes the application become subjective opinion instead of an objective fact. And the more you manipulate the balance, the more subjective it becomes, until you eventually reach some threshold (1%? 5%?) where you just can't be sure anymore.You can also manipulate circumstance where the majority of CSS-protected DVDs doesn't matter. Suppose a DVD comes with player software stored on the DVD itself. Suppose it's bootable, where it starts playing its own CSS-protected content on your PC right after booting. In that context, it would be overwhelmingly obvious that the primary purpose of the player (at least in the manner it it deployed) is to play that specific DVD.
Imagine this: a Linux/BSD/Hurd/whatever distribution on DVD that also includes a CSS-protected movie. Maybe an interview with Linus. Maybe a "for morons" installation guide. Maybe a "BSD daemonette boothbabes lpmud-wrestling match". Whatever. You boot it, and it asks if you want to play the movie or proceed with installation of the OS.
There's still a lot of potential here.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The question is, can this sort of opening in the DMCA be exploited to make the act self-destruct?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'