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EFF Supporting Home DVD Editing
cheesedog writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief in federal court in support of companies that offer software to edit violence or sex from a user's DVD. The full story can be found in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune."
There's selling pre-edited movies. I'd say that should be protected under Doctrine of First Sale, as long as it's clearly labeled, but that argument doesn't appear to hold much water in cases so far.
Then there's selling companion data which DVD players could use on-the-fly to edit out portions of movies. Since the companion data wouldn't even quote the original media, it's quite likely it would hold up to any sensible interpretation of the law.
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When dvd's where just out, I remember hearing That you could watch a the movie with a lower ratting. But now since they failed on their promise (or claim) third party company's are filling the niche. Then the Movie studio's get angry.. Wait didn't they say that dvd's could filter stuff for me.. And then never put that filtering feature in. Seems to me that some directors are just high and mighty and need some humbling.
This isn't about sex and violence, but about the DVD owner's rights to fair use. As well as other things, fair use is supposed to guarentee us the right to edit and view DVD's we own however we want. As most of you are aware, the MPAA doesn't like this and is trying to prevent it. That is what the EFF is standing up against.
I still don't understand why people don't put this kind of stuff in their story submissions. Here's the EFF's press release.]
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
That the Hollywood Studios are represented by people that think that they should only protect Hollywood's interests. This translates in over-protection which unfortunately treads on the
:(
If I am a concerned parent who whishes his children to enjoy a good piece of art like a movie, but as a concerned parent don't want some "bad memes" (ideas, images and feelings) to taint my offspring so early, why shouldn't I be free to choose a software that helps me in my role as educator?
The reason is this: Hollywood has already drawn their cards: they will want to sell me again special dvd players which will play specially crafted dvds which have the memes that the Hollywood makers allow me to screen off to my children (so that I can jump the gunfight, but not the scene were the female co-protagonist drinks soft drink "X").
All this is a shame because:
a) Hollywood will not satisfy all the public
b) real competition in "volouteer censoring software/hardware" will not ensue, bringing along worse hardware or software with all the flaws (maybe not being children proof like the 99% of the technology today preposed to it...)
c) again Hollywood stomps on the common sense.
It was a bad day when technology compaines began investing in movie companies.
Thanks to it more movies were produced, and more money was invested for a little time, but on the long run if one of the two sides has a crises, the other half can't say it's party time
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
When you do it to yourself it's called mastrubation, not censorship!
How ya like dat?
Personally, I have no problem checking out Kate Winslett naked in "Titantic" - it was probably the only good part of the movie for me.
You should check out Hideous Kinky and Holy Smoke They both have more nudity and are more interesting films.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
It's very easy to do actually:
I use a program called IfoEdit which has great guides and tutorials at http://www.doom9.org. You can remove the P-UPS (Prohibited user operations) rather easily with this program.
The guy has actually gone to work on DVDXCopy. I found the best so far is to make a one disc copy (even of dual layer dvds) with DVD2One which can reencode an entire dual layer dvd to one disc in half an hour.
>libraries should pay royalties,
They do in some countries (the UK for one)