Slashdot Mirror
FBI Anti-Piracy Seal
Supp0rtLinux writes "Looks like the FBI is giving a new anti-piracy seal for entertainment and software products. Looks like now the RIAA and MPAA pursuits will add a new federal level to future prosecutions." I'm pretty sure that our forms of media already contain warnings against unauthorized duplication, rebroadcasting, and public performance, but now it's in logo form!
Since when is federal involvement new? Wasn't it the DMCA that added the addendum to copyright violation law saying that if the violation involved something "digital" it was an instant criminal offense, regardless of profit (which used to be the civil/criminal difference)?
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
(By the way, I know that VOA isn't really a propaganda machine in the same sense as the Bush press office is. But it sounds funny.)
Actually, they're further with it... they've allready wedged the (C) symbol into ASCII at number 169, and also the USPTO has gotten their (R) in as ASCII number 174...
...and I use MPlayer for DVDs.
(Note: MPlayer has no seek/fast foreward restrictions)
For those too lazy to shop around for a link, the logo is visible on the FBI homepage along with a fairly extensive notice.
The wording is what really gets me...very colloquial for such a terse organization:
Great stuff. Of course, I'd always thought of the red, black, and white FBI WARNING screen on VHS and DVD's as somewhat of a, well, warning...but hey, new times, new logo.
They consider this an effort to combat piracy. I somehow doubt that half an hour in Photoshop will do much to address the problem.
Granted, I'm all for the protection of artists and such, but the usual practice of protecting the 'big stars' (who tend to fall short of being 'artists') while leaving independent musicians and filmmakers out in the cold isn't exactly what I'd had in mind.
Here's hoping there will some benefit to those that still create their work rather than serve as a mere mouthpiece.newspeak, Orwell, 1984.
I thought he was being pretty funny with that useage.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Yeah, but you sure as shit can't do it with DVDs. Lost in Translation came with a nice warning followed by 10 minutes of trailers I couldn't skip.
Sure you can...
See my other comment on this topic.
It sounds like you buy used DVDs from rental places, since I've never seen a retail DVD with unskippable commercials, but that doesn't really matter - Just because you paid less for it, you did buy it, why the hell shouldn't you have the right to enjoy it without ads or annoying FBI warning?
Personally, my biggest peeve comes from the imports. Not only do they have an FBI warning, but a similar warning from half a dozen countries, in as many languages. Talk about pissing the customer off...
Why bother paying for what you can get for free? DVD Decrypter, DVDStripper, and DVD Shrink will edit out unwanted material and squeeze any movie down to where it'll fit on a DVD-R, and they're all free (as in beer, anyway, which is more than you can say for DVDXcopy).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
cybercrime also includes crackers, Kiddy porn rings, internet fraud, etc.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The Chinese bootlegs usually have that too. Sometimes thay have a high quality FBI warning and a preview which makes you think that you have a DVD dupe if you check it in the shop. Then you get home and find that the actual movie is camcorder video, complete with rustling chip packets, caughing and shadows.
"The FBI doesn't prosecute murderers, the states do, you dumb fuck."
The FBI doesn't prosecute anybody; they leave that to district attornies, both state, federal, and local.
But more to the point, *of course* they're involved in murders; they get involved routinely either because it (a) crosses state lines (b) at the request of the local police department (c) whenever the Attorney General feels there would be value by having the FBI involved.
The recent sniper case in the Washington DC area involved the FBI.
So before you call anybody Moron, you might want to look in the mirror and understand you fit the bill.
First of all, you can't turn off macrovision for the simple reason that they wont get a license from that DVD consortium if they allowed that. Actually, the fact that region changing/unlocking is done in a slightly weird way instead of from the menuy is for the same reason..
I use an apex 1100wb myself, replaced the dvd reader hardware in it, I just want its decoder and firmware..
Out of the box it wont play vcd, wont allow region unlocking, and will enforce macrovision... however, theres tons of alternative versions of the firmware around, including versiosn to disable amcrovision, forced content viewing, regio locking... oh, and of course the alternative firmware allows you to play vcd and svcd, and even allows playing mpeg video directly from ISO format cds.
As said, I replaced the reader hardware in it, like quite a few cheap DVD players, it turns out to use a standard atapi dvd reader, th you will have some trouble with the front cover when replacign it.
Expensive DVD players are good for getting the most out of official DVDs, if you are into playing back your own work (or for those that insist on doing so, copied stuff) you just want to have the cheapest generic box you can get, just ensure you can get alternative firmware for it if it doesn't already do what you want it to by default.