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MPAA Prevails Against 321 Studios' DVD X Copy
Quok writes "Yahoo has the scoop. The article is short on details, but it seems the MPAA have succeeded in getting an injunction issued against 321 Studios, the makers of the popular DVD X Copy software, which allows consumers to make backup copies of DVD movies. Strike one for fair use."
What am I supposed to do when I irrepairably scratch my favorite DVD? Go buy another one? That's crap. The primary function of this software is what? JUST to circumvent the antipiracy scheme, or is it to give someone the ability to backup that which they've already paid for.
The fucks at the MPAA going to give me a new copy of Hackers on DVD if I accidently damage my old one? They obviously don't want me copying it for my safe keeping.
Assholes.
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I was also trying to submit the same article.... I did some research, so a federal judge decided for the MPAA and against the 321 Studios DVD Copying software. MPAA argued that DMCA prohibits anyone to go around an encryption scheme (effective or not) the CSS. It looks like the 321 Studios is selling software that can copy DVDs onto other DVDs and also onto your harddrives in some file format. However, the software is also capable of selecting which features, languages etc. will be copied so it looks like the software actually does CSS decryption in order to go this extra steps. Maybe in this case DMCA does apply. If this is the truth, the software will have to be changed to only allow bit by bit copying in order to allow fair use and at the same time to comply with the DMCA.
BTW. on the 321studios.com Flash is required for navigation, I personally see it as the grounds for shutting that company down, not only prohibitting their software
You can't handle the truth.
I thought one of the main concessions that the RIAA "allows" is that people can make copies of CD's that they have legally bought, both for backup purposes and to have a copy in the car, home, office, etc.
Is this different? Does the MPAA have a different view on copying than the RIAA, and if so under which corporate empire's rule do we live? We are obviously not under the rule of the people anymore.
Bearing in mind, of course, that the CNET article is factually wrong, the video data on a DVD is not encrypted at all, the copy software does not circumvent CSS, retaining it in the copies it makes and said copies employ CSS technology perfectly by preventing playback on non CSS equiped equipment and that the DMCA explicitly has a provision for retaining fair use rights.
Other than that, yeah, it's black and white.
KFG
I doubt the injunction will stop the inevitable availability of this software on just about any file-sharing service you care to name. What it might stop though is legitimate companies developing software like this so that you, I and anyone else can exercise our right to make working backups of the software, movies or anything else that we've purchased.
After all why would anyone want to spend time, effort and money developing software that allows people to do sensible, legal things with their property if the MPAA, RIAA or anyone else with a big enough cheque book is going to shut them down before they get going? Chalk up another victory for big corporations in their seemingly unstoppable war against the rights of the law abiding majority in their pursuit of the lawless minority.
That being said, the cat is out of the bag and the movie industry will have to wait until the next generation of copy protection when DVI connectors become more common.
harmonious design
If I can legally make a backup copy but I can't legally obtain the means to do so, well that's just the same as it not being legal for me to make a backup copy, isn't it?
The point has been made before-- if we're only buying a license to view/hear the content on a disc as the RIAA/MPAA maintain, then we should definitely be owed replacements (if not free, then for the cost of the media only) when something bad happens to a disc we possess and renders it unusable.
That is a class-action lawsuit I'd like to see... where a bunch of people with ruined CDs/DVDs sue to force the producers to provide minimal-cost replacement media-- and not just for the members of the class, but for everyone, in perpetuity.
They really should appeal. Sure it will cost a goodly sum in lawyers' fees, but the 9th Circuit (if you get the right judges) is quite liberal in terms of personal rights.
When I read this article I became really concerned about fair use. So here's what I'm doing. Email everyone that has a public address listed on the mpaa.org site. Ask them:
p aa.orgh op@attglobal.neta uthier@mpaa.org
If I want to *legally* backup my DVD which is described in fair use how would the MPAA suggest I do this? If it's illegal to get around CSS and it's legal to backup please tell me. It's a rhetorical question really but I'd be curious to know if they come up with some type of response.
BTW this is the first time I've ever posted AC for obvious reasons. Here are the emails I found on MPAA.org
complaint@mpaa.org
dcinema@mpaa.org
hotline@m
mdore@le-public-systeme.fr
mpamiamiworks
mpario@attglobal.net
Pascale_W
webhost@mpaa.org
I have ripped my entire library of about 70 DVDs into DivX with it. With a script you can just insert the DVD and walk away.
It all began as an effort to be able to watch entire seasons of Simpsons, Futurama or Black Adder in one go without having to change discs and/or deal with cumbersome menus and copyright announcements that you can't fast-forward (FOX is particularly bad in this aspect).
Now I've got a fanless VIA EPIA mini-ITX box connected to my TV with the media on a 250 GB portable hard drive. Interestingly, a cordless trackball mouse is actually a better remote than your ordinary remote control when you get used to it.
The owls are not what they seem
To force your pet peeves and petty issues on everyone else, you constantly lobby to pass new laws that will arrest those whom you don't like. Consequently, the government has become bigger and bigger and no longer looks out for you.
There was a time when the individual was bigger than the state, now he is just a slave.
People, wake up and realize that the two points of opinion are not the left and the right. The struggle is between individual rights and the statists (which includes Democrats/liberal and republican/conservatives). And the statists have won in a big way.
The greatness of a nation hinges on the freedom of its people. Welcome to the beginning of the end of the Great American Experiment!
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When you buy a *thing* you can do with it what you want. For instance, if I buy a painting, I can publicly exhibit it all I want, I can draw a moustache on it, I can lend it to a friend.
When you buy a license, you get a set of rights. So, if I buy a gym membership, I'm allowed to work out during gym hours, use a locker, swim in the pool. I'm not allowed to loan my membership card to a friend to use. If I misplace my membership card, that doesn't cancel my membership.
It seems the MPAA wants it both ways: They want to be allowed to make all sorts of restrictions as if they were selling licenses, but want to pretend it's just a physical object they're selling when it comes to media damage, theft, and format changes.
I say they play by the same rules as everyone else. Make it one or the other.
Soviet Union had a Constituion that looked like a document fair to all the citizens of the country. But the Soviet Government constantly used lied (usually poorly disguised lies) to do whatever it felt was neccessary to stay in power. It still used its well-oiled propaganda machine to try to convince the dumbest 80% of the population that it was the most fair society in the wolrd.
Sure US has a freedom of speech. Unless you want to discuss something that is not politically correct, or you happen to be a computer programmer communicating in a way that you find most expressive, or you happen to be a mathematician discussing mathematics (think cryptography), or a chemist discussing high-energy reactions (think explosives).
It used to be that it was OK to tremple everyone rights legally as long as it was done to bring about safety. More and more it is done to bring about practical short-term solutions (read profit).
But at least there is no slippery slope.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Right on the front page (after updates to two similar products are mentioned btw!) they have the following interesting comment:
My bold, and that pretty much sums up how i feel about this aswell. I trust the views of Doom9 (he's a person and a site) as someone who knows a lot more about all this than me and has proved right on the money in the past. The sentence after the bold... well, that just pisses me off - i don't know what to say. I can make cr*p quality backups?! Is that a joke? (rhetorical).This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
When you buy a CD or DVD, you're not buying the music, you're buying a plastic circle and a license to view/hear the contents of that circle.
Really. Funny, I don't see ads that say: '[LATEST DISNEY MOVIE]: License it today!!!!"
They say "[LATEST DISNEY MOVIE]: Buy it today!!!!" (emphasis mine).
Now, IANAL, but this seems like false advertising to me.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
With reasonable care a book will last 100 years. There are many instances where a CD or DVD are literally falling apart in less than a decade. This is a manufacturer defect. Also CD and DVD are not as durable as we were first led to believe. And then there is the wear problems of Tape and Phonograph. So the MPAA and RIAA is against making backups of a medium that under normal use will not last a generation, and the counter example is of a medium that is documented to last centuries.
I have seen manuscripts that date back to the Roman empire. I had a friend in Imaging Science that worked with the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have some books that my Dad gave me, that he received when he was a child. Yet VHS tapes from the '80s are hardly playable. I have a CD from 1990 that skips on most any CD player now. I always handle my cds by the edge and they are either in a cd player or a case.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
In the Sony Betamax case, the Supreme Court ruled that as long as there is a legitimate use for a technology, it cannot be banned because someone may use it for illegitimate uses.
I don't know much about how X Copy works but if it does a straight copy without actually bypassing CSS, how does the software violate DMCA?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yes, but your DVD-R drive has no hope of creating a double-layered DVD like the kind Hollywood makes
Not true. Pioneer has already shown a live demo where a mere A06 with hacked firmware can write dual-layer. Whether or not they will release such firmware for older drives seems another matter entirely, but the as the more important issue, dual-layer writeables do exist.
Additionally, although most discs do use dual layer, the movie itself often comes to under 4.7GiB. So, removing the useless French and Spanish audio, and making a movie-only copy, you can frequently get a 100% main-movie copy.
Now, if you care about extras (I do not, personally, nor do I care about "director's commentary" audio where you have mindless chatter for fifteen minutes which tapers off to "Uh, yeah, I remember this scene" once every five minutes or so until the end), such a "copy" might not satisfy you. Myself, I buy DVDs the main feature, not for trailers, ads, idiotic babbling, or anything of that nature.
I think it's plainly obvious by reading the comments that the vast majority of Slashdotters would only ever use DVD X Copy for backing up a DVD that they already own. They would not use it for, say, renting a DVD from Netflix and making a copy for themselves, as many of my friends do regularly. Then again, almost everybody I know who uses Kazaa uses it to download and share copyrighted material without the holder's permission, so perhaps I'm hanging with the wrong crowd.
Making backups of your media is a good idea, in case they're damaged or stolen. But not even factoring in the cost of the DVD burner or the blank media, the basic version of DVD X Copy retails for $69.99. That's the cost of three DVDs.
I must own over a hundred DVDs, and not once have I had a DVD go bad or otherwise become unusable. I would have to have had three instances of this happening in order for a purchase of DVD X Copy to have been worth the investment.
If I regularly loaned DVDs to friends and three ended up not coming back, the software would have been a good investment, but it would have been more efficient to be more careful in whom I loan my DVDs to.
It seems to me that the most logical way to get your value's worth out of DVD X Copy is to use it for piracy. Just as most people use Kazaa illegally and most people who buy equipment for getting free cable or satelite signals also do so to avoid paying, rather than for "test purposes" or "for educational use only" as the ads proclaim, my bet is that most people who use DVD X Copy do so illegally.
Does anybody dispute this?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Maybe my DVD-R cant make as good backup if i also backup all the extras from the disc. But as far as i know ppls rarely bother to watch all the extras from the disk. So mostly backing up just the movie will give you acceptable quality of picture.
There ws mention of prematgurely failing DVD's quiet a while back on here... But that should have been brought to the table because it is a obvious manufacturing problem that the "Studio" claimed wasn't related to the manufacturing process... That is a perfect example of why we need REAL fair use protection.... That or us consumers need to pour tonnes of money into lobbying the government to protect our rights...
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
If the majority of people don't obey a law, should that law even exist?
I would also like to point out that there are two sides to this honor system, and if one side isn't playing fair, why should we.
Since there has been software to take media deom a disc, and out it on a hard drive, and they still sells dvds, I would say that a minority of people use DVDs that infring on someones copyright.
The people who make money infringe on copyrights are houses that produce DVDs by the thousands.
I deally, the courts would of upheld the constitutionality of making copies for personal use, just like they did for Videos.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Never, and that's the point; the MPAA doesn't want you to be able to burn CSS, and has 1million + 1 failsafes in place to keep it that way(member patents, trade secrets, etc). The only semi-consumer drives that can burn CSS are those that follow the DVD-A standard(DVD-Authoring), and those aren't even in a price-range where we can begin talking about reasonable.
"If the majority of people don't obey a law, should that law even exist?"
If people could revoke a law by majority violation, would we pay taxes? Have copyright? The American Disabilities Act?
"I would also like to point out that there are two sides to this honor system, and if one side isn't playing fair, why should we."
The 'other side' offers a product, and they can choose what form and under what license to offer that product. If you don't like it, don't buy that product. By your comment I gather that you think it's okay to make copies of DVDs for your friends, or do you mean something else by 'not playing fair'?
"The people who make money infringe on copyrights are houses that produce DVDs by the thousands."
Yeah, but the people who lose money are the people who would otherwise sell their product.
I'm no fan of major labels, the RIAA, or the MPAA, but if and when smaller labels make their comeback through online distribution, they'll be the ones who are hurt by flagrant copying, and no matter how piusly we can say 'we won't copy the little label's music or movies, just the big-label basters who rape their artists' I don't believe that the day we remove copyright law is the day we stop needing it.
Kevin Fox
...when you can get a fast single layer one for cheap right now. Then when dual layer comes out just sell it.
LOOP1: MOV CX,2 LOOP LOOP1