Slashdot Mirror
Ripping DVDs to Handhelds = Fair Use?
An anonymous reader sent us a "CNET column highlights DVD to Pocket PC, a US$25 software package that allows users to rip DVDs for viewing on Windows handhelds. The story details the hoops that Amsterdam-based Makayama is jumping through to comply with "fair use" as [narrowly] defined by U.S. law.
Because ripping a CD doesn't require that you break any encryption. Because DVD's use CSS for encrypting the data that is on them, you cannot legally break that copy protection under the DMCA. CD's don't have that luxury as there is nothing encrypted on the disc.
Ive used this program, and its decent. I have issues every now and then when ripping with it not recognizing the titles or it wont open the DVD, so Id have to either start playing the DVD to get it to work, or rip with an external program and use the programs conversion features. I own these DVD's and use this for when I travel to watch movies on my IPaq and in the hotel room that overcharges for movies, I think its fair use.
As long as I purchased it, ripping a DVD, whether to handheld or other device, is fair use.
I'll do what *I* want with *MY* property, and that includes making backups.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I regularly convert shows from MythTV to Divx for watching on my Dell Axim with PocketMVP. I can fit an hour long show (40 mins after commercial cut) into 70M. I can put 3 shows on a 256M CF card.
Whenever I travel I always take at least 3 or 4 shows with me as well as a number of ebooks from Baan or BlackMask.com.
It takes about 15 minutes to convert a show for the handheld.
Simple... The legal right to do things like show that film in a cinema, sell soundtrack CDs and sell t-shirts with the characters on them are all (potentially) worth a lot of money.
If those rights were given to anyone who bought the dvd, then the film company wouldn't be able to sell those rights to rerun cinemas, record labels or t-shirt manufacturers.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Here are some links to free movies for PDAs, especially Linux PDAs, like the SHARP Zaurus Linux PDAs. There are also tips and tricks how to resize and convert movies to fit to PDAs.
I have a Clie UX50, which actually has pretty crappy battery life compared to most PDAs. I can still watch a full 2hr movie on it, and in fact have been ripping DVDs to it for months.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
The problem isn't people doing it for themselves. Without violating the 4th amendment it would be impossible to know who was ripping DVDs and who wasn't. Besides, copyright law allows you to make all the copies you want in the privacy of your own home (some lawyer can correct me, but that's my reading of Title 17).
;)
The problem is making and selling tools that allow people to do this. These tools may violate the DMCA and stuff. Look at the mess surrounding DeCSS. Here we have the maker of the tool being acquitted in Norway, but aren't the U.S. lawsuits against groups like 2600 still ongoing?
And as for criminal vs. civil, who cares? Your life will probably be easier if it's a criminal offense. Civil trials have a lower standard of proof and could be very expensive in terms of damage awards. At least if you go to prison you get free room and board for the duration.
I do not have a signature
I doubt you would actually be sued for a fair-use case. The people who are making software that allows them to circumvent copy protection are being cracked down on, but I've yet to see anyone who has actually been using their software being implicated yet.
Take DVD X-Copy for example. Court ruled that they had to stop producing it, but did not go after who bought it.
The fact is, any case that is brought that is actually fair use, the MPAA will lose. It's only by going against the people upstream that they can really win.
--etrnl--
Dont know how many here knows what happens behind the scenes when you rip any Disc (and if I am talking out of my ass, please correct me).
Every CSS encrypted disc contains the key, which when the DVD Player encounters encrypted content, looks for and finds to decrypt the content at runtime.
Now when we rip the DVD to make a copy (for piracy or for fair use), the tool uses the key to decrypt the media and dumps the decrypted media to our hard drive, but not the key. Then we go ahead and burn it to any standard DVD+/-R Disc. Understand that any standard DVD-R/DVD+R disc you buy from the store is similar to the DVD that came with the original movie, except for one - the part where the encrypted key will reside cannot be burned on to. Which means, if you were to try and make a One to One copy of the movie disc, you will be able to write the encrypted media on to the new Disc, but the DVD writer would not be able to write the key on to the new Disc, since that part is not writeable (dont know why, but thats how it is).
So essentially, we are not making a one to one copy of the movie. We decrypt the media and write the decrypted media on to the second disc and throws away the CSS key. Now our DVD Player finds decrypted media and has no need for a key, so merrily goes along and plays the content.
I am all for Fair Use, and I hate RIAA more than I hate MPAA (because of the prices). But when we rip a DVD for Fair use and claim that its a One to One copy, thats not necessarily true (or hold up in court) since they can always argue that the Key is not copied over as well as the media is decrypted as well. IANAL, but wouldnt that hold merit in the legal system?
Rapid Nirvana
17 USC 506 covers criminal liability for copyright infringement. 17 USC 1204 covers criminal liability for circumvention.
They are both civil and criminal matters, and you could go to prison.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
At least here in the US, regardess of the right of fair use, if you have to decrypt during your ripping, then you violate the law..
Thanks to our clueless congress, fair use is easily circumvented by the companies.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
zaurus freakin' rocks. cult linux item.
That's an understatement. The built in keyboard is more convenient to use than handwriting recognition will ever be, plus unlike a stylus, you won't worry accidently losing it. The Opera web browser bodyslams Pocket IE and then beats the shit out of it with a lead pipe. Try Opera for ten minutes and you won't go back to the crappy piece of broken shit that is Pocket IE. Plus, of course, there's the hackability of the Zaurus since it runs Linux.
Actually you already do have free and clear permission to copy all your legal DVDs to VHS, you have had this right for quite some time.
The problem is that DVDs are often encoded with Macrovision. So while you do have the right, the content providers aren't required to make it easy.
It is NOT illegal to own a region free, macrovision filtered, DVD player. I have one myself, and the VHS dubs are generally superior to buying a prerecorded tape (if you use good tape and SP recording instead of cheaping out with longer recording times).
The argument is and always has been between buying media and buying content. If you have simply purchased media that has something recorded on it already, you can do whatever you want with it. So the industry claims you are not purchasing media, but are purchasing the right to view the content, you just happen to be purchasing that on in given media format.
If you've purchased the right to use the content, you should be able to use that content wherever you want - rooms without DVD players, the VHS system in your car, etc.... this certainly applies to handhelds and other computing devices.
The sticky situation comes in because the DMCA includes those pesky provisions that make it illegal to circumvent copy protection, even when you can prove you are doing for legitimate purposes. It's basically large content providers banding together to find a way to circumvent fair use provisions of copyright law.
Thank Bill Clinton and Fritz Hollings (D-Disney), and all the other politicians who helped make this possible.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The poster was complaining about discs which don't allow you to bypass the opening FBI warning and/or advertisements. It's coded into the disc. RTFP.
Well, you're thinking of 17 USC 106, but that list is not in any kind of order of importance. There's nothing sacrosanct about the reproduction right as compared to the distribution right, or any of the others. There's not a 'core' copyright with a bunch of lesser copyrights surrounding it.
As for fair use, check out the language of 17 USC 107: In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include....
Thus, there aren't any categorical fair uses. There is only a test that has to be applied each and every time there is an alleged fair use. Previous testing might prove informative, but isn't determinative.
What it depends on then, are the various factors involved. If something about the factual situation changed substantially, it could skew the way the fair use analysis works, turning fair uses into infringements, and vice versa.
The best you can hope for with regards to time shifting is to say that in Sony time shifting was found fair, and that your situation is identical in all material respects, so the outcome should be same. And given the precedential value of that decision, it probably would be. But that doesn't mean that timeshifting is NECESSARILY fair, just that it is, so far, typically found to be fair.
Does it make any sense at all to you that we would be allowed to audiotape our LPs, but not transcode DVDs for PDA or laptop use?
No, but remember that audiotaping LPs is already specifically allowed even when it ISN'T a fair use. No court will bother conducting a fair use analysis of the situation since it doesn't have to do so. The AHRA takes care of this situation perfectly fine already.
Besides, if I had my druthers, I'd reform copyright law in a rather spectacular fashion. I'd probably make it legal for natural persons to do whatever they liked non-commercially for starters. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.