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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.
Quite fair, since the movie companies are too lazy to sell the movies in handheld-friendly files. Rip away!
... for a while. Until somebody solves the issue of my DVD drive draining my battery I don't have much choice. I own all the DVDs I watch, I always saw it as simply migrating the media. Maybe I'm going straight to prison.
It will be interesting to see what the effect of the Bankoff-Greengard case will be here. I think the judge in that case would say this is not fair use.
Whilst I agree with you, I have a sneaking suspicion that the MPAA doesn't. It's still illegal to rip your own CD's to MP3 format in the UK, even though I consider it "fair use". Unfortunately, fair use doesn't mean what Joe Punter (you and I) think it means. It means whatever the copyright holder or pigopolists want it to mean.
I think there's a direct comparison with ripping MP3's for personal use to be drawn here. If it is fair use to do this in the US, why isn't it for DVD's?
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When I initially puchased my Ipaq, I planned on using it for Organizing my contacts appointments etc (bs I wanted a fancy GBA and I know it) I have found though that the primary uses I have for my Ipaq is for wathing episodes of some of my favorite shows (when ripped properly a movie tends to look pretty decent, at least enough to be able to enjoy an episode or two of my favorite shows at lunch) and suprisingly enough reading. The screen is just the right brightness that I harldy ever read a physical book anymore. The vast majority of books are available somewhere out there in ebook form, and there's nothing like the ability to read at night without a fancy booklight while the wife is asleep. To be honest the only game I've spent any signifigant time playing is Nethack, whose free PPC version is quite enjoyable. Oh and it keeps my bookwork and appoints too... yeah thats it.
This is not a sig
Same story, different day. It basically boils down to: what am I actually buying when I buy a CD/DVD/software/etc?
If I'm buying PHYSICAL PROPERTY, I can do whatever I want with it, including resell it once I'm done with it (something the software companies like to say we can't do). I should also be able to play the music/movie for anyone I wish, and let anyone I wish use the software.
If I'm buying a LICENSE, then I should be able to use my one LICENSE however I wish, independent of the media. If I'm getting a license to listen to the song, I should be able to transfer that song to another device so I can listen to it there too. I've paid the license... I'm allowed to listen. Same applies to movies.
Companies are trying to have it both ways, and refuse to pick which one it really is.
Note that one of the big issues the RIAA had was that digital media could be copied EXACTLY. They didn't have a problem with CD->tape apparently because the copy was degraded. Well guess what? When I make an MP3/OGG file, that's lossy compression... therefore the copy is also "degraded". Same goes if you mega-compress a DVD to fit on a 320x480 screen and a tiny 512MB SD card (I'm a Palm T3 owner).
I can understand that if I pay $5 for the VHS version, I might not be entitled to a license for the $30 SuperBit DVD version as well... but if I buy the DVD I sure as hell can make a VHS copy if I want to watch it at a friend's house who doesn't have a DVD player, or if I need to distill it down to fit on my PDA so I can watch it on the plane. Bite me, MPAA.
It's not the technology, of course - it's folks like the MPAA and RIAA. And who can blame them? If I buy a DVD, I'm doing it to get a copy of the movie and the other value-added parts.
If I compress that video down to 250 MB, how much easier is that for me to spread around the Internet using Bittorrent or Kazaa or whatever?
Now, I can't claim any naivity here, and I'm not going to. I download movies over the Internet, in the form of fan subbed animes that haven't made it to the states. Let's me know if I'm going to spend $20 on a DVD only to discover I don't like it. Sure, it takes about a full 24 hours to get around 1-2 hours of video (shrink down to 45-90 minutes when you're done with credits that appear at the beginning and end of every anime episode).
But what if that file shrinks to 128 MB? "Great!" goes the MPAA. "Now they're spreading it even faster!"
Personally, I wouldn't mind a Video iPod, though I'm not sure how often I'd use it. Maybe for plane flights or travel with the kids - would make life easier then using my wife's iBook and handing it to the kids in the back seat so they can watch Blue's Clues. 4 year olds just don't know how to treat a laptop gently. A 4 GB video iPod could hold quite a few movies, and with my daughter old enough to manipulate Link around a screen without him running into the walls all the time, and savvy enough with the mouse to run the DVD movies on the laptop herself, she could use a video iPod with no troubles.
But again, back to the issue: shrinking a 90 minute 4 GB DVD movie into a 125 MB file for a 12-15 cm wide screen without making the MPAA go nuts.
Fair use? I'd say "yeah". After all, if I can compress a legally bought CD to an MP3, there should be no reason why I can't do the same with a video.
So that leaves us with the "how". Perhaps it will be something like the iTunes music store, only with movies: You enter the DVD into your computer, and there's a file right there.
Yes, MPAA - you supply the files, or files(s) for those of us who want subtitles. At 125 each, you could easily include 2 versions for anime fans, and 1 version for the majority of the "english only" movies.
You authorize your computer to play the file and up to 3 others. "Oh, no - DRM! Agh!" I know, but hey, we can compromise a little here, right? Just like iTunes: up to 3 computers can play the file, and unlimited handhelds. If you just want to drag-n-drop the file into your portable video iPod or whatever without "licensing" it over the Internet, that just means you can't watch it on your machine.
Unlimited handheld use should be the rule, so if I've got 5 iPods (one for each member of the family, though the last one doesn't spawn from my wife's womb until July, but I'm getting ready), everybody can have a copy of the movie.
Sure, there's the chance that the movie file will be transmitted over the Internet anyway, but if you come up with the codec to view the files (by "you" I mean "MPAA"), then you can charge a small free (say, $1 per video iPod or whatever) as part of the patent cost. Either way, for every iPod sold, you get a buck, so who cares if the files are flying around like crazy? People will either have to license the file (which they can't do past 3 computers, or they have to buy a DVD), or buy a "video iPod" which still makes you the buck.
That's how the MPAA protects its property, and lets us do what they want. If they really want to be cool, they'll release a utility to let us retro-shrink our current DVD movies as well to the same kind of file.
I'm sure there will be some who will scream "ALL DRM EBIL - KILL HIM", and others going "ALL INTERNET USERS ARE EVIL - SLAY HIM FOR BEING A HERITIC", but I think this is a compromise that might work.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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For those who, want to watch it during flights, read a book or something, Or try talking to your fellow passengers, you may make a friend or two.
Have we been so hooked on popcorn entertainment, that we need it 24x7 , in our lives ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
And with the broadcast bit being slapped on to HDTV, there will come a day very soon where PVR/VCR for TV's will become obsolete.
Then, the mighty media companies can finally shoot for the big dream: Pay-per-play.
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The movie industry is another industry that needs to pull its head out of its ass like the music industry. Give the consumer what they fucking want. I understand their desire to want to protect their copyrights, patents, trade secrets and what not. But too many companies are forgetting that without a consumer they don't have squat. Too many consumers as well have to play the droll roll of mindless consumption addict without really thinking. Would it be so hard for the movie makers to put a compressed Quicktime or WiMP file on the DVD so that one can move the movie to their Laptop, PDA or whatever? People would love that and the movie industry would spur the hardware side. No matter how much DRM and encryption they use there will be illegal trade of those movies. By giving people what they want you give them less of an incentive to download the thing.
I do it for all of my movies... most especially those that my two year old son watches. Why? 1) I can edit out the constant ads for yet more videos he doesn't need 2) As I've got an internal LAN and share the movies throughout the house I don't have to go looking for a DVD whereever he may be inclined to watch it. 3) I don't have to fight with him about not touching the DVD until after he's washed the peanut butter off his hands 4) I can copy several to my laptop when we roadtrip.
It is NOT illegal to rip your own CDs to MP3 in the UK, because it comes under the heading of a "necessary step" in making use of the recording. If you own a CD player, and you have only a cassette player in your car, then transcribing the CD onto cassette is a necessary step in listening to the CD in your car. {Remember that, before the invention of racism, terrorism or paedophilia, a person used to be considered innocent until proven guilty. You can be acquitted on the words of two out of twelve people. I don't believe that there are enough people in the country who have never copied something onto a cassette to listen in a car, for you actually to be able to get more than ten of them on the same jury.} Unfortunately, I've lost the reference {there goes some easy karma}, but the way the law was written meant that it could have been interpreted to mean that the law gave explicit permission for that. The copy would only become infringing if it were used other than in accordance with the necessitating situation, e.g. if you listened to it on a machine that was already capable of playing CDs.
By extension, it would be similarly legal to transfer movies to a PDA. It is merely a "necessary step" in the watching of this film on that device.
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On the contrary, I have been using my Palm M125 as a kind of ebook/mobile webpage viewer ever since I got it. I find if far less tireing on the eyes than my CRT, and it is lighter and smaller than a book.
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
In many states there are fairly heavy penalties for using encryption in the commission of a crime. My question is: if a portable copy is within rights to fair use (as may be eventually decided in the courts), but the "locking" mechanism restricts my fair use rights, has a crime been committed? If so, what are the penalties for encryption having been used in the commission of that crime?
A colleague suggested that one... it might be an interesting avenue to pursue.
the zaurus is the under-the-radar linux product of the last 2 years. it freakin' rocks in so many ways, i can't even handle it.
...
a complete unix workstation, in your pocket. whatever you can do in linux, you can now do on the sl5500/c860's. its a 64-meg ram workstation with storage (get a nuvo 4gig CF disk, for example), and you've got yourself a computer you won't feel the need to 'upgrade' for at least a few more years. rip dvd's to your CF disk, watch them in landscape mode, set up a private subnet, web server and bittorrent feed over WLAN at your next 2600 meeting, whatever you like.
pocketized, portable, a complete linux.
what is it now, 8 different distro's for the zaurus, including pocketworkstation and gentoo, and its still going strong? oh, and hey, don't forget the openembedded distro-builder kit for pda's
zaurus freakin' rocks. cult linux item.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
But what's interesting is that the text of the DMCA _specifically_ makes an exclusion for fair use, so if this is fair use, then by the very wording of the DMCA, it doesn't violate the DMCA.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
To help answer your question, I have done this before, though I did this with Caddy Shack :-)
:-)
What I had done was to use flaskmpeg to convert my DVD to divx. Of course you will have to DeCSS your VOB files first. The divx file that I had at the end was a divx 3.11 file that was around 450MB. I had shrunk the movie down to I think 640x480 and the audio I had used was just the divx audio, I think 44khz stereo at 128kbps. Originally when I had ripped the DVD I did not do this with the intention to rip into PocketPC or Windows Media. I only did the remaining because we had got in some new Dell PocketPC (Axim) and it had came with some 128MB Compact Flash cards so I figured I'd try to do something nifty with them.
I used the WM8 encoder, and through trial and error, I was able to compress the 1 hr 38 min movie down to a Windows Media 8 file of 96MB which fit perfectly on my compact flash. I had used a combination of paramters on that wm8encode application. I had the file compressed into 320x240 for the video resolution at 12fps. The audio I had encoded at 48kbps 44khz mono.
The Axim was able to play this file at full screen on its landscape. However, when you rotate the Axim screen, and I have seen this on the other PocketPC as well, the screen forms this really strange glare.
The Axim that I had was using the 400Mhz dragonball chip from intel and i believe that is what is shipped in a lot of the pocketpcs out there. The result video looked pretty good, and even at 12fps, it is actually pretty decent. Since the entire movie is only 96MB, and the audio is audible at 48kbps 44khz mono, it's not too shabby.
But I think even this file might be too much for your 200Mhz PocketPc... though give it a shot.
hope this helps ya
The law does not use the wording "copy protection". It forbids any circumention of controls to *access* the data. Obviously, access is required to either play or copy, so both uses are illegal under the DMCA.
IANAL...but...under US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 108, nonprofits and libraries are allowed to make copies of a copyrighted work if the copies can only be used within premises.
Libraries don't make a profit from providing access to copyrighted works, this company making the software is.
"Copyright" is a legal priveledge temporarily granted to authors to promote "useful arts and sciences." As a part of copyright law, and partly in exchange for the priveledge of the author's temporary monopoly, nonprofits and libraries are allowed to give the public free access to creative works.
In short...everything is fair about it.
I don't think such restrictions would be a problem except for the fact that organisations like the RIAA and MPAA ensure that there is monopolistic behavior with regards to such restrictions. What I mean is that there is little alternative to accepting those restrictions, and that seems to be against the basic idea of a free market, and actually soemthing that law is supposed to limit. There are 2 basic problems here actually: - Lack of choice - Consumer ignorance