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MIT Student Grills Valenti on Fair Use
kcsduke writes "Following a recent speech at MIT on Movies in the Digital Age (streaming audio available), MPAA front man Jack Valenti sat down for a revealing interview with The Tech, MIT's student newspaper. In this entertaining read, Keith J. Winstein grills Valenti on fair use and the right to play DVDs under GNU/Linux. My favorite part is when Winstein shows a dumbfounded Valenti a six-line DVD descrambler he's designed, to which Valenti responds with language inappropriate for the Slashdot homepage. Throughout the interview, Valenti demonstrates his ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use."
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line "qrpff" DVD descrambler.]
The Tech: If you type that in, it'll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this?
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable.
Cause it's spelled right?
All your DVD are belong to Tux?
Valenti is 82 years old. I have a hard time believing he said "un-fucking-believable." More likely he called Keith a "good for nothing whippersnapper" and then hurled his cane at him.
He's a smart guy-- no one gets to his level
without substantial skills and experience.
And the MPAA is leagues ahead of the RIAA...
I'm surprised that they got him to be so open and reasonable to questions, but disappointed that they got some hot head amateur to do the interviewing. Showing off his own stuff with no rhetoric behind it isn't informative and doesn't get anything interesting from the interviewee.
Valenti replies with ascii-art pr0n? Cool!
sulli
RTFJ.
thats truly amazing how Jack Valenti has no clue about the position he is taking.
none whatsoever.
scary.
maybe I should get into the MPAA. im pretty clueless most of the time also, i'd fit right in.
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line "qrpff" DVD descrambler.]
The Tech: If you type that in, it'll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this?
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable.
The Tech: And look at this thing called Freenet, it allows you to publish movies without fear of being caught.
Jack Valenti: Oh my fucking heart, stop! <dies>
Winstein's exaggerating a little, though: I certainly would find it un-fucking-believable if someone developed six lines of Perl that perform all the work involved in decrypting the DVD, decompressing the MPEG, and displaying the movie onscreen (with audio).
All qrpff does is remove the (relatively simple) CSS encryption. Saying "this'll let you watch movies" was a little disingenuous of Winstein.
This space intentionally left blank.
Look, Valenti is a fucker. No doubt about that.
But jumping on him because there's no licensed DVD player for Linux? How is that his fault?
Yes, it sucks that to play DVDs, you have to buy a license. But...so?
There are no licensed DVD players for Linux because no one wants to (or needs to, or would) pay for one. End of story.
Jesus. Someone finally gets a chance to grill Valenti and they blow it.
People like Valenti are paid to have certain beliefs, and they have no incentive to change those beliefs just because they happen to be wrong, moreover, expect Valenti to use every rhetorical technique in the book to obfuscate the real issues.
The value of this type of debate is to point out the inconsistencies in the MPAA position, but you can argue until hell freezes over, Valenti will never (publicly) agree with our position on fair use.
Valenti: You designed this?
Interviewer: Yup.
Valenti: #!$p<>{};!?!!
You can see it might have been misinterpreted as being the transcriber censoring the interview. It's all just a misunderstanding.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'm not sure what to make of Valenti's response; what does he mean by that? UFB that someone would write a decryptor, UFB that the author wrote the code himself, or UFB that six little lines of the code bypasses CSS?
JV: There's lots of machines you can play it on.
TT: None under Linux. There's no licensed player under Linux.
JV: But you're trying to set your own standards.
TT: No, you said four years ago that people under Linux should use one of these licensed players that would be available soon. They're still not available -- it's been four years.
JV: Well why aren't they available? I don't know, because I don't make Linux machines.
Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, that's wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
So the gist of this interview is some nerd stickin it to Valenti about there being no legal way to watch DVDs on Linux.
Meanwhile, 6 or 7 articles before this one, was there not an article about Turbolinux shipping with a licensed DVD player, and WMP licenses?
Oh, there's not a "Free as in gimme gimme i deserve it" DVD player for linux.
Lies and horseshit won't help the 'cause'.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Man, that would have been a great argument. It would have really made Valenti look like a fool ... if he was right, that is...
Breakfast served all day!
There's langauage inappropriate for Slashdot? News for me.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
I've always imagined that the rental/DVD system would reach the point that we could immediately rent or purchase the DVD (or current equivalent) of a movie, once we've seen it in the theater. Even to the extreme of taking it home with you on the way out of the lobby. (After paying the normal rental or purchase charge)
Kind of like, "hey, I saw it in your theater, I proved my allegiance, now I want to watch it again without the return trip, or the x month wait to home release...please?" Anyone else given this a thought? Is that something we can ever see happen with guys like this, running the show?
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
That raised a few chuckles. Thanks :-)
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
All their content are belong to us.
The Tech: If you type that in, it'll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this? [eats sandwich]
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable. [shoots The Tech, and leaves room]
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
. . .and serves him in a white wine sauce.
Oh, I disagree. This is at least as funny:
"JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know
That's actually a very common reaction to seeing your first Perl code & being told that it is not only human readable but actually performs a useful function.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
In the article, the lack of a commercially available DVD Player for Linux is discussed. ...legal commercial DVD playback (via Cyberlink's PowerDVD player)...
Don't know if the interviewer or this Slashdot article is wrong, but in the latter it is mentioned that the new TurboLinux 10 F ships with
Maybe we should figure out a way of using the windows DVD players that come with most drives under Linux?
I'm just a karma whoring AC. check it out, in case of slashdotting:
... But I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think that helps you persuade other people.
Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti
By Keith J. Winstein
SENIOR EDITOR
Jack Valenti, the iconic 82-year-old who has headed the Motion Picture Association of America for the last 38 years, spoke at the MIT Communications Forum last Thursday. The MPAA offered The Tech a chance to ask Valenti questions after his talk, and -- as a former Tech news reporter interested in technology and copyright -- I got drafted.
Valenti is an incredibly polished advocate for the movie studios. He has numerous legislative and regulatory successes to his name, and his stated commitment to honest debate (he spoke passionately several times about his commitment to the "ideal of civic discourse" and his disgust at Washington, D.C.'s lack of it) is admirable.
But we don't have a real debate on copyright issues. We have rival camps that rarely understand each other. Virtually everybody I know and encounter on the Internet thinks Valenti's signal accomplishments are bad. He can claim credit for the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which make it illegal to build your own DVD player and well-nigh impossible to watch DVDs legally under the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as the Federal Communication Commission's Broadcast Flag, which will make it illegal or virtually impossible to build your own digital television receiver or, again, watch HDTV under Linux.
Everybody in Hollywood, and everybody in Congress, seems to love these things. There is little compromise, meeting of the minds, or mutual understanding, between these two sides.
Three years ago, I organized an MIT IAP class and invited Valenti to come. (He politely declined.) When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with him for ten minutes last week, I finally had my chance to take a shot at reaching some tiny mutual understanding.
I found Valenti woefully unfamiliar with the arguments of "our side" -- the same arguments that "we" wank about every day on Zephyr, on Slashdot, and in 6.805 (Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier), the class I TAed for Professor Hal Abelson.
A compromise, or at least a solution to these issues that doesn't involve outlawing all tinkering and all independent engineering, seems to be possible: we're just not getting through to each other. The dystopia of Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read" at www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html is not an inevitability. But if we can't manage to have a real conversation with "the other side" -- and a longer one than my ten minutes with Valenti -- that's where we might be headed.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation:
The Tech: You're described by various people as the best lobbyist ever. Do you have any tips for the other side, about how they can achieve better victories in the legislative area?
Jack Valenti: I hope that I'm a good persuader, that I'm able to make advocacy of a cause that people say, "You know, that makes sense." 'Lobbyist' has a connotation to me that gives me little shivers. But I like to believe that I try to make things simple to understand. And frankly, if I can understand it, then I figure everybody else can understand it, because I am not a technologist.
TT: Everybody I know thinks the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Broadcast Flag are awful. And everybody in Congress disagrees. This does not lead to good debate and good public policy, when people can't even talk to each other. How can we have a good debate on these topics?
JV: I don't know. I go on forums, and panels, and Rich [Taylor, an MPAA spokesman] does the same. We're available to anybody. I never believe in hostile debates. That's not my style. I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it. I think for anything that I'm advocating, I'm willing
Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, that's wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know.
TT: Okay. Well, how can we have this dialogue?
JV: Well, we're having it right now. I want to try to find out the point you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a reason -- there has to be a reason. I don't know.
It's hilarious to watch JV flounder, it doesn't even seem like he's considered the possibily that a free operating system with free software (free as in beer) could have two million users. He really expects the MPAA to be supported by people a small tax on DVD software, the problem is that there's no licensed DVD software sold for Linux.
My blog
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
This is a disturbing quote, why should you restrict the life of hundred of thousands of people? Because multi-multi-millions are involved, I think not.
While I accept the need for the artists/producers to be rewarded, these guys better be careful. The fact is, they're not going to be able to keep the legal grip on things forever, the generations coming up are going to have MUCH different attitudes on this stuff and other govermental matters, how severe the backlash depends on how tight they try to hold on to things.
Completly disrespecting any idea or concept of fair use, frankly is a very dangerous tactic.
I think it's ego getting in the way of their brains.
He is very reasonable and debates with him are always productive. He's also not out to invade peoples homes to find pirate movies and songs, though many of the people who side with him are.
This was a great interview from what I read. I do think he skipped around the question of whether it was wrong to write a six line program to allow yourself to watch a movie.
Valenti does make a good point however. Building your own doesn't count. Try building your own car, not one from other auto makers parts. Make one from scratch using parts you engineered. Then try to get it licenced and street legal. It'll never happen. The same goes for movies. If you don't want to buy the products the industry puts out for watching the media then you don't get to watch the media. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
Jack Valenti keeps saying that he's not talking about morality. He's trying to sidestep the issue because he knows he can't win on it. In America, or the rest of the free world for that matter, people aren't going to buy into the argument that you shouldn't be allowed to do something with your own property. It would be the equivalent of GM trying to make it illegal for you to use a Fram oil filter on your car instead of an AC Delco.
Jack keeps arguing in circles. It is illegal to watch DVDs on an unlicensed player because it's illegal.
How can one seriously respect that line of thinking?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
Valenti actually seemed to understand the issues pretty well, and he gave pretty cogent answers to the interviewers questions. The only thing that seemed to stump/baffle him, was the fact that there are currently no Linux DVD players on the market. Otherwise, every question was answered in a straightforward manner, pretty much always coming back to: "If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work. You'll have to find a legal and authorized means to view the content." I don't agree with him, but it's hard to say that he didn't understand the issue.
Also, I'd imagine that next time he'll have done a little bit more research and have something of an answer for the Linux DVD player question.
Other than that, I think it's a little bit unfair to say that he doesn't understand the issues. Remember, disagreeing is not the same as not understanding.
--
RumorsDaily
It may appear throughout the interview he's either flipflopping on sides, or not sure of his stance but that's not true. He's trying to make him understand that morality and law are sometimes different. It may be immoral to make fun of a handicapped person or have an affair but it's not illegal (at least not in most countries). I acutally thought he was pretty concise about his arguement, also why hasn't a powerdvd or etc been made for linux? that's what he was asking.
It's been a while since my civics class, but isn't our entire country founded on the idea that people have certain inalienable rights, even in the face of a majority that wishes to take away those rights?
That's what Valenti said when the interviewer asked him why he can't (legally) play back a DVD on a computer running Linux. I think that captures the issue very well.
Valenti and those sharing his views on copyright believe that we (the consumers) should only be able to view works on devices that they approve, at a time and place allowed by them, and how ever many times they want us to.
However, fair use standards CLEARLY state that consumers are allowed to view copyrighted work however they please, as long as they have paid for it. There is no law or statute that allows copyright holders to force consumers to view their work only on certain devices. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provision has this effect, but it would be a blatant anti-trust violation to allow copyright holders to tell consumers they could only view their works on certain devices.
Another notable quote from Valenti is that he is a "great persuader". We need people advocating for consumer's rights who are just as smooth and soothing to technophobe politicians and Valenti is. We need a Good Old Boy to evangelize to the Good Old Boys. Even if Valenti found qrpff "un-fucking-believable", he still left the interview with the opinion that such tools should not be legal. A dialog is most successful when each side can identify with the other on a personal level.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Yet it seems that is exactly what the MPAA, as well the RIAA, is indeed doing...
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
Even if Jack can get someone to make a DVD descrambler for Linux, It's not going to be free. Not free as in speech, nor free as in beer. If they let us have the source, we can disable the DRM. Which more or less gets down to the root of the problem. We have the skills to roll our own, and they fear us because of that. Even with the best of intentions on our part, If they cannot put us under their thumb, they won't trust us, period.
Lagito ergo expectabo
I don't like the MPAA any more than anybody else does, but it was a good interview. I think he expressed his side of the argument pretty succinctly: allowing encryption circumvention, for any reason, opens a can of worms. Much easier to avoid any kind of a slippery slope by saying, "If you want to watch this, get a licensed watching mechanism."
So, really, what is being said is, when you buy a DVD, you are not buying a physical product. What you are buying the right to view some content in a prescribed manner on an authorized device.
That's really the crux of the argument. We are geeks. We like to take things apart and use them in ways the original designers did not intend. That screws with ideas of the establishment.
What WE are saying is, "I got this free Cue-Cat scanner, and it belongs to me, and if I want to take the pieces apart and grind them into confetti or build a moon laser or whatever, I can do that, because it belongs to me."
What THEY are saying is, "You do not actually own that physical Cue-Cat scanner, you have a license to use that device in the manner we have declared, in the same way that you cannot use your cable TV box to get channels you haven't paid for."
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Has ANYONE heard of your rights end where mine begin?
Taking away someone else's rights is NOT your right.
It sucks that pirates use stuff to copy their overpriced pieces of round plastic... but I have the right to play a DVD in linux, build an HDTV, etc. as long as I don't steal content. They shouldn't be able to take that away from me just because its a convenient and easy way for them to fight to protect RIAA/MPAA materials.
Get paid to code OSS
Back when the movie industry tried to kill the new Sony Betamax machines. It's perfectly clear that he's either totally corrupt and/or totally ignorant.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
JV: No, you're not a bad person. But you don't have any right.
What is wrong with Jack's view? No really, if I author something I should have complete control over it. That includes delegating rights. Don't like it? Too bad it isn't yours.
"Fair use rights" only make sense if you have some stick in the property at hand. In this case: [b]You DON'T[/b].
I say keep on watching the DVDs, just dont tell others that you do so on your linux box. Keep sharing with 'friends' ... who donot go out and tell the Feds that you gave them your DvD.
Anyhoooo ... all these digital rights acts are anywhere near implementation in a handful of countries ... it will take a century to catch up around the globe (like third world states dont have any other improtant issues on hand)... so GNU license advocates have lots of time in hand for lobbying and convincing the other side. DRMA will be a lost cause while being enforced only for US citizens .... and similiar acts in some other states ...
Especially when the "journalist" (really just a university linux zealot, no more a "journalist" than slashdots own michael) has the facts wrong.
About six articles ago they announced Turbolinux shipping with Cyberlink PowerDVD. Ooops..
Here's more fun. Cyberlink posting to debians forums, wanting to get PowerDVD into the distro. Of course, it goes ignored.
The "its legal for me to crack this to play dvds on my linux box" rant is just too good to be destroyed by reality.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
-showing off how smart he is,
-asking questions that would never make it in a court of law. I've seen lots of Law & Order, so I would know: "Objection, your honor, badgering the witness."
-silently patting self on back with his 'follow-up' reporting.
This is probably why the MPAA/RIAA people avoid you Linux people. That, and the smell.
I just like repeating it.
JV: Un-fucking-believable.
Imagine the look of wonder in his eyes.
JV: Un-fucking-believable.
What a shitty interviewer.
Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology; Ain't got time to make no apology
This is comedy gold! i could just picture the scene in a sketch show!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It's seven lines anyhow. http://perl.plover.com/qrpff/article-main.html
This interview really sheds some objective light on Valenti. He seems like a pretty respectable person who only needs to be informed. I didn't know that he was 83 years old. At that age, I'm sure it's incredibly difficult to keep upwith new technologies. Especially when, as he said, he's no technologist.
An open and objective exchange would really be the best thing to resolve issues like these, and Valenti is right to criticize congress' lack of such a forum. Hopefully, conscientious reporters can encourage this type of mindset in the future because without it, the democratic process is good as dead.
mouhahhahhahaha
They should have made a +6 Funny just for you!
the simple explanation as to why there arent any linux dvd players is, to the MPAA, "a few million" linux users are a drop in teh bucket "when the other multi-multi-millions [of other people] are also involved".
money.
I don't see any ignorance on Valenti's part. His remarks are perfectly reasonable. Even though you buy a CD, you only have the "right" to view it on a licensed DVD player. Its not his problem that there are no licensed DVD players for Linux, and I don't expect him to know.
The fact is if you CONSUME their material (yes, it is THEIRS) they have every right to tell you how you can use it. Personally I think this is stupid, so I don't purchase or watch DVD's.
If that were possible, then one person would go to the theater and watch it, buy the DVD on his/her way out of the lobby, and show it to all friends/family/internet users. The delay in DVD release is to give the theaters time to show it to as many people who want to see it bad enough to not wait for the DVD. You'll never see what you're proposing. This isn't due to "guys like" Valenti, its the movie industry's business model.
It seems like the interview only touched on one aspect of fair use, ability to play media with software of our choosing. And the topic discussed was about Linux, which really does not impact many people (small market share) for consumer goods. It would have been nice to see the other fair use topics discussed, like the right to time shift, to make a backup copy, to convert formats, to play on devices which have not been invented. The DMCA locks up the future and slows down innovation. The general public would be more interested in these things...and that may be a better way to start open discussion...by talking about things Valenti and the rest of the public might understand.
The interviewer should have asked how many call girls, and how much in campaign contributions does it take to persuade these days. Because JV's spoken persuasion skills stink.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
I don't want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.
Perhaps I'm missing a finer point here, but isn't that exactly what you're saying, Jack?
All kidding aside, excellent interview. Civil and to the point. Perhaps it will open the eyes of a few people, though, I sincerely doubt it.
--trb
There are people who've been writing perl code for years and still don't believe the language is "human readable".
I'd rather be lucky than good.
qrpff dvd_file | movie_player
I should go to Blockbuster today and ask them about my rights, seems like they're violating the law by not pointing out to me that I've been actively engaging in criminal acts all this time by renting DVDs and watching them on Mandrake. Their site fails to advise that criminals like me should stay out.
"the same arguments that ?we? wank about every day"
erm i think there might be a subtle difference between what wank means in britain and what wank means over in america?! or maybe copyright law is a new fetish?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Valenti's comments on the Broadcast Flag are a bit misleading:
The broadcast flag -- if you are in your home, then you can copy anything that's on over-the-air television to your heart's content. The only time that you will know there's a broadcast flag is if you try to take one of those copies and redistribute it on the Internet. Then, the flag says, 'No, you can't redistribute it.' But you can do everything you're doing right now -- you'll never know there's a broadcast flag. Well, why would people object to it?
The unspoken assumption here is that you have scrapped all of your existing hardware, and bought new hardware that has support for all of the DRM copy protection. So, the chipset will honor the flags, all the hardware will support the encryption, and the signal will never be available on the system while decrypted.
My current system does a fine job of HDTV recording and playback. So, it's not just a cpu power upgrade requirement. It's a purely manufactured requirement that I need to use their encryption, and have a computer that obeys their commands, not mine.
Also, the interviewer does not do a good job of making the point. He brings up some bullshit point about making his own HDTV, which Valenti easily skewers as being irrelevant to 99.999% of people. He should have made the much more valid point of the millions of TV tuner cards out there today will not be available in the digital TV world without people buying MPAA approved hardware.
(As an aside, WTF was the kid yalking about reqarding his HDTV? I'm pretty sure he didn't create his own CRT or other display device, and all supporting electronics.. that's very difficult from a manufacturing perspective. I would guess that he "made" a HDTV decoder system by plugging in a PCI card from pchdtv.com)
This was as funny as hearing Michael Eisner's first response when he heard "ripping" a CD and thinking it meant "rip off".
"Funny" doesn't get you any karma, but then you get downmodded as "Troll", "Offtopic", "Overrated", or "Flamebait" TWICE for -2.
So really, which is worse?!!!
He's 83 years old. He's bound to have a bucket's worth of screws loose at that age.
Ok not really...but he acually made some sense in that interview...from his view point..and it actually seemed that the the interviewer may have gotten valanti to THINK about linux and playing DVD on linux.
Why is everyone so hateful.
Can't you dissagree with a view point and still not hate the person you dissagree with??
This struck me as being at the heart of Valenti's misunderstanding of the issues important to us. The whole purpose of encryption is to guard the data whether or not it is in a hostile environment. The Nazis didn't go running around screaming "you can't do that, it's not your right" when British intelligence cracked Enigma. Instead, they responded with a stronger cypher.
If your encryption can be cracked, it's not a matter of rights or privileges. It's matter of technology. Your encryption is weak and you need to make it stronger. Then you don't need social laws to prevent people from cracking it. The laws of mathematics do that for you, and do a much better job.
Of course, I cannot speculate on how that would change the dynamics of the situation. It may improve because it might eliminate their motivation to push for bad laws to prop up their weak system. Solving technological problems with technology is better than solving them with legality.
Join Tor today!
Performs a useful function yes, human readable... umm, have you ever written Perl code, left it for awhile, come back later and be able to understand exactly what it does, but not have a clue in the world how it does it?
This is not a sig.
Probably Valenti tells this same story to his buddies to illustrate how difficult it is to have a dialog with fair-use advocates.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
After reading the interview I have to say valentini had reasonable clear positions on everything he was asked.
here is my synopsis:
the tech: the broad cast flag is bad because it interferres with the two people on the who build a TV in their basement.
VAlentini: You dont create public policy for the benfit of millions of people on how it inconveniences two people.
The tech: If I rent a movie I cant watch it on Linux:
Valentini: so you cant watch it on your grand-ma's vicrtola either. does that violate fair use? It's sold for a particular use.
the tech: But but but but (quivering lip) you said that players for linux would become available soon and its almost my birthday and I cant buy one.
Valentini: I dont make linux machines there must be some reason why the market has not created one.
The tech. but you said I could. You assured me the market would produce one. I hate you I hate you.! THere's 2 million linux users
valentini: two million huh. I'll have to look into this. I dont know.
personally I'd bet that of the 2 million less tahn 1/10th of 1 percent of them are seriously worried they cant watch a movie on thie linux commputer.
Am I being denied fair use becaue I cant run windows 98 on my iMac. After all I bought and paid for that copy, I should be able to use it how I like.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Valenti asks "why would people object to it?"
TT: I'll tell you, because I'm an engineer, I'm an engineering student, and this year I built a high-definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
TT: Well, I'm talking about engineers.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Okay. The simple clear response for Congress -- and maybe even JV can understand -- is that those thousand engineers represent the technological future progress of the USA.
And you don't want to keep them from playing in their natural turf. Sure most people don't want to build their own sets. But you let those who do, do so; that is, unless you want a dumbed-down, incompetent populace... down to the very last potential engineer.
In that case, pretty soon, the un-fucking-believable innovations are going to come from other places, that favor freedom.
Get it, Jack?
More to the point, get it, Congress?
Okay, can somebody put this in politer, more persuasive language...?
I keep seeing people say this, but I don't get it. I read the interview, and it seems to me that he was neither clueless nor unreasonable. He was surprised to find out how simple the decryption code is, but he's not clueless about his position. His position was basically that it isn't immoral for you to watch DVDs on Linux, but it's wrong to circumvent an encryption without a license for the decryption software, since if you do it for benign reasons, anyone else can do it for copyright infringement. Now, you may disagree with him, but in what way is he clueless about his own position? The only cluelessness I saw was on the part of the interviewer who didn't know about the Linspire licensed DVD playback software.
Probably the latter. The other 2 shouldn't be terribly surprising if you're being interviewed by an MIT student.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I doubt few people will get the reference but I thought it was funny.
By all means, Mark Riedesel should take them to court for copying his artistic work!
What? Jack V? Couple of articles late?
Never mind!
I agree with the mods! -1 Flamebait, but it was ment +2 Funny
Being an original Arpanet site hath it's privledges. Of course it also helps to have a major internet routing site on campus as well.... I guess the folks running the network back when just had the forsight to realize that holding ON to their class A would be worth something someday [either to sell portions of it for added endowment or to just have plenty of IP addressess.. At MIT every building has it's own class B! Nothing like have fixed IP's for every one of your computers...] Matthew Schiller Class of 2002 Course 6.2
Pedro Côrte-Real.
I'm seeing "Public Affairs" as the interviewee with J.V. sitting in front on a little leash...
TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad?
JV: No, that's not bad.
TT: Then why should it be illegal?
Rich Taylor, MPAA public affairs: It's not. ... You could put it in a DVD player, you could play it on any computer licensed for it.
A fellow programmer once called C++ a "write-only" language. I guees this could be extended to PERL.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
This interview with Mr. Valenti has been rated "R" for explicit language. Nobody under 17 will be permitted to read this without an accompanying adult. Reader discretion is advised.
This sig no verb.
Yea! Unfucking believable that the FBI didn't swoop in and shoot the violator!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Okay, can somebody put this in politer, more persuasive language...?
Sounds like the beginning of a scholarship essay contest...!!
Why does Mr. Valenti think it's wrong for individuals to set their own standards but not for him to force his standards on others? (Of course, limit the scope of this to simple things like what kind of computer.) What if someone cannot afford Windows or a dedicated DVD player. It's therefore wrong if they find a way to watch movies?
Join Tor today!
This entire article misses the point and allows the MPAA to easily have their way. OK, here's a licensed Linux player, now you should be happy.
The argument that is made in favor of the DMCA etc is that it prevents piracy. But it doesn't. You can make a bit for bit copy of and DVD and sell it for $0.50 in Hong Kong. That's piracy and the whole encryption argument is mooted.
Encryption prevents fair use, not piracy.
..that intervideo cannot release an end user player for Linux because they would end up running afoul of the GPL inorder to do it. They would need to link with Libs that are GPL, and in so doing would be obligated to expose things that the DVD licenses will not allow them to expose.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
"there is not licensed DVD player for linux because 99% of GNU/Lunix users would just steal it."
Huh? Since when do 99% of Linux users steal and pirate every commercial Linux apps available?
Oh wait I didn't see your proof below, my apologies.
"it is a small market and what market there is has nothing but freeloaders and thieves who just take what they want and babble bullcrap about "free as in shoplifting" to justify it."
Linux users are nothing but freeloaders and thieves? Right. That's funny seeing how most popular Linux distros are made up of completely Free GPL software. Maybe your right though? Also maybe people who have a user id of 531011 like to perform fellatio on their dogs and shove cucumbers up their asses. But then again what do I know? You probably just like the cucumber up the ass part.
The interviewer allowed the terms of the argument to be a losing one before he began. You have every right to make a copy of content you legally possess. I don't want the ability to merely watch DVDs on my Linux box. I want and demand the ability to make copies, too. Making those copies are part of my enjoyment of the product, and making copies is well within my rights.
If you can't go into a reasoned argument with "the other side" without having first secured for yourself the entire argument for your side, then maybe you shouldn't be the one doing the arguing at all.
True, true.
But hearing all these comments about Perl,
I can't help but think: Have you people ever heard of commenting code?
But remember, we're talking about a student newspaper. MIT or not, the readership of student newspapers is not likely to even notice the kind of "polish" a man like Valenti has, much less appreciate it. More likely, their reasoning and ethics regarding copyright and fair use are more along the lines of the interviewer's.
If granting this interview was some kind of MPAA scheme to discredit fair use advocates, I think it backfired.
TT: None under Linux. There's no licensed player under Linux.
JV: But you're trying to set your own standards.
I am dissappointed to learn that we are no longer allowed to set our own standards. All this time we have been foolishly publishing RFCs and agreeing on ways to communicate data between different devices, not knowing that all this standardizing is not MPAA-approved. What were we thinking?! Well that's it, we'll just we'll have to turn off the Internet, no more SMTP, no more TCP, no more UDP, no more HTTP, no more HTML... turn it off... no wait! Wait until the MPAA gang gets its head out of its collective ass and finds huge profits in Internet media delivery, then we sadly inform them that Internet is one big open standard and therefore must be turned off, sorry guys, your rules.
And how would they know what you're going to do with it? Even assuming they knew you didn't have a legitimate player, perhaps you're just renting the DVD because you like shiny things?
Every Computer I have bought with a dvd drive, and every dvd drive I have bought for myself to put in a computer includes software to play back encrypted dvds (windvd etc). Point is if you buy the drive and it has the software, then you should have the right to use the drive to play dvds. Just because you aren't using the software, doesn't mean that the oem didn't have to give their $.10 to the MPAA to bundle it with the drive/computer. This is a fact that is ignored way too much.
Yes... here at work we refer to Perl code as "write-only".
> There are people who've been writing perl code for years and still don't believe the language is "human readable".
And that's the fault of the authors of that code and *not* the language. Nothing makes me more insane than people who talk about how Perl is "write only". No, it's not. It's the people who write crappy Perl scripts and use every obfuscation feature they can to make the thing unreadable. It's perfectly possible to make readable Perl code, just take a look at POPFile. It's also perfectly possible to write unreadable C/C++: just look at the obfuscation contests.
John.
"In fact, many or most inventions were developed by people driven by curiosity or by a love of tinkering, in the absense of any initial demand for the product they had in mind."
+&x
If the MPAA says that I can't play a movie that I bought or rented, however I want, fine. Why doesn't the MPAA distribute a free (as in scruples free) viewer for Linux?
For a fraction of the cost of going after Jon Johansen, they could have created a licenced player and put an end to the whole debate.
Perl always look like Chinese to me. Chinese with poor grammar.
"If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work."
:(
Umm... I don't make copies when I watch my DVD's under Linux. I Don't have the hd space
I just watch the unencrypted feed.
He's a smart guy-- no one gets to his level
without substantial skills and experience.
You are assuming a fantasy captalist world where progress is strictly meritocratic. In the real world, people routinely 'achieve' high positions by virtue of blood, friendship, societal relationship (such as fraternity clubs or lodges), sex, sex appeal and organized criminal behavior. Valenti could be a smart guy with substantial skills and experience, or he could be a vicious backstabber who fucked over his friends and mauled his way to the top - you don't know.
"the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" - Jack "smart guy" Valenti, 1982
The term for this is the Peter Principle, although it doesn't say that people are stupid.
There should be a law requiring/prohibiting that (Please circle one)
Rather than go after the angle of DVD playback (which has a jar of worms regarding licencing, etc), I would have liked the questioning to center around pure fair use.
With things like the broadcast flag and encryption, it is increasingly difficult to excersize free use for the purposes of "comment and criticism", parody, etc. How does Valenti propose to protect those rights, which I believe supercede copyright law?
Shouldn't an individual have the right to take licenced media and reproduce pieces of it for, say, educational discourse? With the measures currently taken, that will soon be (legally) impossible.
We all know there will always be technological ways to circumvent these barriors, but we shuold not be criminalized for it!
I think you'd have to be pretty good at debating and very well prepared to do much better when up against a guy like that.
However, when asked what "our" side could do to do better he made a very good point when he said that he makes things simple. He turns complex issues into black-and-white bullet points, suitable for politicians dealing with a billion other things. Very simple, very clear-cut, very selective.
This is a classic problem in debates in this country where a commercial interest is on a different side than the general public interest. To be involved in the debate you typically need a lobbyist to explain your side. But lobbyists cost money! Corporations can pay that money but there is no mechanism for the public to do so. Yes, I know, our elected representatives are supposed to represent us, but between the complexities of their job and their lack of understanding of technological issues they need to have things made simple for them and guys like this do that, with results that make industry want to rejoice while the public wonders what the heck happened.
Not that it's not still a really nifty piece of code.
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Now that is funny.
It's not about the numbers of people that don't have access, it's the fact that they DON'T have access - see the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). All public places must be wheel-chair accessible... maybe we're going about it wrong... maybe us Linux users are 'disabled', and should sue for access to the content - after all, the content is publicly available... BlockBuster has to rent to anyone that wants the content, not just people that have approved hardware/software.
One line of questioning revolved around the lack of a licensed Linux player -- well why isn't there one?
Has anybody tried to get a license?
Is it that everybody to tries also wants to publish under GPL, and the license won't be granted for that?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
That is a terribel analogy. Public roads are public. Which is why it is harder to get things licensed. If I want to experiment with a custom car in the privacy of my property, I should be free to do so.
And I have my DVD. I should be able to watch it. "Licensed" equipment is just a euphemism for tool of absolute control.
And no, Valenti does not make a good point in that regard.
In fact, if you notice the flow of the interview, there are points in the interview where you feel that Valenti would have agreed with the interviewer if it weren't for the fact that he's a hired gun for the MPAA. Face it. He may be reasonable. He may be smart. But he's still a mercenary.
Valenti actually seemed to understand the issues pretty well, and he gave pretty cogent answers to the interviewers questions. The only thing that seemed to stump/baffle him, was the fact that there are currently no Linux DVD players on the market.
How long until the MPAA releases their own "Free" as in IE Linux DVD player? That may be a valid thing for them to do that way they can claim in court that there is an "approved" Linux DVD player.
I'm tired of nerds making exaggerated claims of their prowess. NO WAY did this nerd build his own high definition TV from *scratch*. That's such an exageration, designed to wow the regular folks. I hate it when engineering students do that, there's NOTHING you can build from scratch anymore. Liar.
Why did the interviewer stop and only harp on the one question of viewing movies under Linux ?
What about:
What is the use of the Region Codes, especially on old DVDs, (and how can the MPAA create their own copyright laws like this - totally bypassing the current laws) ?
How did the movie industry become what it is today, especially knowing it was founded by people frustrated by the control of Thomas Edison and decided to create an organization to fight that control ?
How exactly does the MPAA view copyright, is your definition include total control of anything you create, not just redistribution ? What about fair use ? Or better yet what about unregulated uses, such as me watching a DVD I bought on a toaster if I wanted to ?
It only takes a few hours in an introductory law class to realize that legal systems really are circular logic. Things are illegal because they have been made illegal. Right and wrong are not involved.
What is inherently immoral about not stopping every time you see a red octagonal sign on the road? What is "wrong" with ignoring a red light at an empty intersection?
It's time to realize, decoding a DVD with unauthorized circumvention of it's encryption is simply illegal, regardless of anyone's feeling of right or wrong about the matter. That was made as clear as day by the passage of the DMCA. It's just no longer a legal argument.
What about fair use? Fair use is an affirmative defense. It is an excuse for why you violated a proscribed act. It has never insulated anyone from being accused of copyright violation. It is only a consideration that is available to a court in determining if a copyright violation is excusable. If you like analogies, consider trespassing. It's illegal to trespass, but if you are running for your life and trespass, you won't be prosecuted. You have still violated the original trespassing ordinance.
I would enthusiastically say that the DMCA is "wrong", but that doesn't change it's legal status. Until a court disallows it, or our legal system changes it, it is the law... because it is the law. (Circular logic or not.)
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
The MPAA wants to control the production and distribution of its products. This is perfectly rational and the dream of monopolists everywhere. It just won't work for them.
First, if students at MIT can build televisions that get around the broadcast flag, so can industry in places like China and Taiwan. Given the amount of money movie studios make overseas, relying totally on broadcast flag technology is probably a loser for them in the long run.
Second, as people start to spend more and more time with user-generated content online, the movie industry is going to take more hits. Even if the revenue loss is currently minimal, it demonstrates there is a large and growing group of content providers they can't control. Life is a lot different from 70 years ago when the movie theater was one of the few available sources of entertainment.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
TT: So the question is, if I just want to watch a movie--I rent it from Blockbuster--is that bad? ... You could put it in a DVD player, you could play it on any computer licensed for it.
JV: No, that's not bad.
TT: Then why should it be illegal?
Rich Taylor, MPAA public affairs: It's not.
So you Americans are passing laws ment to protect monopolies and oligopolies instead of people. You're going down baby!
If you care about this issue enough to follow any of the links above, you should read Lessig's "Free Culture" -- hell, you don't even have to pay for it (available as a free download). It's an excellent read that clearly outlines both sides of the issue (including de-FUDding many of Valenti's statements).
What's wrong with write only code? You DO want to still have your job in six months time, don't you?
apart from Guinier being a radical liberal freak, what inalienable rights are gays being denied?
It is illegal to not hire gays, and not offer housing to gays.
Is marriage an inalienable right?
They have boisterous parades, TV Shows dedicated not only to gay characters, but real life gay people.
I think you are just pissed because some closed-minded people don't like gays, but those loud people don't in any way detract from the fact that most gay people who are upset, are upset that people don't like their lifestyle. You can't legislate that.
Nevertheless, interesting to see that Valenti is personally backing up his published stance on the FCC's decency crackdown.
A fellow programmer once called C++ a "write-only" language. I guees this could be extended to PERL.
;)
/. just gives me a "please use fewer 'junk' characters" error.
Nah, C++ is lovely. When you've been using it as long as I have you start to think in it.
A true "write only" language is brainfuck
I was going to paste a sample program here, but
Ho hum.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Did you try it with an int istead of a float?
There should be a law requiring/prohibiting that (Please circle one)
Here's my situation, and I think it's illegal, but I'll be damned if I don't. I'm sure Jack would think it's illegal:
My son is in Kindergarden. His class is putting on a play based on the book 'Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type' (it's a good book - check it out if you have small kids). Last year the school did 'The very quiet cricket'.
I'm assuming that the school purchased a license or has some sort of comprehensive license to put on plays based on copywritten material.
So the question is: Can I videotape my son's perfomance?
I asked my Senator (Patrick Leahy) this, since he's a big DMCA booster (but is good in most other ways).
What do you think?
There are people who've been writing perl code for years and still don't believe the language is "human readable".
With the exception of "Hello World", it's not!
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
So, Jack Valenti is a total moron. This is news?
This is completely irrelevant; but about a year or so ago I was invited to a women-in-film "gala" thing. I'm a graphic designer, and I work with people who do lots of video, as in filming, editing, post-processing, etc. They invited me, since I'm so damn cool, or good looking, or something. I went, because I knew there would be hot chicks there.
So, I'm at the gala ( which was in a swinging hotel in Georgetown, DC -- no problem, I live within walking distance ), and I have to take a leak. When I'm at the urinal who walks up besides me than Jack Valenti himself, also needing to piss.
Now, say what you will about Jack Valenti being a good lobbyist, or an out-of-touch asshole, or a shill for big money -- Jack Valenti is NOT a tall man.
I'm not a tall man either. I'm 5' 11". But Valenti, he was like, tops, up to my belly button. Think "bite-sized". I've never seen such a short man with such power. He's like some sort of crazy media-mogul Napoleon.
That's all. I just thought I'd share.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Valenti: You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved.
But, for the benefit of the few people who own the motion picture industry, Jack wants Congress to restrict technology no matter what the side effects are on everybody else.
Valenti: I don't want to get into the definition of morality. I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.
Jack is all about defining morality for other people. For example, the public has always had a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright. NOBODY "OWNS" COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. Copyright is a right, granted and enforced by the government for a limited time. It's not property, and you can't steal it any more than you can steal the carpool lane by driving in it all by yourself. The difference between infringement and theft because infringement is more complicated. Losses from infringement are supposed to be proven, not taken for granted. Theft is a much simpler concept with a solid and obvious position in the general public's moral landscape. By mislabelling infringement as theft, the copymaking industry gets to play the role of the little old lady chasing the purse snatcher. Who could argue with someone trying to get back their property?
But as Valenti says" I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think that helps you persuade other people.
The Tech: He spoke passionately several times about his commitment to the "ideal of civic discourse" and his disgust at Washington, D.C.'s lack of it.
But he's not disgusted with being able to shovel money at elected officials to get them to ignore whatever the people who voted for them want. Jack seems as ignorant of the term "civic" as he is of "fair use." Maybe he's confusing "discourse" and "marketing."
First of all, grilling Valenti on why there are no licensed DVD players capable of running under Linux is disingenuous. That's something that's driven by the market, not politics. Linux is not inherently more capable than Windows of pirating a movie. In fact, I find converting a DVD to a DIVX file much easier to do in Windows. Valenti wouldn't have the answer to "why there are no licensed players for Linux." Sony, Pioneer, JVD, etc. would have the answer to that. If they wanted to support a DVD player on Linux, they're not barred from doing that.
Too many of you are so fanatically blinded by your ambitions that you don't see some fundamental points Valenti made. If a distributor wants to release content in a restricted manner, tough shit for you; it's their content, deal. It's wrong to try and end-run someone's encryption, no matter how easy it is to do. Ease does not make it right. It's easy to pick fruit from a neighbors tree if their yard has no fence; that doesn't make the fruit yours. If you spend money on content, know what you're getting. You don't get to dictate what the rules are to content owners; you have to play by them.
Stop trying to drive this politically...you're going to lose and cry yourself dry wondering why the world doesn't work the way you want it to.
Shut the fuck up and spend your money on content that ISN'T restricted. Dry up the RIAA's money. Convince your friends and neighbors to purchase only content that doesn't put money in the coffers of those distributors whose methods you don't approve.
In addition to the Linux DVD player problem. I would like to see someone ask Valenti about the morality of circumventing region codes to watch legally purchased DVDs from other countries.
For example, I researched and purchased an off-brand DVD player for my father that could play Italian (region 2) DVDs in the US. When he travels to Italy he likes to bring back some DVDs so he can watch them in his native language. Subtitles don't cut it for him. Technically speaking he is breaking the law when he watches one of these movies.
I want to hear it from Valenti's mouth whether or not this type of thing should be allowed.
That was my reaction, too. Then again, the way many people comment, even if the comments are human readable, there's no interpreter for them.
Just need to add a line exec'ing mplayer :o)
First of all (coward) he's obviously a geek, not a nerd. Engineers from MIT are usually geeks, anyway. Sure, maybe he's not hand-soldering transistors together to build an mpeg decoder, but I'd bet that he hand-assembled a bunch of relatively general-purpose components to build his own HDTV, just as he said he did. The regular folks SHOULD be wowed...it's not a simple task. Hell, a lot of those folks still have no idea *why* they should be wowed by it.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Its Perl.
Yes I comment code, quite emphatically in fact, but for some reason with certain languages, it feels like blasphemy.
This is not a sig.
They would need to link with Libs that are GPL
Only if they statically compile them into their application. Under GPL any code (including proprietary) can retain its licensing providing that they do not statically link or include directly any GPL'd code.
So any company can release a non-GPL DVD player which hides away the CSS codes within its own binary and link with system libs without running afoul.
"Try building your own car, not one from other auto makers parts. Make one from scratch using parts you engineered. Then try to get it licenced and street legal. It'll never happen."
It has happened. It's called custom car building, dude, akin to hot rodding.
Look at Jay Leno's Blastolene special or Boyd Coddington's AlumiTub and many more examples.
Yes... here at work we refer to Perl code as "write-only"
I'm sure that you mean "only right".
This shit pisses me off.
Basically, the jist of the interview is that even though I purchased a DVD I can NOT run it on anything other than a "licensed" DVD player. Sorry, but they can kiss my fucking ass.
I'll play the DVDs *I* purchase in whatever I want to play them in. I don't care what the law states. I'm not one of these sheep that blindy follows it. If I want to make a DVD player out of my toaster, then honestly, I have every right to do so and there isn't much you can do about it.
Since they take on this attitude like I don't really own the movies I buy, then there's no reason for me to buy them. If they honestly think they can dictate what I do with my own property, well, then they can drop the price by 75%.
Since they won't do that, well, there's really no logical reason why I should spend money on something that technically isn't mine!
As soon as they change their tune, I will follow suit. Until then, I'll watch theatrical releases in the privacy of my own home, and my DVD collection will continue to grow purely from movies I copy from Netflix.
Sorry, Jack! Better luck next time.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
un-fucking-believable...i wish there was audio for this, i'd like to hear how he said it.
Spiral out. Keep going...
I think it's even a little more clear than the parent post states since this is a rights issue. The United States is a democratic republic whose objective is to rule by the majority while protecting the rights of minorities. Political Science 101. Since copyright is about rights it should be clear that this is a prime example of where the majority (The Corporate States of America) are trampling on the rights of a minority (apparently any intelligent people in the US who want to DIY)
In every instance of copyright vs technology, real innovation (innovation by individuals) is being hampered by corporations depserate to hang on to their profits. Congress should just come clean and pass a law stating that coporations in the US have a right to profits.
Worse than that, perhaps, is that Valenti gets the rights issue wrong! He talks about stealing something from someone. Copyright is just that, the right to copy. He and no one else *owns* the art (movie, picture, photo, etc). As a copyright holder you have the right to copy the presentation of the idea -- it does not mean you own the idea. Copyright is not a property right! It is a right to copy. Valenti just muddles the whole debate.
________________________________
Why isn't there a licensed DVD player for Linux? Is it that the DVD group that grants authorization for use just won't grant that license, or what's the barrier?
Hmmm.... I doubt it. An end user player shouldn't be significantly different than LinDVD, their product for embedded Linux devices. They shouldn't have to link against GPL'd libs if they aren't now. And, if LinDVD isn't licenced under a GPL-compatible license (it's not) then they shouldn't be linking against GPL libs now.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
1. Come up with software to play DVD's under Linux
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The langauge in that story was certainly Re-fucking-printable based on how-fucking-much that fucking-word "fuck" is so-fukcing-overused on fucking-Slashdot.
;p
Now we'll see how much of a sense of humor the mods REALLY have.
Un-news
Imagine my surprise when I decided to watch a DVD while working one night. The 'expletive deleted' TV software refused to display the output! Instead I only get the sound and a frozen image on the display. This is the MPAA at work. They obviously think that if I am running the input into a computer, I am trying to 'steal' their movie.
What I am doing is legtimate use. Since I do not like to rent movies, I actually own the DVD in question. I am playing that DVD on a DVD player that is legally entitled to play the DVD and display it's output on a TV. There is nothing in the license that prohibits me from viewing it on multiple displays at the same time. Instead, because I might do something illegal, I am not allowed to do something legal. Well my solution was simple. My cheap TV card got pulled from my Widows server and is now permenantly installed on my SuSE 9.0 server.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
I get your point, and it annoys me that it the MPAA is saying that I'm only licensed to view the video in it's prescribed manner, on an authorized device.
But I have a question - isn't this a bit like the label on a can of spray paint - you know the one - it's unlawful to use this product in any manner other than its intended use (I'm paraphrasing). If I buy a can of silver spray paint from Walmart and then huff it in my living room for 30 minutes, I'm breaking the law. Not because i don't own the paint in the can, but because i'm using the paint in a manner that isn't in line with its intended use.
Now, if I buy a DVD, what am i buying - the video, right (it's not like i'm buying a game, which is in fact only a license to play the game, really)? Does it say anywhere on that DVD that I can only use it in a manner prescribed by the manufacturer? I mean - there's a FBI warning about not copying it, but i'm pretty sure I have to actually watch it to see that warning. But to my knowledge, it doesn't state anywhere that I've only purchased the right to view the video on prescribed hardware under a specific license agreement.
Does it?
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Why, that would be like writing laws that allow Orthodox Jews to do that stuff they do in their religion, when there are 284 million people in this country!
OK, the numbers are off, and the analogy isn't perfect, but he's basically falling back on the old "minority groups' rights don't count because all that matters is the majority" school of thought.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
This was my favorite exchange.
JV:...How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know.
He sounds exactly like Strong Bad when he said he'd never write a song about Sibbie, and then hearing "Song About Sibbie, by Strong Bad" playing on the radio.
"The Cheat just started playing this beat...I didn't mean to...I mean, it was never my intention to..."
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Basically, the market for those broadcasts and DVDs exists in part due to the restrictions. Those DVDs would be more expensive or not available without that market. SO it is good public policy to dissapoint a few to create the availablity of the product to many.
no this is not precedent setting case law that would allow racist and theocratic discrimination. That's patent gibberish. Anyone can divine the difference and court and legislation have divined the difference.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I would call this a grilling. Maybe a sauteing but definately not a grilling.
Really? It's possible to write obfuscated C code? Some programmers write more readable code than others? Thanks, this is big news. I feel enlightened now.
But I'll continue to live in reality where some languages make it easier to write readable code, while some make it harder. This relativistic position that what's imprtant is the fact that is is possible to write equally-readable code in any language is about as inetellectually appealing as "logowriter, x86 assembly and C++ are all turing-complete languages, so any program that can be written in one of these language can be converted into the others; so it doesn't matter which one you use". While it's obviously technically true that turing complete-languages are equivalently powerful, it ignores the reality that writing certain kinds of programs is easier in some languages, just like writing certain styles of code (e.g., unreadable code) is easier in some language. All languages are not the same.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
that is all :)
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
...JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way...
What an amazingly stupid old fart! We make special provisions for small groups all the time: lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, police officers, bounty hunters, farmers, the list goes on and on.
Proverbs 21:19
If your boss catches you writing such atrocious code, you won't have your job in six months. And in C/C++, your replacement can fix things up some with a source-code formatter.
I'm suprised nobody else has said this, or mentioned this, but whatever...
When you buy a DVD, you should be able to watch it. My Linux box has a DVD-ROM and a I use Xine to watch it, no issues. Yes, I know that by using Xine I am technically breaking the law. I also know that Intervideo has a pretty decent DVD player available for linux (LinDVD) but won't sell it. You can find it on some OEM boxes (ThinkPads used to come with it preinstalled, back when you could get a ThinkPad with Linux), but you can't buy it for love or money.
I emailed InterVideo back in the day, and they had no plans to sell it to consumers. So if you want to watch a video under Linux, you have to break the law (unless you were lucky enough to get LinDVD installed).
So why doesn't SuSE or Linspire or some other consumer oriented distro just license the decryption and create a DVD player? Then we could have a *legal* player available to users of that distro, and hopefully for a small price to anyone else who wanted to use it.
Because an old codger who's small appreciation for the right to a public domain that our forefathers provided for, who has spent his whole life marketing to politicians would never say something to end an line of uncomfortable questioning which prominently features his own claims contradicting him. He's above that. I've never heard of anyone with a marketing background risking their reputation by saying anything which might in some way by some people be construed as misleading, and certainly never when vast sums of money or politics were involved.
"I want to do X. I would like to learn X." These are nothing. "I will call persons X, tomorrow and ask them Y, then follow up with on Z." That's something. "I will nebulously desire something," is equivalent to a *promise* to keep the status quo. A verifiable promise to take a specific action within a stated time frame, that is a willingness to play ball.
You must be new here.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
I find it interesting that Valenti said that because there are only a thousand or so engineers that could build their own high-def TVs that we can't base public policy on such a small minority. Yet later he asserts that because one person could use anti-CSS software (or other decryption software) to illegally distribute content, we then need the DMCA.
I'm fully aware that there are far many more than one person downloading movies and music off the internet. My point is that his argument is flawed. Because there might be one person who would abuse the ability to decrypt digital content, we all need to be restrained. Yet if one person knows how to build a DVD player for Linux that is too small a minority to allow people the ability to customize and create their own solutions. Sounds to me like he wants it both ways.
BTW - isn't this the same Jack Valenti that said the VCR would be the doom of the movie business? How is someone who has been so consistantly wrong with each new technology still able to convince our congresscritters that he knows what he is talking about? I suspect its not Mr. Valenti's silver tongue and gift for pursuasion, but more likely the bags of money sitting behind him that is the key to his "success".
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
This is insightful? Perl is less readable than some of the alternatives. However, readable is a function of many things, some internal, some external. Internally we have expectations, experience, and IQ. Externally we have sigils, syntax, keywords, etc.
To my eye, Perl is significantly less readable than several alternatives-- especially Ruby. Some of this centers around my expectations, some of this centers around the language design. It's not like all languages are inherently equal and the only difference is programmers.
I do not have a signature
See, if you remove the TV manufacturer from examples, things become a little clearer. That's the idea of a good example. So the question is no longer, "Why doesn't company X build a TV the way I want", but "Why the fuck can't I do whatever I want with a TV I built/ bought?" I paid for it. It's mine. I own an X-Box and if I mod it I'm violating the law?!
Pay no attention to your loss of freedom, Citizen! Continue to consume away.
Man. If only I'd sent the video essay where I was biting the heads off chickens. How the hell was I supposed to know that was a prerequiset.... Gah! It's like rain on my wedding day!
Where's your benchmark from 'from scratch' then? Does the person have to start out naked in a forest. then build from there? I mean, there's an awful lot of manufacturing that goes into making a transistor, resistor, capacitor, or even a wire. Doesn't seem to me like using those should be thought of as 'from scratch'. You couldn't even really have gotten anything more than the wire 200 years ago.
Personally, I think the definition of 'from scratch' has to evolve over time to keep pace with the available tools.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Geek, nerd ... it's all the same. Stop trying to pretend it isn't.
My goal is now to memorize the source code to grpff so that I can recite it at will. The only way to stop it then would be to kill me. Can you say Farenheit 451?
At the risk of getting flamebait/troll all over my good karma, I think it was unfortunate that the interviewer chose to browbeat Valenti with technical questions and focus on a single side effect of the core issue that Valenti could not be expected to be an expert on (the DVD situation on Linux). Had he stuck to the more general issues, like the fact that the behavior of legally purchased hardware is not entirely under the owner's control, he might have obtained more coherent answers that reveal more about Valenti's position, rather than cheapen the anti-DMCA camp by appearing to indulge in personal attacks.
Compared to what, exactly? I've programmed in several languages and have found that it is relatively simple and only takes a bit of discipline to write comprehendable code in C++. For instance, with a simple vector class and matrix class, you can emulate Matlab/Octave readability for (some) vector/matrix manipulation.
A write-only language would be something like assembly or spaghetti-code Basic.
Heheh you gotta be kidding me
What we have here isn't a failure of logic or failure of communication, but it's a clash of ideologies. The MPAA reserves the right to make money off of its "product" (approx. the capitalist view) while the user community reserves their right to do as they please with purchased goods (approx. the socialist view).
It sounds like the MPAA wants the "product" to become licensed for your use but under their ownership rather than offering ownership of the product for sale individually. Reminds me of the licesning for software like SPSS and a few others where you just pay for the right to use it under certain terms.
The GNU-minded folks seem to have a hard time articulating (in this interview anyways) their reasons why this isn't fair to them and to Linux. The interviewer was very global in his assertation that he was entitled to do what he wants with "the product" after he purchases it.
There isn't anything wrong (to me) with either view, but the problem is that neither side will reach any kind of agreement as long as both sides keep posturing as the moral authority. To each side, this is perceived as arrogance. The battle shifts from the salient issue to that of ideals. This doesn't really help solve the immediate problem it just becomes a religious war with alot of collateral damage. --just my $.02.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
So Valenti says:s tionBan gBang.
HashBangDollarPeeOpenCloseSemicolonBangQue
That's quite a mouthful.
However, Perl seems to be designed for unreadability, since there are dozens of way to do everything. It encourages poor programming habits.
Personally, I've always seen this player-decryption as a form of double taxation. First the reason you have to PAY for a DVD purchase or rental from the original distributor is for the license/legal right to view it. Then they claim that you must also PURCHASE a "licensed" player in order to legally watch the movie you just paid for the license to legally view. So I watch my legally purchased or rented DVDs on my illegal decrypting linux player. If they want to arrest me over it, fine. As a friend of mine once told me: "If you really and morally don't believe a law is right, and you understand the consequences, then break it." He's right, people do it all the time, it's called protest.
This interview is begging for a follow up.
I think judgement day would involve an interview in 60 days when he gets a chance to investigate everything, and understand exactly what's going on.
Remember, working for a company doesn't mean you know everything, it means you know your part. Higher ups are often thought to know all below them, when it's rather impossible.
A CFO may know the bottom line, and be able to summarize quite a bit, but I bet they couldn't tell you half of what someone 2 positions under them could. They don't know all the details. What's fudged under them could be very well hidden.
A nice followup would make this a great piece. But until then, it's a little hard to critique this all fairly.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Yeh, that's a good point. Here's another -- how many people are in wheelchairs out there? It's not *that* many. In fact I don't know anyone in a wheelchair. So why should we have public policy aimed specifically at those people when there are multi-multi-millions of us who aren't crippled? It's another case, just like Skippy Valenti said, where You can't do it that way. To hell with the ADA. Those folks in wheel chairs should go buy their own damn ramps if they want to get into buildings. And tell 'em Jack sent ya!
Most of the lawsuit(involving DMCA) that I have heard in the past are mainly use by oligopoly that working their way toward monopoly. It's just sick, that if you have (big)money you can make anything legal or illegal by making a law into your favor.
I hope I'm not being too cynical in the suspicion that Valenti (who rechecks how many Linux users there are) was shocked that he was missing 2 million customers, not that 2 million people apparently have to do something controversial to (or do without watching) DVDs.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
He misses one huge issue. The issue of fair use. Fair use is a right. He keeps saying there is no right to do xyz, but there is and probably always will be. Without room for fair use, copyright law would be clearly unconstitutional even to the current consumer blind court.
Okay, I agree that stifling the creativity of a few on the bleeding edge is bad for the many. But, I disagree with your assertion that the good of the many is a legitimate reason for respecting liberty. As a matter of fact, I believe that the good of the many is not a legitimate reason for any public policy. Once you drag out "The Common Good" as a reason for any public policy, for any law or regulation, you have started down a slimy, slippery, morally bankrupt slope.
As unpopular as the belief is nowadays, there are some things that are always wrong, and some things that are always right. Forbidding any kind of behavior when that behavior does not initiate force or fraud against another individual is wrong. Period. Because the forbidding itself is a form of initiating force. The non-initiation of force or fraud is a rock solid principle that you can use to measure the justness of any public policy. The definition of "The Common Good" or "The Public Good" changes with the weather.
Here Here, Another "I'm so damn smart, look at me", MIT student. Being an engineer, (in training) he should know how to view debates objectivly and not subjectivly.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!"
"If we wanted you to understand it we wouldn't call it code."
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
...Sigma Designs has a Linux DVD player, for use with its Netstream 2000 mpeg decoder card. I've used it. It's still in beta, could be better, but it works.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Yes. Just like PHP, you actually have to know something about logic before you can write readable code.
- oZ
// i am here.
This is mostly off-topic, and slightly trollish.. but you know, lots of people can learn how to make nuclear weapons from the Internet, but should we be doing so just because we can? So we don't have a "dumbed-down populace?"
The interview was published on April 16, and presumably took place prior.
The most interesting thing about this rift between the open source community and the MPAA is that is serves to illustrate how, on the one hand, big business attempts to marginalize minorities that threaten their bottom lines by changing the rules of the game, and on the other hand, how the open source minority is smart enough to bypass their attempts.
I also find it interesting that digital media has changed the rules to such an extent, that the businesses dependent upon the profitability of artistic content have instead of changing their business processes, would rather spend millions of dollars attempting to put the genie back in the bottle. The backlash from the customers is apparent in slumping sales.
The strongest message that could be sent to these companies would be if the majority of 'customers' and artists would abandon contacts with those companies, altogether, that insist upon doing things 'business as usual' - instead of inventing new ways for everyone to profit from the new technology. If enough people were spending their entertainment dollars elsewhere, I can guarantee that it would marginalize all proponents of intrusive technology (they can't legislate where you get your entertainment - as long as the source is not pirated material). Furthermore, and more importantly, it would make most of those companies change their way of doing business for the betterment of everyone.
With the new digital technologies out there, a professional recording studio or a professional movie making outfit can be put together without a great expenditure - compared to the past. With equipment becoming cheaper every day, and internet access becoming nearly ubiquitous, it is only a matter of time before the decentralization of the entertainment industry is complete. The MPAA and like groups are only delaying the inevitable.
What would this buy the customers? The opportunity to choose media based on quality, rather than packaging. What would this buy artists? The opportunity to focus on the Art rather than the Business of their craft. The best Art would float to the top - not the highest paid artists, or the ones with the largest advertising budget.
We have the power to make this happen - by voting with our wallets. If a business's revenue stream dries up they only have two choices: change or go under. Sadly, most people don't see the dangers inherent in the limitations being imposed, and don't work together to make things better. It is also instructive that engineers would stick their nose into this for the community - they could simply sit back with all their engineer buddies and enjoy the content that thier ingenuity allows. However, they see the bigger issue, interoperability and the marginalization of certain technologies (such as linux) if these issues are not addressed - and the great loss this would cause for a very large minority (millions) of the population.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Owning, posessing, transmitting or thinking about those 6 lines of code is punishable by ten years in prison, by a law Jack wrote himself. He's saying "un-fucking-believable" because he realizes the kid he is talking to is a living circumvention device, and the only successful solution is to legalize killing such people.
FYI, this is the man that wrote the law that Apple is using to persecute PlayFair to the cheers of everyone at Slashdot. So stop making fun of him.
The fault here lies with the legal system that creates the fiction that a person can "own" intellect. In a proper legal system, there'd be no such fiction.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
was JV arguing his side or trying to illuminate the flaws with democracy?
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
JV: if you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
democracy is sugar-coated mob rule.
--Brian
True, I would have asked different questions. However, if you read my profile, you'll see that I'm a salesman, not an engineer. I wish I could write a decoder in 6 lines...
Did i miss the non-RealAudio version? I can't believe I'm the only one on slashdot who won't install Real software ...
After 4 years? That's fucked up.
Ok, how about this. All you programmers out there, donate about a day of your time to write the damn thing, get it OKed through the MPAA, and actually get one that is licensed.
Don't tell me you can't, because you haven't tried. Until someone steps up to the plate to fix the issue we will be kept in the dark-ages forever. I'm no programmer, or I'd do it my damn self...
Okay, can somebody put this in politer, more persuasive language...?
"Those thousand engineers will have to invent the things American businesses sell so that they can pay the salaries of those twenty-four million movie-buying Americans."
There. Short and .siggable.
The thing to remember about these sorts of people is that it's all about the money. They don't care about your hardware hacking projects and freedom is one of those abstract things, but say that this will make them poor and they'll take notice.
My favorite part is when Winstein shows a dumbfounded Valenti a six-line DVD descrambler he's designed, to which Valenti responds with language inappropriate for the Slashdot homepage.
If it was Perl, I think that was just Valenti trying to read the code out loud...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Didn't we just have a story on Turbolinux having a licensed DVD player?
The real issue to Valenti is intellectual property. The ham-fisted laws he's lobbying for are the only way he knows to preserve intellectual property the way he thinks it should be. What he needs is an example of how that way might not be such a good way in the first place.
The real issue is that the law should not be made to stop people from being able to do things which might infringe upon others' rights but rather should make certain that punishment and restitution (justice, if you will) can be had when someone actually does infringe someone else's rights.
Or maybe there should be laws against other things which might be used in rights-infringing ways? The classic example of how one has the right to swing one's fist but not into someone else's nose would have to be re-evaluated. Too many people seem to be taking advantage of that old-fashioned "right", and perhaps fist-swinging should be illegal for all but certified professionals? Just to be on the safe side, maybe they should outlaw making a fist at all?
The point again, is that a better way to make law is not to legislate what cannot be done but rather to make plain and sure the dire consequences should we choose to infringe others' rights or damage items of public trust.
Valenti: "But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Compared to the general population the number of people disabled is quite small. So why do we have ADA? Should improvements to acts be aimed at the people who are not disables. I am not trying to comparing Linux users to people who are disabled but minorities have civil rights too.
...was "A Rhesus Macaque Grills Valenti on Fair Use", it would still not be surprising.
That with the compatability libraries and hooks in this-app-and-that... it would likely die because it wouldn't be GPL friendly.
Insightful? I was going for funny. I have written software in C, C++, C#, Java and VB. VB is the worst (IMHO) to try to figure out after-the-fact. Well written C style code is the most readable, but I ahve seem some real crappy C and PERL out there.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
TT: Well you see Mr. Valenti, they pay us lobbyists a whole lot better than you do.
The use of region codes are originally design of margetting purpose. let's say for example, a new movie call First Movie schedule to appear in the US on January 2099, and then release in Europe December 2099. and DVD is generally release about 6 months after it first appear. If there isn't a region code, then people in Europe could import the movie around July and nobody would buy a ticket to watch that movie in theatre.
But, what piss me off, there is a code in the DVD that prevent people from skip certain scene in the DVD player, generally use to show the FBI Warning thingy. But many company now aday decide to use it for advertising purpose. So, now I can't just skip the 3 preview movies that I don't want to see. Cuz, if you write a program into your computer to skip that, you can be sued under DMCA.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If picture worth a thousand words, how many megapixels is it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Question: where are the Perl obsfucation contests?
Maybe it's just because I'm not a zealot, but I don't see how that interview makes Valenti look like an idiot. The interviewer doesn't even ask him about fair-use, or any other non-technical questions, he just wants to know why he can't watch DVD's under Linux. Valenti replies that he doesn't know why no one makes a licensed DVD player for Linux, but there must be a good reason. The simple fact is that he's right. Why don't all the bitchers and whiners go out and write a licensed DVD player for Linux and SELL it it? There's such a big market for it, and it should be trivial to write, right?
1. Write licensed Linux DVD player
2. Sell licensed Linux DVD player
3. Profit!!!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
OK, the numbers are off, and the analogy isn't perfect
It's a bad analogy because Jack's basic arguments is that the law needs to be applied uniformly to everyone. I myself am sympathetic to this viewpoint (though not the particular law in question).
We should not be arguing that there should be exceptions to broadcast flag for video engineers. Instead we should be arguing that there shouldn't be a broadcast flag at all! Taking this back to your analogy, it would be ludicrous to argue that circumcision should be legal for Orthodox Jews, but an illegal and imprisonable offense for everyone else. It should be legal for everyone even though only a very very few would want to do it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
So what he's saying is that it's OK to take away part of a constitutionally-guaranteed right (freedom of expression), because only a small fraction of the population actually uses it.
Un-fucking-believeable
What ever happened to the idea of "majority rule, minority rights" This entire interview brands users that aren't of the majority as invalid- and a law that restricts a morally unobjectionable use by a minority should have never been made.
hey "ac", not even a hdtv manufacturer makes them from scratch... and i can almost guarantee not one person one the assembly line would likely be able to assemble one on their own, even with all the prefab. components right in front of them.
I have just read a whole lot of insightful, informative, and interesting posts on this article. (Thank you all.) A lot of you have some very cogent points to make, others have some great questions.
Here's my stupid question for the day^H^H^Hwee^H^H^Hyear....
Is it possible to have Slashdot do an interview with Mr. Valenti? Why not have all of these questions and comments winnowed and sent to him?
Valenti just doesn't know that this is an age where mobs of self-educated people collaborate out in open and make complex things simple.
He's still in the "only a company has the resources to make something complex" model of the world. "If you make something on you're own, that's really rare."
That's not the case any more.
But you let those who do, do so; that is, unless you want a dumbed-down, incompetent populace... down to the very last potential engineer.
The gov't wanting to keep the masses down to the lowest common denominator? What ever gave you that idea?
-A
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Throughout the interview, Valenti demonstrates his ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use.
But let's not forgot Slashdotters demonstrate their ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use as well (i.e., p2p piracy).
Yet I do think it's insane I might own a Linux box, run out and buy a DVD player for movies, and not be able to watch DVDs on the drive that I bought and paid for because of how the whole copy protection thing played out.
Very good one, but I'll stay with this:
JV: No, you're not a bad person. But you don't have any right.
looks like there are just a lot of hard returns missing where, in any other context, any sane programmer would put them in.
No one claimed that Perl is sane.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Valenti is an interesting character. He knows a lot about movies and about the industry. He seems to have heart for the enterprise, both at a commercial as well as a creative and artistic level, even though his occupation has skewed his perspective towards the commercial aspects of moviemaking. Valenti is a man whose accomplishments practically defined the superstructure for US movie industry over the past 3 decades.
Keith Winstein gets an opportunity to speak with this man, on behalf of all of us, and is satisfied to knock down a few strawmen ("am I bad? am I a bad person?!"). He doesn't use his considerable knowledge to illuminate and explain the deeper issues. He's just interested in bashing Valenti's head in, using his knowledge as a club. With the result that the true issue gets snowed under. Because the problem isn't that there aren't any licensed DVD players for Linux. The problem is that you need licensing at all.
What a sad performance. Nerds, stop flashing your braincocks.
you haven't met my boss...
This was an interview following an MIT forum. Region-coding was raised in the forum, and would have been redundant in the interview.
Reminds me of a University of Toronto prof... Prof Dmitrevsky. No nonsense, old guy.
WTF is even MIT going to do with an entire class A?!? Couldn't these addresses be better used elsewhere; and doesn't ARIN have rules about IP usage being 80% or something?
I find it very hard to believe that MIT is using even 1/10th of these addresses.
This would be like me getting pissed off at the DMV because I have to get license plates and registration so I can drive my car on the road, even though I have already paid for the car. We are in a world that has things called "user fee's".
And to counter the argument that you would pay for the software if it was available. Then would you expect the state to issue you a license plate and registration card for a Formula-1 car? Just because you are willing to pay doesn't mean you should be able to drive any car you want on the road.
Life sucks get a helmet --Denis Leary
===--===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Where's your benchmark from 'from scratch' then? Does the person have to start out naked in a forest. then build from there? I mean, there's an awful lot of manufacturing that goes into making a transistor, resistor, capacitor, or even a wire. Doesn't seem to me like using those should be thought of as 'from scratch'.
Have you ever built anything electronically more involved than an oscillator, with no instructions? Building anything more complicated than that by the seat-of-your-pants counts as 'scratch' in my book. If you can take discrete components, some theory, and through an iterative [build, test, scratch head, fix, repeat] process build something that does what you set out to do, that is essentially scratch.
If you're British, you must included gum, paste and toothpicks, I believe.
In the beginning of motion picture history, a single person, Thomas Edison, owned the patents for producing a motion picture. Nevertheless, many filmmakers produced their own pictures, often clandestinely. Meanwhile, Edison sent out, essentially, thugs to do harm to anyone who made a motion picture.
I don't know all the details, but clearly in the end the filmmakers won the right to produce their movies. They have always portrayed Edison's defence of his patents in a negative light.
Now the roles are flipped. The motion picture industry has taken the part of Edison, attempting to pick and choose who can watch their movies, and by what method; sending out thugs (lawyers) to beat up on anyone violating their rules.
I know it's not a perfect analogy, but it does seem pretty ironic.
Proverbs 21:19
There's not a big market for it. There are so many free unlicensed players that work it's doubtful you could break even on that business.
They produce the movies, it's their call. If they don't want you to be able to do thing 'x' with it, then you can't, it's that simple. If they require you to use a particular piece of hardware to view their movies, then that's that.
I really don't see any moral, ethical, or legal way around the fact. They own the copyright on the movies. If you want to see them, then they have every right to tell you to view them, or not view them, in whatever way they want. You may find it distasteful or discriminatory but it's not your call, it's theirs.
If you don't like the way they're telling you to do things, then god damn, please stick up for yourself and say "Alright, fine, I'm not buying any more of your shit." If you really want things to change, that's the *only* way you're going to do it. Vote With Your Wallet. End of story. That's right: No Matrix for you; No Lord of the Rings for you. You'll live. At the very least cut down on the movies you watch and go watch some live theater, go to hear an orchestra play, support the very things that the movie industry is currently destroying. The only alternative is to accept the way they want to do it. So, make a decision. Do you actually like movies more than you hate the way they're treating you?
Random and weird software I've written.
Hey Jack! The whole purpose of our democracy is to keep us safe from the tyranny of the majority.
Just because the majority of people go along with a policy doesn't mean it's right. There may be just a minority of people who are affected negatively by the policy, but in our society, they have the right to speak out against it and fight for change. That's how we got past slavery. Everyone thought it was okay until a few decided to stand up and fight the powers that be.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I agree with you for most of it. He did seem to shoot relatively straight, and I give the MPAA folks a lot more credibility than the RIAA will ever have again. But I disagree on one point here.
"If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work. You'll have to find a legal and authorized means to view the content"
While I agree with your statement, the fact of the matter is that if I buy or rent a DVD, I have permission to view the content. That's what the license on the media states. I won't try and quote it from memory, but it's essentially "You own the media, and we own the content. By buying the media, we give you a license to watch it at home."
Since I do have permission, the rest of the argument doesn't follow. The license doesn't specify what specific technologies I MUST use. Further, it's a logical argument that using something like DeCSS isn't illegal circumvention since I am using the "tool" to exercise rights the media owner has already granted me.
We're not talking about illegal sharing here. Just the right to use what I've paid for.
Oh, and to follow onto someone's comment about "GM making it illegal to use Fram oil filters in their cars" there are specific laws that FORBID just that sort of thing. I wonder why no one's tried to apply them here...
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Actually, I'm pretty sure IP law is meant to both advance the arts and science and advance commerce (implicitly).
From the US Constitution (regarding the scope of powers of the legislature):
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
While this regards patent law specifically (they didn't regard it IP back in those days), it is clearly intended that the sole reason that the inventors would have exclusive right to their invention for some time so that they could enrich themselves using the proceeds of their invention. So the advancement of the arts and sciences is insured by protecting the commercial interests of the inventors.
Except that Valenti's position on most of that stuff is that the people who want to do it for benign reasons are a miniscule minority of those who would abuse the loophole. That's way too big a discussion for a 10 minute interview. I didn't think it looked like personal attacks at all--he said "you claimed we'd have the ability to do this 4 years ago, where is it?" and Valenti's reply was "I don't know", and clearly he was concerned about this lack and the inconsistency in his own case.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
A mobile DVD player is still something like $300 or more. It's another device that I'd have to lug around on a road trip or business trip.
My laptop happens to have a DVD drive in it- it can serve very nicely in both a portable computer AND a DVD player, if I've got software for that task.
If I use Linux in the laptop, I have to "violate" the DMCA (Circumvention for interoperability is perfectly legal, per the DMCA. Since there is NO legal players available for sale for Linux, they can't really close that loophole...). If I run Windows, I have numerous choices, including products from the companies that "made" Linux players (Little clue for you, gang: Intervideo's toy when I got a copy for eval required the use of Red Hat 5.2 (go figure) and Cyberlink wouldn't give me the time of day for LinDVD when I was working on embedded devices... They DON'T really have product to use in pretty much any contexts.).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Perl isn't sane??? No WONDER my scanner doesn't work!!
(I couldn't resist...)
You aren't saying that users of Linux would rather use a free tool illegally than pay for one which does the same thing legally are you? I'm shocked. Of course it doesn't make Valenti wrong.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Answer: PerlMonks
But if someone did that, we would all be revealed to be hypocrites when no one buys the licensed player!
...On the other hand, it would be justified with "it's not that I wouldn't pay for it, but it's closed-source!"
Your entire rhetoric seems to be that:
tinkerers should just shut up and accept what our corporate masters want to give us. We are not people, not inventors, explorers or problem solvers, we are consumers to be milked like dairy cows.
Do you really consider a law reasonable that prohibits you from making your own consumer electronics? The MPAA's right to swing apparently does not stop at the interviewer's nose. (For the metaphorically-impaired, this translates to, "The MPAA's expanded rights unreasonably constrain and impose upon the individual's rights")
It's the licensing part, not the writing part, that's causing the problem. It's an expensive process and you have to jump through a lot of hoops.
Whoa, whoa, hang on. Weinstein is entirely correct. When he tried to make an argument about the broadcast flag, Valenti argued that the law had to be crafted to reflect the majority and that small segments of the population who had legitimate gripes would always exist (which isn't entirely true...law must reflect the will of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority.)
Weinstein then made the point that Linux users were a not-insubstantial portion of the population. This much is true. In addition, he made the point that this rather large segment of the population could not legally view DVDs on their computer without buying a separate DVD player or another operating system. I don't view this as a terribly technical problem. If I buy a DVD drive, I expect to be able to watch DVDs, just like I would have expected to be able to listen to music CDs if I bought a CD drive.
Further proof that this is neither a small nor an especially technical problem is the fact that Valenti himself has addressed it before. He has banked on the promise of DVD software soon being available for Linux, but that has yet to materialize. However, it has not and, but for the DMCA, United States copyright law would have no qualms about me finding some way to watch the content that I own. That is what's wrong.
Did you know people are stupid enough to buy bottled water when they have clean tap water? I'll bet you could double your profits with those dumb people by selling the bottle with a lock on it, then licensing out the schematic for the key and suing anyone you just broke the lock off.
Some people are smart enough to realize they can just break the lock since they already bought the bottle. Other people are infinitely denser and suggest that the problem is that nobody is buying licenses to the lock and selling a key.
But, don't worry... maybe that just means you travel at the speed of light.. or something... or maybe you just don't see the inherent problem in criminalizing the activity of using something the consumer already paid for.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I think it was unfortunate that the interviewer chose to browbeat Valenti with technical questions and focus on a single side effect of the core issue that Valenti could not be expected to be an expert on (the DVD situation on Linux). Had he stuck to the more general issues, like the fact that the behavior of legally purchased hardware is not entirely under the owner's control, he might have obtained more coherent answers that reveal more about Valenti's position...
But Valenti has many forums in which to reveal his position, if he's really interested in doing so. Personally, I think it's wonderful that the interviewer chose to take Valenti onto unfamiliar ground, to show the Jackass how much he truly doesn't know about his job.
The legislation Valenti and the MPAA have pushed through has serious and real consequences for technology. It's not all right for them to ignore or dismiss those consequences. It's time someone called them on how much they don't know about what they're doing.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
When they say I can't build a t.v. set - that's fsked up.
You know, this is the first time I have read someone stating things this way.
Perhaps this definition clarification should be passed on to other groups, such as the RIAA.
Another example of poor use, sort of, is ignorance. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. When someone is being rude, they are indirectly ignorant as they are lacking the knowledge or proper manners (though in most cases the poor manners is intentional).
Gay is another example. Originally, gay meant happy. However, by today's acceptance of the term gay as a reference to homosexuality, it is commonly misused.
I wonder about the legal aspects of the clarification of the copyright definition? At least in Canada we do not have to worry much. A judge ruled that since photocopiers are not illegal and textbooks or encyclopedias are frequently copied, then it is legal to share music.
Is copyright only supposed to protect against someone claiming rights to something that is not theres? And are anyone out there selling copies of U2 or whatever without paying the band royalties? I believe that is the true issue. However, every movie I see I have to listen to some stuntman say ".. you steal a candybar or download a movie.. someone reaps the benefits with a few clicks of a button.."
So now it is a basis of enjoyment, not copyright. Are people enjoying an artist's work or using someone's program without paying for it? If they are, but they are not claiming it to be their's and selling it to others for a profit, why is that covered under copyright law?
There is nothing illegal about changing DVD player region codes or purchasing players / DVDs from outside your region. It's not a form of encryption so DMCA doesn't apply.
The entire region coding system is only 'enforced' by agreements with distributors and market demand (not much demand for region 2 DVDs in the US). If they went beyond this than they would risk the possibility of a restraint of trade suit.
I'm sure our friend Jack thinks it should be a crime, but it's not (yet).
Disclaimer: IANAL, and even if I was the laws may be different where you are living.
Here's one mirror. I think qrpff is clearly an attempt at this, given how utterly unreadable it is.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Since the right to regulate the building of television sets has not been given to the government by the people, it is retained by the people.
Of course, try engaging in interstate commerce with them and you become Fritz Hollings' bitch.
--
E_NOSIG
Here is what i got from it:
1) He really believes in his side of the story. It just makes sense to him, and he explains it in a way that makes sense.
2) His argument is simple: Don't copy what you don't have permission to copy.
3) The interviewer was an absolute idiot for approaching his questions from the Linux point of view. Why should Valenti or the RIAA or anyone else assure that there is fucking DVD viewer for Linux???? Why try to put the man on the spot because market forces have not created a Linux DVD player? DUUHHHH! How about asking Valenti about the "fair use" aspect where you cannot make any copies that right now fall under "fair use"?
4) Showing Valenti that anyone can easily make an "illegal" Linux DVD player only makes the man more resolute, and gives ammo to the RIAA. Can you see Valenti saying to some congressmen I know for a fact anyone, and I mean anyone can make a DVD copier! You must erode freedoms now for the sake of our economy!? He could then provide a printout of the interview with the MIT fool who made the wrong point.
Well, I'm sure we got closer to an accord with Valenti by letting him know that MIT nerds building their own HDTVs and DVD players need the freedom to do so... But of course, he's worried about the other 300 million people in the USA and the other 4 billion people in the world.
What an awful interview!
I could fit any operating system in 6 lines... they would just be 6 REALLY LONG lines =). In fact why not just remove all the new line characters and have ONE REALLLLLLLLY long line of code.
Even IF you're a set-top box maker, it's nigh impossible to obtain this ephemeral product- my previous employer TRIED to obtain an eval copy and got nada in return. Hell, they didn't return our e-mail or mail inquiries. At least Intervideo TRIED to send us something (That was pretty much worthless to us at the time- built against Red Hat 5.2? For IA's and other embedded devices? Riiight.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
He totally avoids answering the question completely. Region codes for parallel imports, blah, blah... What about making personal copies? Parallel imports, mumble, mumble...(silence) Then they go on to the next question.
...and the answers were still indicitive of a dangerous attitude. "You're one of very few, so you can't complain" ...That's ridiculous!
This guy has won over the minds of Congress to shape this society into one where the most intelligent and potential-filled sliver of the population are made criminals if they pursue certain (harmless, theft-less, victimless!) technical things that interest them.
Certainly different or more general questions could have been asked in the short time the interview had. And you're right, there's no reason for this old guy to be an expert in this stuff, but that's kind of the point. Those influencing these liberty-squashing rights into legislation don't actually understand the far-reaching consequences of their actions. Had he been asked about business and licensing details and the effects these provisions and laws have on big companies' bottom lines, sure he would have been able to speak more intelligently.
He himself said that if his ideas have no bottom they don't deserve to be heard. Their bottom is the ever-thickening lining of pockets, the pockets of big media, the pockets of corporate-funded politicians. That might be the harsh reality of what makes the world go 'round in this day and age, but that doesn't make it right.
so far, I count 3 posts of yours saying the same thing, and I'm only looking at shit with a score of 3 and above. Each time, you appear to be unaware of the fact that the turbolinux announcement happened today, and the Valenti interview happened 20 days ago. Please, stop. It's really asinine.
Besides, Winstein's point was that it was illegal to watch DVDs on Linux, even when no legal alternative is available. He's not so much begging for a legal DVD player for Linux, he's lamenting that it's illegal to watch movies on Linux, when it's legal on other OSs, simply because nobody is offering a DVD player program.
==========
JV:
TT: I'll tell you, because I'm an engineer, I'm an engineering student, and this year I built a high-definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
TT: Well, I'm talking about engineers.
==========
The interviewer blew it right there in his last response.
The CORRECT response should have been "Why does that matter? Do I not have the right to build stuff for myself?"
Because that's the crux of the misunderstanding. They do not believe we have the right to build anything for ourselves. We only have the right to choose which overinflated strong-arm corporate overlord we're the least pissed off at today.
What the internet is changing is not copyright infringement, but publication and distribution. We used to be consumers because we had no choice. Now we are producers becuase the option is available. That's the meat of the thing!
Anyone who's been to homestarrunner.com knows that Disney does not have to be involved for your entertainment to be hilarious, (very nearly) family-appropriate and extrodinarily well-written.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Yes, he should have pointed out the Roman law principle:
Innocent until proven guilty.
Something Valenti not-so-indirectly denies numerous times during the interview...
I agree, in this case he comes off as someone who is clueless about fair use, but at least concerned (on the surface) that there are no linux players available. Amusingly there's no way he could fail to know there were no Linux players if he cared, so either way the final analysis leads to him being full of shit - which is his job.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sure most people don't want to build their own sets. But you let those who do, do so; that is, unless you want a dumbed-down, incompetent populace... down to the very last potential engineer.
;-)
I seem to recall learning some time ago that, back in the days of The Phone Company, it was "illegal" to hook up a phone not owned by TPC to a jack in your own house.
You couldn't even *buy* a telephone back then... you had to rent it, for a ridiculous price, from Ma Bell. (This was still the case when I was a child, and I'm only 30.)
In that case, were there hobbyists who built their own phones? Were they ever actually charged with criminal activities by AT&T? I'm too lazy to do the research right now, but it would be an interesting comparison I think, if someone else wants to hunt it up
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Okay, can somebody put this in politer, more persuasive language...?
Sure. Translate it, by analogy, into an issue that most people do have a sensitivity to...
"Why would people object to segregation?"
"I'll tell you, because I'm black, I'm a black business owner, and this year I bought a home. But because of the Jim Crow laws, if I wanted to vote, that would be illegal."
"How many blacks in the United States own their own homes?"
"Well, I'm talking about ones who do."
"Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 75 million people in this country. You can't have a public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way."
Does that make the problem seem a bit more obvious?
Only if they statically compile them into their application. Under GPL any code (including proprietary) can retain its licensing providing that they do not statically link or include directly any GPL'd code.. Not exactly true. It depends on who you get this from. RMS states that ANY form of linking, with GPL code be it staticly, dynamicly, or directly included requires the code using the GPL'ed code to be released under the GPL. The LGPL license allows dyanmic linking without this problem.
True, but I'm afraid the parent post makes a more convincing argument. Congress couldn't care less about a rights issue, unless it pertains to the rights of their corporate overlords. The parent post attempts to frame the problem in economic terms because money is one of the few motivators a legislator is likely to grasp.
...that Valenti is dealing with a huge, capable, and determined audience that have extreme disagreements with the MPAA.
Everything that the MPAA has tried to do with respect to DRM has failed. In spite of the fact that several blatantly unconstitutional laws have been passed, I can copy a movie off of the internet quite easily.
Getting the MPAA to acknowledge the extent of the failure is the first step towards a mutually-engaged solution. To do this, there must be confrontation.
Still, I am astounded that Valenti practically hadn't even heard of Linux. I would imagine that he would know everything about "DVD Jon" - he must be a real technophile.
Saying "this'll let you watch movies" is correct, but saying "this'll play movies" would be misleading. Perhaps it wouldn't have been criticized if it was simply stated "this'll allow you to watch movies."
Valenti, of all the people who were in JFK's motorcade on Metro Day in '63, has enjoyed the longest career, and arguably wields the most political power today. In Oliver Stone terms, "Who Benefitted?" you'd better consider Jack Valenti.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
From the article:
When the MPAA called to ask if I wanted to talk with him for ten minutes last week
I guess the interviewer ran out of time. I agree he shouldn't have spent so much time dithering over DVD and Linux. Instead he should have spent more time getting Valenti to understand the whole "how can we have a dialog" point, which has much larger ramifications for the whole issue.
Travis
Where,where ? Oh, you mean "Hear, hear", as in "Listen to what the previous person had to say".
Now the region codes are just an excuse to charge more for the same thing. The slightly older, yet still very good DVD's which cost $9.99 in the US, cost 20 or 30 Euros. The Region codes are just a huge ripoff for the consumers.
Thankfully, nearly all DVD players are now easily modified to play all regions. Of course, if you live in Spain, then it's still fairly difficult to get your hands on the cheaper US DVD's.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
I prefer
:-)
"If it was hard to write it should be hard to read."
Many of us wouldn't be too surprised if, shortly after retiring from their respective positions, Valenti and (former RIAA president) Hilary Rosen each were to sprout horns and a tail.
Hilary and Jack got their jobs, first and foremost, because they love music and movies. Just like you and I do. They went into the industry because they care about seeing creative people rewarded for their work. We certainly don't want to see our favorite musicians and directors starve, either -- yet all but the most elite barely carve out a living, even now.
We really do want the same things that they want. Where we have problems is that our understanding of the issues are lacking.
When people differ, it's easy to get hostile. One guy is the devil, the other's a lunatic, and once everybody's in that defensive mode nobody is open to hearing a new idea. As a result, nobody wins. You can't convince your enemy of anything, because you've made him your enemy!
The only way we are going to be able to change anything is by making friends with the industry executives we've until now demonized. As Valenti says here, we need to avoid hostile debate. To discuss things openly and honestly, we need to start with where we agree: We both love the art, and we want to see artists paid for their work. Get them saying, "Yes, yes," right from the start. So that we're not putting them on the defensive, but getting into a spirit of mutual cooperation.
Because that's the only way we can achieve any kind of change.
The LGPL also has a clause which explicity allows reverse engineering. Which is not compatible with DVD players.
And it's going to be pretty fucking hard to build a Linux app without dynamically linking to LGPL components (such as glibc).
What's the difference in coding a licensed DVD player and coding an unlicensed DVD player?
Oh.
No? Then it's not really available for Linux in the same sense as WinDVD and PowerDVD is for Windows, now is it?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Right. It's been said that a developer can write ten lines of efficient, bug free code per day. In perl, it's only 15 characters.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
You have to remember that it's not a majority of the PEOPLE, it's a majority of the politicians and the lobbyists that buy them.
No matter how much you want to argue fair use and all, the bad apples stillscrew it up for everyone. All it takes is one nimrod to copy and sell some DVD's and you give Hoolywood a fight. Take money away from a giant and he'll step on you.
Also going after a older man who doesn't know so much about Linux and computers as we do, you only help fule their fires on how imature the "geek" culture is in the eyes of these rich powerhouses. It's bad enough that you can't talk to a senator unless you front some money, but pissing off the people who do will only close the doors of any future visits.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Yes, I built the circuitry for translating control signals from a joystick port into a robot's motor starting, stopping, or changing direction.
Building anything more complicated than that by the seat-of-your-pants counts as 'scratch' in my book. If you can take discrete components, some theory, and through an iterative [build, test, scratch head, fix, repeat] process build something that does what you set out to do, that is essentially scratch.
Interesting. The definition of 'from scratch' with software is much more nebulous, IMHO. And now with software radio, it's possible to build an HDTV with nothing but software.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
That's exactly the attitude that has lead us to where we are now with this, and all of the other DMCA issues. "Why should I pay for it when I can just get it for free?" Because it's illegal. "Just because I know that I can get it for free, and I'm not _stupid_ enough to pay for it doesn't make it illegal." Yes it does!
Muthafucking mod this post up. Although I think he's underestimating the number of people in wheelchairs. Point still stands.
Plus he does have a point: You can watch the DVD you rented from Blockbuster, just buy a DVD-player. Who says it's your god-given right to watch DVDs on Linux?
I want to; that should be reason enough. It's technologically possible to watch DVDs on Linux; I PAID for the DVD and all of the fair-use rights that go along with it; those rights INCLUDE the use of the DVD for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of my friends. The real question is, why should I have to pay Jack Valenti for the right that I ALREADY HAVE to use a product which I ALREADY OWN? It's like buying "insurance" from the Mafia; they're selling you a product which consists of them NOT infringing upon YOUR RIGHTS.
I think it's wonderful that the interviewer chose to take Valenti onto unfamiliar ground, to show the Jackass how much he truly doesn't know about his job.
It's not Jack Valenti's job to make sure there are legal DVD players for Linux. It's his job to make sure that there are NOT illegal DVD players for Linux. His point is perfectly valid. It's possible today for someone to license the technology needed to make a legal DVD player for Linux, but everyone in the position to do so knows that the Linux users will just use the illegal players for free rather than pay for the legal ones.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box. Just like when DVDs started to get popular people had to replace their VCRs with DVD players, Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
P.S. I define "correctly" in this context as what is legal. So settle down cowboy.
naw. Assembly can be pretty readable if you follow basic coding conventions and make extensive comments. yeah, if you use a lot of jumps, etc, it can get messy, but well written, and using a decent optimizing assembler to let the computer do the work on whether or not you should use a short jump or a long jump, you can have code you can come back to and understand it.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
You seem to be arguing that the MPAA and I have an equal right to attempt to buy legislators. That's so, in the old, "the law that prohibits sleeping under a bridge applies equally to beggar and king" way.
I'm arguing that the effect of that lobbying has been an indefensible curtailment of my rights. They are bending the legal code into knots to defend a business model. It's not reasonable, it's not just, it's insane.
I totally agree.
:)
Of cource, the "I-wanna-play-my-DVD-in-Linux!!!" argument is important. What is much more worrying is the logical inconsistency of it all, and that a lot of people seem unable to see how little sense a law like the DMCA makes.
Consider this:
It is, and has been for many years (at least technically) trivial to make copies of movies. It's illegal to distribute those copies whitout premission, but lots of people are doing it anyway. What is the best way to fix this situation? To outlaw something else that is equally trivial and equally common (decoding css), or to actually start enforcing the laws you already have?
The DMCA is obviusly an implementation of the first solution, which also introduces effects that can be nothing but damaging to the American society. I'm sure everyone reading this post are perfectly aware of what these effects are already...
Another thing to consider is that if the wast majority of the population are breaking, or wouldn't think twice about breaking, some law, then there is probably something wrong with that law. This hints at a third solution to the situation outlined above.
This just in... 82 year-old rich fatcat exposed to be clueless and out of the loop. People everywhere faint in shock and awe.
That assumes your boss KNOWS how to look at source code. In truth, your boss doesn't even need to know how to program. Your team lead should be the one reviewing your code.
That certainly assumes you have a large enough organization to have a coding standards and practices type document for your company, among other processes and procedures.
Of course, if you have a large enough organization to have such processes, then those same processes prevent you from getting rid of those programmers!
By the way, a formatter fixes formatting issues, not core design mistakes. If you have a formatter with a "dwim" (do what I mean) flag that fixes such issues, let me know.
Throughout the interview, Valenti demonstrates his ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use.
He also displays his ignorance and misunderstanding of the US government and the principles on which it is based.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Exercise for Mr. Valenti: do a search for the phrase "tyranny of the majority."
Diverging from topic a bit....
Did you know people are stupid enough to buy bottled water when they have clean tap water?
Did you know people are stupid enough to think that tap water is clean when it is not? Did you know that EPA reulations allow a small ( < ~10%) percent of homes to be furnished with water that exceeds contamination levels by any degree
Well, you do now.
That means the water coming from your tap could have carcinogens, and/or lead levels 100+ times greater than standards allow - and there's nothing you could do except stop using your water....
Stop being such a chucklehead
-shpoffo
EXACTLY!
The rights of the minority MUST be protected.
If you can't right legislation that protects those rights then we need to re-examine what your legislation is actually intended to protect.
This is all about protecting BUSINESS MODELS at the expense of the RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS.
Wait a sec... so the mpaa wants to force me to buy a decoder so that I can run DVDs I paid for on a computer I paid for with the DVD player I paid for? Jesus, how much cash is the industry trying to milk me for? Some of those folks are already millionaires... I just want to watch "Fishing With John"! I tell yah... I've met winos with less aggressive begging tactics.
It the classic, "I don't know the answer, but I'll talk to my people and we'll get back to you" technique, which is followed up by vast amounts of never getting back to you.
And he DID follow through, and his people DID get back to us:
[Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the MPAA, later pointed to one company, Intervideo, that has a license to sell GNU/Linux DVD software, [...]
And from their side it appears that either the issue is closed or the ball is back in our court. In the absense of a response from us (specifically, from Weinstein or the others at Tech), they have good reason to believe it's closed. (And to feed the same story to anybody ELSE who raises the point later.)
But from our side it's NOT closed, because:
although the company does not actually sell a product that Linux users can purchase.
Taylor thinks even if we can't get it, the problem is still no longer theirs, because we WILL get it if we push vendors.
Linux users who want to watch DVDs should "perhaps buy a DVD player instead," Taylor said, or "write to Intervideo and others, encourage them that they're the market," he said. Will Linux users ever be able to view DVDs on their computers
without breaking the law? "I'm sure that day is not far away," Taylor said.
But in fact he's directed us to somebody who never intended to make the system available. The one license for Linux platforms was obtained for embedded systems, not for making it available to the general Linux users:
A spokesman for Intervideo, Andy Marken, said the company's product is only for embedded systems and that Intervideo has no plans to release a software player for end users.]
So (if they haven't already), Weinstein and/or Tech can hit the ball back into the RIAA's court by:
- Telling Taylor (who was tasked by Valenti with handling this issue) that there is STILL no sign of a licensed player for Linux on the horizon.
- Raising our other questions, which Valenti seems to have missed. Things like "When did the first sale doctrine go away?", "CSS is not protecting against copying, it's restraining trade", and the other points we've brought up here.
We have an opportunity, people. But it has to go thorugh MIT. Are we hitting the ball back again? Or are we letting it pass by and losing the point?
Let's collect our questions and arguments and (if the MIT folks are willing) feed them back through the Tech/Weinstein -> Taylor/Valenti connection.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'll have to disagree. The United States is a representative republic whose function is to represent vocal majorities, rich minorities and sympathetic, guilt-inspiring minorities, while completely ignoring non-vocal and non-rich minorities and even majorities. Poltical Science 102.
Why bother ... he was talking with Valenti.
It's also possible to make code that is perfectly readable, but doesn't do anything. These guys have been experimenting with it for years!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
What's guaranteeing that bottled water is any better? I've seen plenty of water bottles for sale that plainly state that they're bottled from some city's municipal supply. Are there regulations on bottled water saying it has to be "cleaner"?
The real problem with Valenti is that he is assuming the validity of an outmoded paradigm-- that everyone will be satisfied all doing the *same* thing with distributed content, and that a few big corporations or industry groups get to decide what that thing is.
Linux, FSF and the GNU however, was originally motivated by the desire to specifically wrest such centralized control over technology, and especially now that it is getting more complex to the point that the one-size-fits-all mentality is showing itself to be more and more antiquated. Linux's very nature UNDERSCOREs what's wrong with the Valenti assumption-- and IMHO, unfortunately for them, despite congressional attempts to prop thing up, Valenti and his crew are losing their grip on things and are scrambling to patch the holes in the dike.
Why not just pay XYZ organization for the right to use ogle?
Can't we just do that? Can't the MPAA or ISO or someone just set up a little drop box that we use to pay for privledge, get a piece of paper that says "okay, now you can't get sued, you paid the royalties on the patented algorithms".
Maybe they could bundle into the purchase price of computer-based DVD players. Then anyone can use any software they want, for free.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
How about this for quotes: "If you write code I can't understand I don't hire you"
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
Um yeah! Most of us would use a free player and risk jail rather than pay for one.
Move on.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box Thats where you're wrong. If the purchased the movie they should be able to view it where ever the hell they'd like.
There are many reasons why someone would buy water (or any other drinkable liquid) even if they have clean tap water:
:)
It's less of a hassle (when you're not already inside your own home).
It's better. (Yes, some people actually think it is.)
It's more trendy or something.
[Add whatever irrational reasons here]
None of these arguments can help you sell a licensed dvd player for linux though.
Big gap between current technology and the buggy whips the RIAA and other US cartels are selling. If a musician makes $1 on a $14 CD wouldn't you at least consider that the business of music production does not fulfill its need in society - providing music for people to listen to? The innovations of MP3 copiers are as social as they are technical. The cartels failed to accept technology (computers) for playing files just as they still fail to accept Linux. My belief is that technology and society progresses. By trying to stop progression the RIAA will cause an uncontrolled flood in the future. Possibly encryption is a next big thing. Everyone will encrypt everything and not allow the sniffers to see what they are doing. This is illegal in the USA from what I heard. No citizen is allowed to encrypt in a form the US government cannot crack easily (or has a backdoor to crack). If you believe like I do that the US government is more set on the two goals of backing cartels/monopolies and of removing personal freedoms from its citizenry, then you'll agree that the flood of innovations will come from elsewhere. This is well captured in the interview I think when the cartel rep. says UFB and the single person reminds of the promised player four years ago. TimJOwers
Expect Freedom.
Heck, there's no other reason to have laws. The rights of the majority aren't generally in a lot of danger. To a great extent, the very purpose of civilization is to protect the weak, the few, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, etc.
No he's not. He's not saying that the law has to be applied uniformly, but that it has to be written such that the outcome is uniform: everyone buys a TV with DRM built into it, regardless of whether they could build one themselves.
It should be legal for everyone even though only a very very few would want to do it.
Exactly. That's the position Valenti is opposing.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
No, there's quite a difference between this and the American Disbailities Act. An engineer building his own HDTV isn't taking resources away from anyone else. When a school is forced to use taxpayer money for one person in a wheelchair, some people are actually lose out. No one does in this case. Everyone should be able to see that the broadcast flag is *much* worse than repealing the ADA.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
"Hey Jack! The whole purpose of our democracy is to keep us safe from the tyranny of the majority." No, that would be the purpose of a republic, but a lot of us, including our "leaders" seem to get that one wrong also. You see, if we lived in a pure democracy, Al Gore would have been elected in 2000, since he received the majority of the votes, hanging chads in Florida notwithstanding :)
In fact, you will find quote after quote of our forefathers warning of the dangers of a democracy.
The fact that many of our "leaders" don't understand this is downright scary.
It's not like you need another example of how George Bush is really mentally deficient, but when he invades a sovereign nation and states he is "defending democracy" when it was the voting principals of a REPUBLIC that got him elected, it really makes me worried that this idiot has nuclear weapons at his disposal.
Of hearing about 'unfairness' and lack of reverse engineering ability. SO WHAT. There is bad law and it happens to suck for me and probably many others here on /.
,fair use provisions that have been trampled on, and copyright infringement. In particular, the DMCA and Copyright are currently bad law, and only sufficient urging of law makers will change anything.
I'm going to talk about three things here: Reverse engineering provisions (getting around the DMCA)
Read the article. GIves hard time to Jack Valenti RE: Can't play movie on linux, can't reverse engineer.
Some posters here are correct in that this is about control and money. Give up the control, harder to get money. Thanks to convergence we are looking at a head-to-head fight with the MPAA. We want freedom with digital media, the MPAA wants to take the freedom away to support their artificial scarcity model. Nothing to see here, move along.
Jack has been responsible for lobbying for DMCA, etc. to limit our freedoms. Congress buys in because: copyright extension and DMCA provisions limiting digital freedom/fair use is seen as "GOOD" for an entire industry. Why? Because Jack, Hillary and Cary have convinced law makers that it is "GOOD" and it supports artists, etc.
Since the public buys into the sales pitch of DVDs (with their encryption) congress sees very little complaining or problems, and having already bought into the arguments once sees fit to ignore a few complaining (slashdot, Lessig, EFF) parties.
There are several ways to fix this, but "dialogs" or "discussions" with Jack or whoever with angry geeks are going to do NOTHING. DDOSing the RIAA website will do NOTHING. Saying things like "I only download mp3s to try out and then I buy the CD" does NOTHING. Continuing to download/upload stupidly MP3s, movies,etc. in this age of lawsuits by RIAA does NOTHING (though I agree with it, and in this case support civil disobediance in the face of bad law). Suing the RIAA to get judgements from the supreme court on constitutionality, or right to reverse-engineer does NOTHING (see Aimster, Felten vs. RIAA).
So, to move forward and DO SOMETHING:
(a) The EFF, DigitalConsumer.org, Creative Commons people... Need to get lobbying congress to get some provisions for fair use. Namely all the ones that have been taken away. What we need is 1 line in the copyright act(s) that makes okay a WIDE RANGE of fair use. No amount of whining or complaining will change an ACT of congress. Getting in the face of congressmen REPEATEDLY has a chance. They are the law makers and we have bad law here.
(b) Engineers, COMPSCI, IEEE... Should get lobbying congress to allow for reverse engineering in this digital world. We have associations and societies, why the heck aren't they doing something? Why isn't industry lobbying for fewer restrictions on hardware? It only lowers their costs.
(c) Quit complaining to JACK, MPAA, RIAA... Quit whining on slashdot, DOn't assume that if you just keep ripping, downloading from Kazaa things will get better. The language in the laws (DMCA, Copyright) MUST CHANGE. And the LAW MAKERS MUST CHANGE IT AT URGING FROM LOBBYISTS REPRESENTING US!
(d) Quit buying into the crap that the MPAA and RIAA (and companies represented) put out! Their cash flow will have to suffer far more to sufficiently weaken their fight. Start caring about supporting troublesome companies like Sony and their ilk. Its a question of knowing what you want instead of being sold on by 'marketting' and advertising gimicks.
It is Jack Valenti's job to look after the best interests of the movie industry, or at least that part formed of movie producers that are members of the MPAA.
It most certainly is in the best interests of the members of the MPAA that there be ways of viewing DVDs on Linux. It may not be a terribly urgent thing, there may "only" be two million people affected by this, but it certainly helps the members of the MPAA if as many of their potential customers as possible can view their products. Because those who can't view them will not buy them.
Jack would best serve the members of the MPAA by lobbying the DVD-CCA to issue a class license, right now, that counts all DVD players as authorized as long as they follow certain guidelines. The DVD-CCA will not do that, because the DVD-CCA has forced DVD set-top manufacturers to fork over vast dollops of cash for the same rights, and they'll make themselves immensely unpopular by suddenly giving them away for free, but that's the DVD-CCA's problem, not the MPAA's.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
At some point quite possibly, ALL of them. The whole concept of what a "TV SET" is, is subject to change-- and could become a mental construct rather than a physical one.
For a more down-to-earth example, a "TV SET" could be an assemblage of user-selected and configured software components that are put together as the user sees fit-- just like one is allowed to assemble their own collection of component audio/video equipment today as they see fit, the future equivalents of these could very well provide for capabilities completely unforseen by the designers of the system.
Valenti is a dinosaur who can only barely sense that his extinction is at hand-- due in fact, to his very inability to understand what is happening to him...
It's not "Why should I pay for it when I can just get it for free?" but rather "Why should I be forced to pay TWICE to watch the DVD I legally bought?" It's like if Pepsi were to somehow push through a law that said Pepsi must be drank out of a certain cup, then everyone who wants to (legally) drink Pepsi has to go out and buy a special cup to drink it out of when they ALREADY legally bought the Pepsi in the first place. I own the DVD legally, I ought to have the right to watch it however I see fit - and if that means using a GPL DVD player, so be it. Excuse my language, but I'm not running some damn DVD copying scheme, I just want to watch the movies I like that I buy or rent from the store. There's no reason I should be treated like a criminal because someone ELSE has the capacity to commit a crime. That's about as stupid as "pre-emptive war."
Fair use was not mentioned once in the article and there was no grilling going on.
I think this interview demonstrates a serious advocacy problem in our community. We are talking over these people. Geekspeek and "oh no I can't play movies on Linux" whining isn't going to convince anyone. The content industry doesn't HAVE to sell anything to geeks. We need to be speaking legaleese; fair use, the constitution, the framer's intentions and promotion of innovation rather than "But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux."
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
Thats where you're wrong. If the purchased the movie they should be able to view it where ever the hell they'd like.
They can. They just need to license the technology to do it. It's really quite simple. If you want to play DVDs you need to purchase a DVD player. If they don't come in the color you like, suck it up. This is called being a consumer. If you do not like being a consumer, be a producer and start a Linux DVD player company.
Yep. And during that time AT&T was a publicly sanctioned and heavily regulated monopoly. We could do the same thing for the MPAA. But then I'd want to extract the same level of benefit from the MPAA that the U.S. received from allowing AT&T to exist as a monopoly.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I just realized I was probably only a few seconds from getting the 9000000th post! Wow! :)
Those thousand engineers will invent things whether they can rebroadcast television or not. I don't see where this is a valid argument. Shit, a lot of inventors don't even watch TV.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
How did the movie industry become what it is today, especially knowing it was founded by people frustrated by the control of Thomas Edison and decided to create an organization to fight that control ?
Duh. Control is only bad if its in someone elses hands.
Consider the reaction of US citizens when the WTO tells them to play fair. (oh, you're taking our soverenty!)
I don't see how building a television is freedom of expression.
Local ordinances prevent me from doing my own work on the water pipes in my house (for fear of contaminating the supply). Are those ordinance oppressing my freedom of expression?
Not to say that Valenti isn't a hypocrite. But there are better arguments then that.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Weinstein then made the point that Linux users were a not-insubstantial portion of the population.
We actually ARE an insubstantial part of the population. Even if the number is 2million, and all of those are in the US, and all of those are using Linux on the desktop, and all of them only want to watch legally purchased DVDs, then it is still only 2/285 ths of the population ... and of course it isn't nearly that large a fraction. Well below 1/2 percent. Miniscule by almost any measure.
Which really doesn't matter in the least ... Valenti's argument is completely bogus, but not because his data is wrong; it is his PREMISE that is flawed (that it makes sense to restrict what we think is perfectly reasonable behavior just because that behavior is engaged in by a small subset of the population, not because there is an inherent societal damage involved). But countering his argument by suggesting his data is unsound won't get you very far, because few reasonable people are going to be convinced that home desktop Linux users are anything but a miniscule part of the population.
Absolutely right, however I think there's a balance between the two that Jack and friends are trying to undo. Profiting the owner shouldn't exclude all use for advancement, which seems to be what Jack is saying, even if its a very small number of users.
Should have been followed with:
TT: So, how many people in the United States produce movies? How come the public policy is specifically targeted toward protecting the interests of that small minority?
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Maybe Jack could explain to me why it's wrong to make a videotape of DVDs I own to watch on the bedroom VCR or take on vacation. Maybe Jack could tell me what's wrong with buying DVDs when I'm in Thailand or Europe and watching them at home. Is someone not getting paid in this scenario?
The MIT Tech guy is the one that doesn't get it. If there is a software algorithm that is patented or secret ,it isn't ever going to get released as GPL'd code and it's doubtful that there is much of a market for a binary-only executable that costs money so Linux users can watch DVDs on their computers.
Buy the darn DVD player and be happy that you can't watch Hollywood's awful tripe on Linux.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
That's a valid point. And I agree that it's not fair that there isn't a legal way to watch DVDs under Linux (except through something like vm ware).
But just for the sake of argument, you didn't buy the DVD thinking about that. There's a difference between paying twice for something and paying for the equipment for which to use something. And you could say "well, I own the equipment" but the fact is that even with Windows' licensed players you have to pay for the software in addition to the equipment. It's lose/lose.
I don't want you to get me wrong, I agree that you get the shaft. However, that doesn't make it legal. I know that what I'm about to say won't affect you, but if you were seriously concerned about the legality of things then buying a cheap dvd player for about the same price as a commercial (licensed) dvd player.
"If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, then it's not ok to make digital copies to circumvent the encryption and watch that work. You'll have to find a legal and authorized means to view the content."
If you don't have permission to watch a copyrighted work, it's not ok to watch it period, decrypting it is not relevant to the discussion. If you DO have the permission to watch the work, why shouldn't you be allowed to decrypt it whichever way you want?
I don't see his arguments as making much sense, other than from a powerplay standpoint. He just wants as much power as possible over the viewers of his media.
Other than that, I think it's a little bit unfair to say that he doesn't understand the issues. Remember, disagreeing is not the same as not understanding.
I do think he understands the issues very well too. I just believe that he's trying to kill free culture to get more corporate profits. That makes him an enemy of the public.
It was explained to me like this once:
Python and Perl attempt to solve more or less the same problems in different ways. The main difference is that Python is executable pseudocode, while Perl is executable line noise.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
If we accept that public policy for a population of 284 million should not be directed at addressing a subset of 100,000, then my question would be:
Of those 284 million people, how many have HDTV? Of those, how many have HD recording capability? Of those, how many can get the HD recording into their computer? Of those how many have the bandwidth and patience to upload a 30gig HD movie stream to the internet successfully?
Let's for arguments sake say that number is 100,000. I know I am grossly overestimating the intelligence of the American populace, but if his argument is true, then the broadcast flag does not fit his own criteria for becoming public policy.
Jack said:
I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it.
Jack was hired to present only one side of the argument. So, by definition, he is incapable of talking "objectively", since he has already committed to a pre-ordained outcome.
All Jack can do (and all he is paid to do) is to simply parrot the MPAA agenda. Since he is paid to be totally inflexible on this issue, his presence at an "objective" discussion would be totally useless -- except that he could simply serve as a reference for what the MPAA's agenda is -- but then, a piece of paper could do that job.
what pisses me off more is that intervideo has no plans to make a 25 dollar dvd player but can make money off of the linux kernel using it in their fucking embedded crap.
what worms -
Consumer/producer are not roles intrinsic to human being. Capitalism has made you so blind that you're unwilling to see a person as a person who will express his or her life by doing things (i.e. holding a DVD, inserting it into a Linux box, clicking on play), not by playing roles (i.e. "Oh! This Linux player is illegal! Since I am a consumer, I won't watch the film that I hold and own, because as they have explained to me, I somehow don't really hold and own it even though I can see it in my hand right now and have paid for it just a little bit earlier; as a mere consumer and not a producer like them, I certainly must believe what I am told! This film is not here, nor is my Linux DVD player!")
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Parent: I don't see how that interview makes Valenti look like an idiot.
Article: I never said anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take something that belongs to somebody else.
Dictionary.com wrong: Not in conformity with fact or truth; incorrect or erroneous. Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked. Unfair; unjust.
Translation: I never said it was wrong; I just said it was wrong.
Dictionary.com idiot: A foolish or stupid person.
I think Valenti qualifies.
---
licensed DVD player for Linux
All DVD Players are already licensed.
A DVD Player is hardware. Any DVD player should play DVDs. If it is compatible with some computer hardware, then it should play DVDs in that computer. Then we learn that you must use specific software on the computer to play a movie DVD, and your choice of OS is removed because the movie industry has convinced the government that your OS is a threat to them, and they have made it illegal for you to use your legally purchased property for its advertised function.
The solution is for every DVD Player manufacturer to give DVD Jon a couple of dollars. Wait, he made the software public domain so they do not need to pay him. Do you need to license the technology from whoever controls the DVD standard? They already paid for a license for that exact piece of hardware you bought. Why don't the manufacturers include the software? Will including a Linux/Unix movie-playing program require a second installation CD? (The installation CD for my Plextor PX-708A DVD Writer is 570MB, but more than 60MB is used for MPGs that I did not know existed until I checked while writing this.) Do they want the DVD manufacturers to pay for 2 licenses for the same piece of hardware when it is impossible for more than one program to be using the hardware to play a movie? Why is it illegal for you to use your licensed device as it was intended?
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
You know what I'd like to see?
Jack Valenti and his minions on one side of a table, RMS and the EFF and other pro-fair-use advocates on the other side of the table.
Bring in the technical side as well -- the DVDCCA on the MPAA's side, and the various authors of CSS-cracking software on the other.
Televise and webcast the debate. Make it open for all to see.
Why hasn't this happened yet? Seriously, why hasn't there been any debate between the 2 sides a public forum (besides the courtrooms)?
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Piracy is the rule in most of the world. We in the US are the only ones being punished by criminals like this Jack guy.
These are the same people who would have told you that the telephone was dangerous because it would put the post office out of work.
You can suck up all you want to a bunch of lawyers and rich guys but that does not make there laws right.
ok that code just fucked my brain.
I completely agree with you that a balance needs to be drawn. Clearly your rights as an inventor should terminate before 70 years after your death (Disney anyone?). The parent of my post implied that the advancement of the sciences and arts may be exclusive to commercial advancement, which is rather silly when you think about it.
there is allso the funny fact that you dont at all need to break the code to get a nice copy of the dvd. only thing you need to do is avoid those silly home dvd-/+r(w)'s either dont have a key area or have it allready filled. basicly what you need is a dvd press and the real deal when it comes to blank dvds, cute huh? any bigtime(ie selling, not putting it on the net for free) dvd pirate would want to use one of those anyways. home burning equipment dont have the output volume...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Yet you'll happilly purchase bottles of soda or beer without questioning where the water came from.
In most countries, tap water is expected to be unpotable, or at least a bad idea to drink. Alarmism aside, US drinking water is among the safest in the world.
Those statistics that you cite are disingenuous at best. The "water systems" that are mentioned in that article consist of everything from massive reservior systems to village wells serving 3 or 5 houses.
In New York, one of the states mentioned as being highly contaminated with MTBE, MTBE has been banned for use in fuel applications. Additionally, 80% of the state's population gets water from safe reservoir-based water systems and about 9% get water from private wells.
Community wells and stream diversions, which are most susceptible to contamination, are now being regulated and often eliminated in New York and other states.
So, when a burglar breaks into my house, I don't go running and screaming that it's not their right, I just install a more secure lock? With secure locks we don't need laws?
Seriously, I can't stand the idea that information is going to be locked away with some proprietary format, that will then be "improved upon," requiring me to "upgrade" to the next piece of hardware or lose my property. There is however a legitimate argument to be made about intellectual property being stolen -- unless you don't buy into the notion of intellectual property at all.
I think the real issue isn't about encryption; it's about illegal copying. What encryption and these damn laws do is prevent people from honest use of their property, in an effort (largely unsuccessful) to hinder the unlawful distribution of copyrighted works.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, that's wrong. Number two, if you design your own machine, you can't fuss at people, because you're one of just a few. How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know.
Read the words that are there, and don't pipe them through your prejudices, people :)
From the sound of this exchange, it sounds like he's willing to make a case for legal DVD decryption for GNU/Linux users. Winstein was reasonable with him, leading him down a path unfamiliar to Valenti. He freely admitted that he didn't know there's approximately two million people Linux users frustrated by this problem.
Why? He's a big picture guy, pun intended. He's not going to know much about engineers and FOSS. It's not part of his job. If he's willing to at least say that he's willing look into doing something about this problem, it's on FOSS advocates to approach him again to rectify the situation. By putting the best foot forward - demonstrating that GNU/Linux users buy approximately so many DVDs, and that big studios themselves use FOSS, that it's overall a Good Thing, then maybe what we want will come to pass.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Given that Valenti isn't in any way a part of the judicial system, I find it hard to see exactly why the fuck this matters.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
That said, it's nice to get a bottle once in a while. You can use it to carry tap water in.
Yes, they are.
Programmers express themselves via code. Plumbers express themselves with pipes.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Interesting. The definition of 'from scratch' with software is much more nebulous, IMHO. And now with software radio, it's possible to build an HDTV with nothing but software.
You still need hardware to receive the signal, and you still need the computer hardware to actually run the software. Hate to pick nits, but that's the way it is.
except these people are probably planning on outsourcing all their future inventors to cut costs ;)
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
A liscensed DVD player is a closed source DVD player. It MUST BE by the terms of the NDA you have to sign to get the license. This is the problem, and this is what the interview SHOULD have been about - I despise laws that artificially prop up businesses model by making it mandatory that you have to be a customer of a company instead of doing things yourself. (It's like at tax time how if you want to fill out an electronic form there is NO WAY to just go to an IRS website where you just fill out the blanks and submit the form yourself. - instead, because of a stupid law that says the government is barred from competing with a tax law firm, you MUST do an electronic tax submission through a third-party tax preparation company, even if you have no desire to use any of their optimization programming and all you want to do is just fill out the blanks of a 1040, and hit submit.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I thought that was "hear, here" -- in other words, listen to me, I'm saying the same thing, and by the way I fully expect you to be impressed by my discovery that words that sound the same but mean different things can be placed together in a way that makes sense.
When Valenti's "anti-piracy" tour came by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (as part of Roger Ebert's Overlooked Movie Festival), I too spoke out against Valenti. I was the first person at the mic and after I spoke a number of people came up to me on their own to tell me that what I said was interesting, and that they were glad I spoke out. I don't remember everything I said, but I did touch on the shortcomings of the copyright term extension for preserving commercially unsuccessful works and how the market doesn't seem to be interested in doing this when it costs so much to obtain permission from the copyright holder. I also told Roger Ebert that I hoped he would have a response to Valenti's talk; Lawrence Lessig would make a fine choice. Only one person in the aisle told me he thought I was wrong but unfortunately he didn't elaborate past that, so I don't know what exactly struck him as incorrect (or even if he knows any of the history of what Valenti repeatedly referred to as "piracy").
I had heard Valenti's talk before, so after a while (during the last two questioners) I stepped outside to the hallway. As people left the talk they approached me and asked me questions about the discussion, so I further explained my position on the matter and they told me they appreciated my response. It was one of the most productive set of conversations I had had that week. I made it clear that Valenti was either outright lying (like when he said the EFF wants to destroy copyright but failed to tell the crowd that the EFF has made a copyright license which they encourage others use) or only telling half the story (he talks a lot about "piracy" but he never mentions that William Fox who founded what became 20th Century Fox fled west with illegally obtained and operated equipment--a kind of "piracy" by Valenti's use of the term--thus helping to start the industry that Valenti now lobbies for).
One of the questioners at UIUC also took Valenti to task about fair use, and part of Valenti's lacking response included a dismissal of the public domain (saying that it had no value for him, his clients, or the public). If I could have had another turn at the mic I would have reminded him that one of his organization's most lucrative members, Disney, made a lot of money by building on what's in the public domain and their one-sided support of the public domain makes them appear hypocritical because Disney doesn't want to allow others to build on its work the way it built on the works of so many others. Another questioner asked about a previous Ebertfest moviemaker who had to "pirate" a copy of his own movie in order to get it distributed for home video (DVD, these days) because the studio was unwilling to do this. He took the reels his movie was on after it was shown last year.
The local corporate-friendly newspaper, the News-Gazette, ran a front-page article with a large close-up of Valenti's face. They didn't give any reasonable indication that they understood what many in the crowd were talking about when they raised a number of objections to Valenti. Also, I don't think they ran my letter to the editor which briefly gave the history on which Valenti didn't give the full story.
Digital Citizen
WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
* To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
* To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
* To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
* To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
* To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
* In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act. For further information, request Circular 40, "Copyright Registration for Works of the Visual Arts."
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions. For further information about the limitations of any of these rights, consult the copyright law or write to the Copyright Office.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
I know what you mean. Marketers are the true geniuses of society!
Listen to this one--there are products that you smoke that KILL YOU and you have to PAY FOR THEM--and people ACTUALLY GO AND BUY THEM AND USE THEM! You try convincing someone to drink Chlorox Bleach! But there are companies making BILLIONS off of doing just that!
Or--people buy alcoholic beverages without any sense that it makes them susseptible to rapes, accidents, anger flares, smaller brain size, and irreversible changes in the brain. Might as well hit your head with a frying pan, it'd be cheaper--but don't tell people that! Show them young couples being successful and loved and cool because they drink--THAT's the kind of logic people want!
I LOVE THIS PLANET! But saying people buy bottled water is stupid is stupid. Why? PEOPLE ARE TRICKED INTO DRINKING sugary shit that ferments in the mouth and grinds away teeth, spikes your insulin level and drops it to the point that you can't function for the rest of the day, makes you fat and gives you diabeties ( a medical condition, not a cold or something temporary, but an OLD PEOPLE DISEASE). The people buying water are the ones who used to buy soda. When they see soda in the store, they buy water instead. At home, they consume that water instead of the soda they would otherwise be consuming. Of course, the next step in being a free-from-marketing person would be to bottle your own water, obviously, but the intermediate step of buying water is the step in the right direction--obviously coming from people who used to buy soda. You know that people don't just buy bottled water who have been fine drinking water from the fountain for 30 years (unless their water has become polluted)--no, the people buying water are the ones making the switch from soda and who are on the way to realizing THEY DONT HAVE TO BUY non-organic SHIT AT THE STORE PERIOD and that they can use their own water at home.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
You fucking Monday Morning Quarterback. What he did was perfect, because it wasn't covered in the PR script. Anything general would have gotten a "We here at the MPAA believe in 'Merka. Don't you like 'Merka, or are you a communist/terrorist/nonchristian?" Response. He shocked (trolled?) Valenti into responding with as 'Jack Fucking Valenti, Clueless Asshole', instead of as 'Bitch Stiffcunt, PR Advisor'.
And the movie companies do have a God or country given right to force us not to?
No. That's exactly the lie the MPAA has fed you and you believed it. The MPAA disallows more than just freeloading copiers, it also disallows playing a PAYED-FOR movie as well unless it's on a playback device they like. And while the MPAA has the ethical right to define the terms of sale for their movies (yes, including such things as setting insane profit margins), they do not have the ethical right to extend that to defining the terms of sale of every single device that views that movie.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Perl is Write Once, Read Never ;)
I try to make my Perl code look pretty though.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
It works correctly, but it is illegal (at least in the US). It's not a technical but a legal problem.
If we accept that public policy for a population of 284 million should not be directed at addressing a subset of 100,000, then my question would be:
How many people stand to benefit from more restrictive copyright laws, or if you will, how many people will be harmed if technology continues to develop new ways of changing content distribution models? Is it even 100,000?
'nuff said.
You and me both. I don't remember who said it, but my position is this:
It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior [on the part of the programmer] in a way that no other language has ever done.
Here is the proof I mentioned, and the ultimate refutation to anyone who spouts off that nonsense about "all Turing-complete languages are equally powerful, so they're all equally readable" (usually a Perl coder, ha): Brainfuck. It has only 2 variables and 8 operations, but ooooh, it's Turing complete!
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
P.S. I define "correctly" in this context as what is legal. So settle down cowboy.
If that's your definition of "correctly", then it was wrong to use it in conjunction with the word "technology" like you did - A technology is neither legal nor illegal. It's the way it's used.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The problem is that no industry has the right to dictate that reverse engineering is illegal, and that's precisely what the MPAA has done through the DMCA, and giving in to that unethical practice, by making a closed, licensed DVD player, just makes you part of the problem.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
...actually the #1 reason we occasionally buy bottled water!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I'm supposed to pay for some crappy (closed) software from a company that likens us to terrorists just so I can watch DVDs I buy?! http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=92gd65%244oc% 241%40mozo.cc.purdue.edu&oe=UTF-8
I decline.
He's a four hundred year-old vampire, he's never seen a DVD before and it boggled him. Eventually he'll understand those, then he can start on Linux, and then why six little lines are cool.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think he was grilled about Linux-based DVD players, not fair use in the context I would expect - copying media I purchased versus rented; violating that FBI warning, etc. The reason why we see no licensed Linux players is because it will cost to license the player; and the player would then cost to have a copy. That doesn't work in an environment where the OS users expect to not have to pay.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I'm relatively sure that he got his job and doesn't know anything about it. His job is to protect against illegal players, not to make sure legal players exist for all platforms.
point 3 says that whether fair use is legal depends on the kind of work being copied. Thus its completely justified to assert that copying an encoded DVDs is not fair use. The courts can deicie if this interpretationis correct but the law DEFINTLEY allows for such dicrimination in allowed uses of a work. http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html
No, you just need to pipe it to mplayer, dipshit.
In all fairness, it's not an apt analogy because being a programmer is a choice you make, while being black isn't. That's a relevant difference when you're trying to claim you're being discriminated against. I think the best way to point out how wrong Jack is, is to point out that the people who would care about this issue, who are complaining about it, are the very people who actually understand the technology. (Who are not JUST linux users, by the way, so we shouldn't be phrasing it in those terms - someone might want to make an open DVD player for windows too).
Preventing hobbyists from working with your technology will kill your industry twenty years down the road.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
or maybe you just don't see the inherent problem in criminalizing the activity of using something [water] the consumer already paid for.
oh, you mean like drowning somebody with it?
This is my point: There is no harm in watching it on a Linux box. The RAII has no issues with you watching it on a Linux box. Connecting this issue to Linux politics is a red haring because the issue is not Linux, it's the DRM on the DVD (or other media). Even if Linux DVD players where a dime a dozen, and all popular DVD titles came in formats playable on these Linux DVD players, the issue would still be here. Why? It has nothing to do with your OS, and everything to do with how most people here interpret what is "fair use". Personally, I have no problem paying for the right to view a DVD or listen to a CD. But I don't toot that horn here anymore...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I also spoke with Mr. Valenti while he was up in Cambridge a few weeks ago; My thoughts were sindicated into my most recent column for the Harvard Crimson (article at http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=358855 ).
The sense I got in my discussion with him was twofold: First of all, he's not "categorically wrong" and he *is* interested in discourse, which is more than can be said about many other industry lobbyists. Some of his arguments weren't particularly compelling (for example, his claim that gaffers and coffee boys are going to suffer if the movie industry loses lots of money - I tend to think they're already making minimum wage, and any revaluation of the industry is going to come from the top). Still, he was interested in the legislative process and in discussion, and he was ready and willing to hear both what I and what Keith had to say (incidentally, I thought the MIT interview was quite good...)
Second, while he didn't seem terribly aware of the facts surrounding the technical side of copyright law and the opinions of engineers and developers, I don't know that I feel that's necessarily "his fault." He's a lobbyist, not a congressman. It's his job to represent the MPAA and its constituent interests, and I think he wants to do that fairly and completely. That congress is unaware of "our side," if you'll permit such a term, suggests some problem in the way congress is gathering their information - or perhaps in the way we're trying to deliver it to them.
It's neither fair to the music industry (or Mr. Valenti himself), nor constructive as a whole, to use the outgoing director of the MPAA as a scapegoat and deal upon him the burden of our disagreements, particularly because I think that while I don't think he's taking the correct stance on the issue, I do think he's trying to take a logically consistent one.
--Matt
He should have shown the same thing working on Windowns and OS X to not stress that only Linux is capable of illegally decrypting DVD.
// ville
Except that once I've purchased or rented the DVD I automatically have the right to view it. Show me where on the DVD that it says I must watch it only on a "licensed" DVD player. Furthermore once I have payed money to watch the DVD I do have the right to decrypt it otherwise I wouldn't be able to watch it.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
If 6 carriage returns means six lines of code, then if all the code is in one long burst without carriage return, is it a 0-line program ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The entire point of Open and Free software is you're not limited to one system; you can modify and tinker and port to your heart's content. A licensed binary-only player for Linux isn't going to help me play DVDs on FreeBSD, or even Linux itself when I go AMD64 or PPC or ARM.
Like region coding, I see CSS as an attempt to block my ability to play back something I've legitimately paid for; *THAT* should be illegal, not my attempts to work around it. It's just a shame I don't have billions of pounds to back my argument.
JV: How many people in the United States steal copyrighted material? TT: Well, I'm talking about bootleggers. JV: Let's say there are a [hundred] thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
Oops!
The questions may have been a tad hostile, but the points are valid. How many people does it take before someone takes action? How long should we have to wait for a relativly simple piece of software?
law must reflect the will of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority
No, law needn't reflect the will of the majority - As we have seen recently (with gay marriages, for example) it only takes a minority in the form of legislators and/or judges.
Yes, but he was only given 10 minutes. It seems to me that he jumped into something that he knew about, and had little chance of coming across as an irredeemable idiot in those limited ten minutes. He was also hoping that Jack would be aware of certain tech frameworks which he wasn't.
By the by, anyone know which forums he was referring to?
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
either buy the license to make the player in Linux legal or STFU already...
/. linux users so fucking cheap that they wouldnt buy some software???? (20 bucks for a software package to watch movies on an OS that cost the whiners $0...makes the whiners look silly huh???)
I get so fooking tired of hearing this bullshit that it is the linux users RIGHT to be able to do wtf they want...
Linux is free, so are the
Rush Limbaugh isn't 82.
"maybe that just means you travel at the speed of light.."
We all travel at the speed of light, it's just a question of what degree it is in time and of what degree it is in space...
>Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box.
Yes they do. The maker of the DVD has a right to copy that DVD, but there's no part of copyright law that says the player must be licensed. There is the only the DMCA, which says you can't circumvent copy "protection". (Which incidentally flies in the face of a many years of reverse engineering case law). If I buy a copy of something, I have every right to view it, whether or not my player is "approved".
>Just like when DVDs started to get popular people had to replace their VCRs with DVD players.
That's stupid. You're confusing technical capability with licensing. They're entirely different.
>Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
Perhaps the users aren't wrong. Perhaps the DMCA is wrong.
If I buy a DVD drive, I expect to be able to watch DVDs, just like I would have expected to be able to listen to music CDs if I bought a CD drive.
Yeah, I have a DVD player hooked up to my TV, I have a DVD player in my computer. Why do I need to install a decoder on my computer, when I don't need to install one in my TV?
Is it really valid to make the distinction between the two? I could pirate movies using my TV, it just isn't as easy as on the computer. (I don't)
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
I actually think the person did it rather well, I always find interviewers always dodge questions like the ones this person asked. He showed his appreciation for Valenti's actions, remeber now, Valenti wants to screw you, the consumer, over, with laws and regulations.
I thought it was because everything he does is done on Windows where he is used to flakey dll's, BSOD's, non-functioning product until sp2.
I have yet to see a licensed DVD player for any platform that did not flat out suck. Probably because the companies putting this things out spend more time and effort on the license than actually writing quality code. Xine, mplayer, etc beats them all.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
Are you refering to the Steve Jobs that is the CEO of Apple who is currently grilling playfair or Steve Jobs that is the CEO of Pixar, one of the many organisations that is a member of the MPAA.
Personally I think Steve Jobs has chosen his camp and is too entrenched in it to bridge anything. You will probably get more help from Bill Gates, at least he doesn't run a movie studio too.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
By buying/opening/using the product you agree to the conditions -- same as an EULA!
And EULAs have never been tested in court, so they're getting away with murder.
How about someone sending the MPAA a letter with the following on the envelope:
"By opening this letter, you agree to allow me to watch DVDs how I choose."
It is not the MPAA's job to make sure that someone is selling Linux DVD player software. Frankly the whole "there is no licensed linux player" argument is pretty weak. Buy a license and make your own.
Q.
Shit, a lot of inventors don't even watch TV.
I realize you're being deliberately obtuse here, but on the off chance that you're making a legitimate, honest comment, let me clarify:
My point is that engineers become good by tinkering with stuff. Anti-circumvention laws make tinkering illegal. No tinkering leads to to poor engineers (and programmers and scientists) which leads to lack of innovation which leads to general poverty.
We're seeing how, in the third world, widespread education is drasticly reducing poverty, right? Well, tinkering with stuff is self-directed education of the sort we North-Americans desperately need and making it illegal in a country where innovation is the only remaining industry is just plain stupid.
Maybe, if he's really lucky, Mr. Valenti will live long enough to see the beginnings of what he's done.
PowerDVD is a pretty good piece of software, I've used it on and off for 4 years and It's solid
I am merely stating the law in the above. Personally I don't think that encryption should be legally protected. The moment you encrypt something and throw it out to the public you are taking a risk that someone will break your code. If you start licensing decryption technology en masse then you are taking a huge risk that your code will be broken. Decryption is really just picking the right prime numbers after all... Of course I also have no problem with busting people for sharing mp3s online. If you want decryption and sharing to both be legal, then you become just as bad as the MPAA because you want the laws to be determined by what is best for you financially.
We (the people of this country) are the majority. Valenti and friends who want DMCA-like laws (or worse) are the minority.
So what was that he was saying again about majority rule?
Yeah, actually, what I was saying is that tinkering in general makes good engineers. And that anti-circumevention laws only ban specific types of tinkering. That doesn't stop people from tinkering and becoming smarter engineers, just from tinkering in a specific way.
Despite all the regulations in the RF specturm, there are hundreds of great communications projects that you can build and tinker with. Doesn't mean you can build a 600W signal amp without a ham license -- or acheive the knowledge of how to build one without actually doing so!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
See, for instance, the Supreme Court ruling in the Betamax case.
JV How many Linux users are there?
TT: About two million.
A spokesman for Intervideo, Andy Marken, said the company's product is only for embedded systems and that Intervideo has no plans to release a software player for end users.]
Does this make any commercial sense to anyone else? Two million linux users, and a company has no interest in producing a Linux DVD player, depsite there being demand?
Maybe they figure that people will simply pirate it, or use the existing means for playing DVDs in linux. Wouldn't surprise me, personally. Slashdot types (and geeks in general) do tend to be known as moral relativists, and thus fairly large copyright violators.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I don't actually *want* 'licensed' DVD playing software to be available under Linux.
Why?
Because in order for it to be licensed, it would have to be closed source almost by definition, it would impose those pesky mandatory no-skip bits (ads, fbi warnings etc), and probably be spyware.
Give me Ogle/Mplayer any day.
Is it actually illegal to use non-licensed players to play DVDs? I had thought that the DMCA made provisions for interoperability.
If it is illegal, we need to get that legislation overturned quick-smart, the MPAA has gotten away with too much already.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
From what I heard this is not illegal in the U.S., but I'm a European so I am not really updated on such laws in the U.S.
What I do know however is that WTO rules clearly states that artificial trade barriers shall be illegal.
Who doesn't consider region codes to be an artificial trade barrier? To bad that individuals can't make pleas to the WTO.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Cheapen it is exactly what Winstein did. He didn't present any good arguments, he just asked the same question over and over. And the question, and the answer to it is this:
Q. Can I watch DVDs on Linux?
A. Not legally.
Why? Because there are no licensed DVD players for Linux. That should be readily understandable.
When someone produces a licensed decoder Winstein's little quandary will be over - he'll be able to go to Blockbuster, rent a DVD and watch it without feeling the need to ask disingenuous questions. Why is it the MPAA's problem that nobody has yet produced this licensed Linux DVD player? Regardless of whose fault it was (and I'll tell you whose fault it is soon) why hasn't it happened yet?
Money. Or more correctly, the belief that nobody will pay for such a player. We saw what happened to Loki. Why would a Linux DVD player make money where ports of top-selling PC games failed?
Do Windows or Macintosh DVD players come free? They come bundled when you buy hardware but they don't come free. You pay for them of course, you just don't see them as line items on your invoice. Perhaps if they were line items they wouldn't generate profit either.
It is partly the fault of Linux users that they do not yet have a means of watching DVDs legally on their Linux systems. Show that you're ready to pay for software, drop the idealogical Stallman-parrot bullshit and accept that businesses are not about to give you a free lunch just because you whine and (incorrectly) claim that Windows or Mac users get one.
The lack of bundled Linux player software with DVD hardware is just a question of numbers. If Linux becomes popular enough, someone will raise the bar by providing that Linux DVD player with their hardware and then everyone else will have to. But Linux has to become more popular first, much more popular.
That's the challenge for the Linux community. Make it commercially attractive for some licensee to produce a Linux DVD player and the problem is over. Until then, every time Winstein goes to Blockbuster and rents his hypothetical DVD and plays it with a Linux player he is breaking the law. A fair law, in my opinion.
I'm looking forward to all the ACs that say something along the lines of "the MPAA is evil therefore I can do what I want" - sure you can, until they catch you and you find yourself with a large fine. Reality always catches up with you in the end.
As usual when people talk about these issues, the interviewer missed the boat and focused only on issues that affect a miniscule fraction of people (building your own HDTV? come on...)
What we need to strive to do is to find real issues that affect the masses. Or at least more than 1% of people. The Linux issue is a good one for now, but it doesn't really get to the root of the problem, because once they put out a single licensed DVD player for Linux, your argument vanishes.
If I had the opportunity to "grill" Valenti (which I probably won't) I'd ask him questions that I had to deal with myself, and I figure many others would as well. Like why I can't watch the Region 2 DVD I bought in Germany. Or why I have to buy a modulator box (or a new TV!) to hook up my DVD player through a VCR to a TV with no video inputs. At least such a device exists, but still...it's frustrating to have to add another box to my ever-growing pile just to get around Macrovision.
Another legitimate question would have been what people who currently have HDTVs or digital video cards are supposed to do once the broadcast flag rolls out. Oh well, maybe this will come up someday.
This is what happens when people don't learn the fundamental philosophy of the laws of the land in law and business school: they mindlessly abuse those laws with things like the DMCA.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Congratulations on seeing right to the heart of the problem.
Linux users are at heart bitchers and whiners and lack the wherewithal to do anything much. They want everything free. They want organizations like the MPAA to give them free what other organizations like Sony, Panasonic, Zenith etc. have to pay for.
Uh uh, ain't going to happen.
Because you can't sell what you can get for free. And because no one doing hobby coding wants to invest the money to buy licenses.
This is why software licenses slow software development, because one of the beauties that only developers understand is that people code as a hobby and as a career. If you need huge investments to release code you do for fun than no one can do it for fun. It'd be like saying you have to pay a $5000 license to run your model train set; and then pay for the set.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box.
In fact nobody has a right to watch this woeful peice of crap. Nonetheless, I paid good money for a peice of hardware to play DVDs. I paid for the media with the movie encoded apon it. Now if it was a record player, that would be enough. If it was a stand alone DVD player, that would be enough. Because it happens to have a kernel writen by Saint Linus I am not allowed to use my hardware to do what my hardware is designed to do. That is to grab data off a disk and use this data in a legal manner.
If they didn't want me to watch my DVD (it became my DVD when I handed over the dosh, and whilst I am not depriving the manufacturers of revenue, I can use it as a frisbee for all they should care.) the way I wanted to, they should not have released it for public exhibition.
And for American Wedding, this would have been a Good Thing TM
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box Thats where you're wrong. If the purchased the movie they should be able to view it where ever the hell they'd like.
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Say I purchase a DVD, so now I can break into your moms house and watch it on her DVD player just because I don't have a DVD player? No, that would be illegal. Say I purchase a DVD, so now I can use DeCSS to watch it on Linux because I don't have a DVD player? No, that would also be illegal.
The fact is, I shouldn't be spending my money on DVDs if I don't have any legal way to watch them!
Makes you wonder.. If Intervideo ever bothered making a licensed DVD decoder for GNU/Linux, would any of us bother buying it?
After all, private industry is supposed to jump at chances and be the quickest to open and expand new markets. Failing to notice two million potential consumers (especially consumers who are often full-speed early-adopters) means they have taken their eye off the ball rather badly.
Caught flat-footed by a 17-year-old Finn..how embarrassing.
The movie/DVD industry has left GNU/Linux users out, and, given the preponderance of free tools that have sprung up in the absence of commercial activity, a proprietary DVD decoder would be financially unviable. Tough shit MPAA, you missed the boat.
As for Jack Valenti, while there is no reason at all why an octogenarian could not keep up with the pace of change, the very fact that he has been at the very top of his organisation for four decades inevitably means that he has no fucking clue whatsoever about the requirements of consumers down at the end of the chain. How many people do you think he speaks to in the course of a typical day who do not work in movies or politics?
what is this "Zephyr" that he talks about wanking in? Is that some other tech news website?
These people(mpaa) are so clueless. If 2 million use linux and 180 million use windows, who rips dvd's and makes perfect copy's of dvd's with smart ripper and nero? who are the pirates? I submit that the majority of blank dvd's burned are on WINDOWS machines, not people using mencoder with dvdcss, waiting all night long to get a divx avi file!
Which means that - guess what? - he knows how to do things that you don't.
I took an intro to electrical/computer engineering class with Keith five years ago when he was at Carnegie Mellon University pre-college. He had an amazing depth of understanding of material that he had clearly studied on his own.
The interview reminded me a lot of him -- extremely motivated, very intelligent and knowledgeable, but also very abrasive. He is probably one of the brightest students that I have ever met, and I have met some very bright people. However, I remember a lot of people getting upset with him because of his insistence on publically shattering the other person's point of view. At one point, he got in a near-yelling match with a researcher during that speaker's guest lecture on optical storage media, when Keith was convinced that the researcher was wrong about the current limits of multilayer storage.
There were plenty of (unfair, and generally nasty) snide remarks about Keith behind his back from people that were probably partly intimidated by him, and partly just didn't like his attitude. They didn't make his time there any easier.
Another time, Keith was the *only* student who chose to electrically redesign the stock robot design that the class was building. Everyone else just chose to do the basic work to get their grade. Unfortunately, he misestimated the limits of a component and burned himself -- the course TAs, who had gotten fed up with him, just laughed nastily at him, rather than being worried about his injury, or consolitory.
Keith will, I'm sure, never know it, but he ended up having one of the largest personal impacts anyone has ever had on me. I was amazed that someone so knowledgeable and so competent could be given such a hard time *just* because they tended to be abrasive, and resolved to get along with people, and avoid getting angry or trying to knock people down for being wrong or making mistakes, regardless of the effort involved. I am convinced that this ended up being one of the largest factors in making my university experience pleasant, and has helped me enormously throughout life.
I listened and talked with Keith during some of my free time during pre-college, and learned a great deal from him -- he introduced me to "wavelet compression" beyond just the term, and was the first to describe *IX shell pipe redirection to me. He was never stingy with his amassed wealth of knowledge, and I am sure that he will do will in whatever area he chooses to do work in. I am, however, saddened that he still seems to be as aggressive as ever -- I think that his life would be much easier if he went on the attack less often.
No matter what, he has my best wishes -- he is one of a breed of people that we could use more of, with truly inquisitive minds.
May we never see th
JV: ... You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way
...So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody.
Not quite Jack. We are talking about the fair use rights of 100,000 engineers and millions of Linux users against the copy rights of a few 100,000 employed in the entertainment industry. That is a much different situation.
JV:
In other words, you can't allow people their fair use rights because of the possibility that some of them will abuse your copy rights.
The thing is that throughout the histry of the US we have always protected the actual rights of one group against the potential infringement of rights of someone else. In other words, until your rights are actually infringed, you got nothing.
Except in copy right law, recently we have started to say that the potential to commit a crime is a crime.
I swear PowerPoint is going to be the downfall of higher education in western society.
Bah! I call FUD. 'Intellectual Property'? Do you mean patents? There are no patents on the DVD-CSS. Do you mean trademarks? Those don't cover the actual implementation. Do you mean copyright? Reverse Engineering and Clean-room implementations of algorithms/interfaces are legal in the USA and, indeed, considered a fair use right. Do you mean 'Trade Secrets'? Trade Secrets are only protected in the manner that those who try to steal or acquire them by illegal means and those who give them when bound by duty of confidentiality are liable; I do not know of trade secrets being obtained illegaly and, indeed, the DVD-CCA have recently admitted that DVD-CSS is no longer a trade secret.
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!
Laws are (and should) be designed to protect the rights of the minority, and not to cater to the whims of the majority. Ergo, slavery is no longer legal, people still have civil rights, and I have the RIGHT to own bolt cutters to cut off a lock. It is just illegal to cut other peoples' locks.
The whole issue becomes obfuscated when we begin to discuss "average" people or "consumers." These are all Lobbyist code words for people who are ignorant and don't care.
The last time I checked, I was a "CITIZEN" of a country where the PEOPLE are sovereign.
This is just another depressing example of the meatheads in congress lining there own pockets from the special interests and pedling fear (Al Queda DVD Hackers???) to the public.
"I wasn't using my Civil Rights Anyway"
"I wasn't using my civil rights anyway...."
(To Mods and/or Humor-Impaired: yes this was an attempt at humor.)
I'm sorry, sir, but you are not insightful. Unless you can explain to me what's so "I'm so damn smart, look at me" about asking somebody who writes laws why it should still be illegal for me to watch a DVD on my personal computer which happens to run Linux. 90% of that interview is about legality and morality, and the guy just wanted to have a rational talk about the needs of both sides. Valenti and this Rich Taylor person had exceptionally horrifying responses to everything the interviewer said.
Here are a couple of the best ones:
TT: I'll tell you, because I'm an engineer, I'm an engineering student, and this year I built a high-definition television, from scratch. But because of the broadcast flag, if I wanted to do that again after July 2005, that would be illegal.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
TT: Well, I'm talking about engineers.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
That seems to translate to "majority rules, right or wrong". Interesting thought experiment: Re-read the above after changing "engineer" to "civil rights user" or maybe "Linux-user" or herhaps "Mac user" or [flamebait]"minority ethnic or religious group member"[/flamebait]. According to Valenti's logic he would certainly give the exact same response as long as there was a correspondingly small number of people in whatever set you stick between the quotes, compared to the total number of people in the country.
And the best:
Will Linux users ever be able to view DVDs on their computers without breaking the law? "I'm sure that day is not far away," [Rich] Taylor said.
Right. Like it "wasn't far away" four years ago. These people are truly frightening. These are the kind of people who would wholeheartedly support the ideas of Thought Police and Pre-Crime style law enforcement.
And let me just make sure that all you DVD-watching Linux users truly understand the implications of what these guys are saying. THEY WANT TO PUT ALL OF YOU IN PRISON FOR WATCHING ANY ENCRYPTED DVD ON YOUR LINUX-BASED COMPUTER IF YOU DON'T DO IT WITH THE "LEGAL" SOFTWARE THAT DOESN'T EXIST. And if they could actually find you and put you in prison, they would, and they'd feel good about it. They want to put you away if you use your computer to view a DVD in a manner that they don't approve of.
It boggles the mind.
This could be the most insightful post I've read yet in this discussion.
To any normal observer, the MIT student comes off looking like the idiot - he's simply whining about something he can't do and then acting like a cocky little shit by talking about designing HDTVs and CSS descramblers.
This kind of interview just emphasizes to everyone in the business world how idiotic linux zealots are since he completely neglected the core issues of fair use and property rights, and instead got into a trivial and stupid argument that any non-technical reader would be hard pressed to follow.
The simple fact is that it's not Valenti's job to provide a DVD player for linux.
$45 per U Colocation Special
notJV: How many people in the United states are multi-millionares?
notTT: Well, I'm talking about multi-millionares.
notJV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
<notblockquote>
Gee, would be conversation ever go like this? The rights of multi-millionares must be protected at all costs. Engineers are fuck-all, they just make the multi-millionares rich. Valenti should have his rights violated with this flimsy-ass excuse. Fucker.
(Was this more polite?)
Hrm, I sort of agree and disagree.
I agree it would have been good (though not necessarily better) to have asked questions about how the laws and technology hurdles are harming future advancements in the science of television and video because it's effectively killing the hobbyist market. Radio, Personal Computers, and Television were all invented by hobbyists. The Internet was invented by govt-funded scientists but many of the advancements in the application space were from small teams of hobbyists.
However I disagree that the browbeating was unfortunate. Jack Valenti learnt that 2 million people are being obstructed by these laws. He didn't even know that! I find it a bit hard to believe he didn't know that, but I think it's brilliant that he definitely knows it now. For somebody to learn something they didn't know before is the entire point of dialogue. Look at the start of the interview and Jack thinks the laws only effect a handful of engineers doing a few abnormal things (building HDTV sets). At the end you can see his worldview has been toppled; he's seeing things from a new perspective.
Whether that makes any difference, who can say. I find it interesting that Jack thinks the broadcast flag doesn't effect home users, who can make copies freely for personal use, but prevents Internet distribution of that material. From what I have learnt it's the exact opposite. The flag is easily stripped out (eg, by decoding and then reencoding) but home users constantly get tripped up by the stupidity of it all. I've been bit by Macrovision more times than I care to remember by doing 100% legit stuff. But Macrovision defeaters cost $15 at the local electronics store. So it harms the normal user who doesn't know any better and barely hinders the experienced "thief". I don't see the broadcast flag as being anything other than a modern day Macrovision.
That's exactly the attitude that has lead us to where we are now with this, and all of the other DMCA issues. "Why should I pay for it when I can just get it for free?" Because it's illegal.
If by "it" you mean DVD content, I think you're confused: the parents to your article were discussing DVDs that someone already bought and wants to play under Linux.
If by "it" you mean the software to play the DVD, why should free software that plays something you've already bought be illegal? Why should a hammer be illegal just because it can be used to break glass during a burglary? The criminal act should be illegal, not the multi-purpose tools used in performing the act.
Nothing makes me more insane than people who talk about how Perl is "write only".
Perl is write only -} People talk about how Perl is write only -} People who talk about how Perl is write only make JohnGrahamCumming insane:
Perl makes JohnGrahamCumming insane.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Yes, he could say "I own the equipement". ie: a general purpose computer, gcc etc, and his own two hands *are* all the equipement needed to play a DVD on Linux (Or allow everyone to play DVDs on Linux for free). But that equipement is not legal for use.
Because the magic phrase "copy protection" is invoked, the MPAA gets an instant monopoly on DVD player software that it hasn't earned, either through patent or copyright. (And yes, they charge heavily for licenses on this monopoly...)
The problem with the DMCA is you can simply define all/any proprietary software as being reliant on copy-protection and then any free/open/competing replacements become illegal. The interoperability clauses have yet to hold any water whatsoever.
The fact is, no one should have to pay for DVD player software when people are willing to write it for free and give it away.
"Yeah, I have a DVD player hooked up to my TV, I have a DVD player in my computer. Why do I need to install a decoder on my computer, when I don't need to install one in my TV?
Is it really valid to make the distinction between the two? I could pirate movies using my TV, it just isn't as easy as on the computer. (I don't)
"
Um, because the DVD player you have hooked up to your TV has a decoder in it, you paid for the decoder as part of the purchase price. The DVD player you bought for your PC is but a piece of hardware for reading the raw data from the DVD disc, it did not include a decoder.
Well, it probably did, but for Windows... so you're shit out of luck if you have a Mac or Linux as you paid for the price of a decoder for windows.
Couple of reasons.
Why should I pay for a decoder when I know it is only 6 lines of perl code, I already have a faster working version written in C, and it's an artificial construct anyway? I mean, I pay for the computer, I pay for the DVD player, I pay for the disc, but those are all tangible things. I even pay for a license to use the data on the disc because that's copyrighted material and one thing that GNU/Linux beats into your skull is respect for copyright and licenses. But why should I pay for a decoder? I know it's trivial and I've already got one and I don't need another one.
I think the DVDCCA requires CSS decoders to be closed source. No thanks. Been there. Done that. Not going down that path again. I'm too pragmatic to get tied into binary single-platform closed source non-free software again.
Most likely the company won't just sell the decoder for 10c (which is more than it's worth). They will want to bundle their own DVD player with it that's closed source, only available for the x86 platform, and uses Motif. No thanks. I want to use *my* player (Totem) and *my* platform (PPC). I don't want to be tied to somebody elses technology choices because of the DVDCCA.
One of the great things about Linux is you don't need to keep track of licenses and per-seat royalties. If you have ever worked in a corporate environment with licensing software you will know what I'm talking about. It's hell! Once you start needing CSS decoder licenses then that's going to happen to Linux too. No bloody way. That's why I like Debian; the Debian team puts the effort in so I don't need to worry about licensing.
Death by a thousand cuts. Right now it's just DVD and maybe it'll be "cheap" at $29.99 (this week only, free steak knives). Then it'll be $25 for an MP3 player, then $16 for a Real player, then $28 for a Quicktime player. Pretty soon my fully equipped Linux box will cost me $1000 in licensing fees. You're not even getting software for your money, just a license to use somebody elses algorithm. How idiotic! I don't want Linux to be whittled away "$5 here, $5 there". That's one of the quickest ways to make Linux TCO shoot through the roof, plus have all the hassle of contacting dozens of companies to collect all of the licenses.
To stem the imminent replies of "well if you don't like it, don't watch DVDs" and "you have to play by the DVDCCA's rules because DVD is their technology". No freaking way. My country doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen. It's anti competitive vendor lock-in. CSS isn't patented and there's no DMCA where I live (yet) so I have the legal right to choose any vendor I want for CSS decoders. I choose the open-source royalty-free CSS decoder.
how about the naming convention for evian, spelled backwards it describes the people who buy it.. classic (and im sure over told already :-/ sorry :) had to say it)
mmmm yep.
.5 ppm. We can get purity down to 18.2 megaohm.
Actually, the restrictions on permissible levels of TDS, Chromium 6, MTBE and arsenic for bottled water that has been purified, regardless of source ( Muni, well, spring, lake) exceed enormously the restrictions for spring water that is bottled 'au naturel' from the source -- there are permissible levels of arsenic allowed in spring water, ( true!) but goddess forbid you filter out the sediments, undesireable minerals like calcium carbonate, because now you've 'purified' the water and the regulations are very different.
Oh, and don't knock RO. A production RO/DI system can take TDS in water down to
3C
And that's the fault of the authors of that code and *not* the language. Nothing makes me more insane than people who talk about how Perl is "write only". No, it's not. It's the people who write crappy Perl scripts and use every obfuscation feature they can to make the thing unreadable. It's perfectly possible to make readable Perl code, just take a look at POPFile [sf.net]. It's also perfectly possible to write unreadable C/C++: just look at the obfuscation contests.
No, it is largely the fault of the language. Perl is too open: TMTOWDI. Well some of those ways should not exist. period. The language allows some appalling sytax.
The easy way out is to blame the programmers. The problem with that is programmers are the same all over, they use whatever features are available to them. It takes an enormous amount of will power and a very systematic way of thinking to be avoid all of these sytactic errors. Most programmers don't have it and don't think that way. That is the reality of the world you live in. We all know that the problem is the programmers, so you design the language with that in mind.
That said I love some aspects of perl. I just finished writing a change management tool in perl, and I chose perl because of the regexpr support. But that doesn't change my opinion that perl should be seriously locked down and have 3/4 of the features removed.
meh
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box.
Actually, yes, we do. This kind of usage right was indeed a right before the DMCA. You could use a copyrighted work in pretty much any way you wanted as long as you didn't redistribute it. You could use it in most any way you want, even if the work's creator thought you should be drawn and quartered for using it that way. Well tough luck buddy, that's our right. Or it used to be anyways.
And the DVDCCA does not have a God or country given right to prevent me from watching American Wedding on my Linux computer.
Let's not forget that copyrights and patents are *government* granted rights and DVDCSS does not infringe on either. So the only thing going for the DVDCCA is the DMCA and the details are murky in this particular situation.
So be careful with that double-edged sword, because it cuts both ways.
The Linux DVD-playing technology works really well. It's the legality that is dubious. Isn't that always the way, the law holding technology back. When the revolution comes, I swear the lawyers will be the first up against the wall.
omfg, is this quote for real? ""[T]he working stiffs...They make $75-100k a year. That's not much to live on." - Jack Valenti on who piracy hurts most "
Gee mr valenti, my wife and our 3 children live on 50,000 a year, i guess it makes sense TO GOUGE ME FOR EVERY PENNY!!!
Three big changes in traditional law have occurred in the last ten years: (1) the cases that have held online and software agreements binding, (2) the elimination of the profit motive for copyright suits, and (3) the criminalization of unauthorized decryption. All have been upheld by conservative courts. All are necessary to drive a massive worldwide software and entertainment economy. None are limited only for big guys to use.
So *use* them:
In your personal life: Encrypt all your email, make the password known (or easily broken). When an employer breaks the encryption, he is criminally liable under the DMCA. If he tries to sue evidence gathered from breaking the encryption, have the evidence barred as tainted. Remember, nothing in the DMCA is limited to music, only to work protectable by copyright.
Protection against the R eye AA: Valenti says the DMCA is sacrosanct. So be it. Create a P2P protocol that is legally linked to an agreement that pledges no copyright suits against each other. Hell, have the session initiating step include sending the entire agreement and the acknowledgement step as sending back the string "yes, I agree completely".
When Valenti hires a computer PI firm to dig up evidence (or has his in house programmers search it out) by communicating on the network his boys are bound by the agreement. Would I let my PI's investigate for Valenti if the P2P protocol agreement said my company would be responsible for any infringement suits initiated as a result of my P2P use? Hell no!
Another tool: Create websites that check to see if incoming WWW traffic is from the R eye AA. If so, generate a special web agreement that commits the R eye AA (and their employer, if they are R eye AA officers) not to sue for infringement and to indemnify you for any infringement claims, or any other damn provisions you can come up with. To the rest of the world the terms always appear perfectly innocuous. To the person coming from the R eye AA they are specially generated and deadly.
Set up a "honey pot" offering to provide free decryption software, to reverse engineer R eye AA products, to crack Adobe password protection, whatever. Bring it to the R eye AA's attention. When their sleuths come sniffing, make sure the click through agreement obligates them to pay you treble damages for any infringement claim they may bring against you.
Alternative honey pot: set up teaser web pages that purport to show how Joe Doakes, the vice president of Big Corp, has been engaged in fraud and collusion with hardware manufacturers. The Google-indexed page says "click on the enter button for more juicy details."
Be very suggestive, but not libelous. Send an anonymous email to Joe Doakes recommending that he really ought to go check out the web site. The Ts&Cs obligate him to all kinds of intellectual property infringement indemnification provisions. Bingo, as an officer he has the power to obligate the corporation and you just got all their software free. So what is the evidence of fraud and collusion? What are the gory details? Nada!
The possibilities are endless. Use against them the very weapons, the monstrously powerful weapons, that they persuaded the courts and the Congress to create.
Gentlemen, if they are coming at you with an AC130 and guys are dancing the funky chicken all around you, you don't go plinking back at them with an AK. The weapon is there. Start thinking how to use it. Go out for beers with an intellectual property attorney. Come up with "what ifs", throw them against the wall and see what sticks. Offensively, defensively, I don't care how you use it, just use it!
So how do we get rid of the DMCAA? can the supreme court overrule this? would it take a bill sponsored by grass roots? can someone help me understand why we have a system where this could happen? are my pants on fire? *checks pants*
I'm relatively sure that he got his job and doesn't know anything about it.
;-)
I am too, though I'm not at all sure you meant to say that.
His job is to protect against illegal players, not to make sure legal players exist for all platforms.
Neither is his job. His job is to protect against illegal *use*. Barring certain methods of playing DVDs is how he has chosen to (lobby Congress to) do that. Unfortunately, he's completely unaware of how much *legal* use he has barred with this same law.
It is no more his job to hinder legal use of media than it is to legislate what constitutes illegal use. In fact, it's specifically the MPAA's job to make sure that all sorts of people are *legally* viewing movies. The DMCA throws the baby, all its toys, and half the bathroom out with the bathwater. If it was his job to get the DMCA passed (and he seems to have taken on that job) it's his job to know what it does.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
The interviewer asked technical questions because the issue is technical, the interviewer is technical and the intended audience, is, yes, technical! That said, I wish he would have asked why we needed the CTEA et al to protect content that is 70 years old. Also there was no fair use mentions such as making a still from your favorite flick your wallpaper, etc.
--Joey
It's not Jack Valenti's job to make sure there are legal DVD players for Linux. It's his job to make sure that there are NOT illegal DVD players for Linux.
Neither is his job. It's his job to make sure the movie studios can make money off of their movies. His grandest gesture in that regard has been the DMCA... and it makes many things that were legal under old copyright illegal, to make it more inconvenient to do a few things that were already illegal.
It's possible today for someone to license the technology needed to make a legal DVD player for Linux, but everyone in the position to do so knows that the Linux users will just use the illegal players for free rather than pay for the legal ones.
It's possible to *pay a lot of money* to license the technology, but that generally doesn't happen with open source projects. So, since it's not actually necessary for any technical reason, people haven't done it. If it's cheaper to buy a set-top box or a copy of Windows than to license the technology, which are you going to do? Well, duh.
Now, let's see how we could apply this method to other areas of copyright law. Books are copyrighted, right? Now, what if we wrote a book entirely in code, and offered people the opportunity to pay to take classes to learn the code, so they can read the book. But breaking the code without taking the class circumvents encryption, so it's not legal under the DMCA. It might cost only $100 to take the class in a big city, but in a more remote area where there are no certified instructors, it costs $1500 to go through the certification process so that you can teach the classes.
If some bright guy who likes cryptograms lives in Podunk, Missouri, and wants to read the book, does it really make any sense whatsoever to you that he should be arrested for figuring it out himself?
The essential difference is between use and access. Copyright law historically has governed use. The DMCA governs access. It makes perfectly legal uses illegal simply because of the method of access, solely to make it *slightly* more inconvenient and illegal to do things that were *always* illegal uses.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box.
I'm an atheist; I don't think anyone has a god-given right to do anything. But I think that copyright law gives me the right to watch a movie that I legally obtained for that purpose. It is the DMCA that says "but only if you do it the way WE think you should." Those restrictions have nothing to do with how I use the copyrighted material, they have to do with how I access it.
Just like when DVDs started to get popular people had to replace their VCRs with DVD players, Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
Plenty of people still get movies on VHS, and don't have DVD players. If you want to play a DVD, you need a DVD player. But that is because it is not TECHNOLOGICALLY FEASIBLE to play a DVD with a standard VCR. If Columbia Pictures starts putting a stamp on VHS tapes saying it's not legal to put them into VCRs not made by Sony, will you go out and replace your Panasonic VCR? Is it their right to decide who makes the hardware you use to view their media? How far does copyright go?
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
TT: Well, I'm talking about engineers.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
I'm not sure what the real number is, but a few decades ago it wasn't unusual for people to build their own electronics. Used to be there were kits for radios and TVs. My grandfather was one of those people. He perpetually had electonic parts scattered around his basement. As a kid, it was like a playground to me. I really learned to love electronics from his hobby. Although that eventually lead me to software, rather than hardware.
Now, I can already see the trolls descending. "But things are more complicated today. Most people can't do that." To a point. You probably won't see any 12-year-olds putting together HDTVs, but a trained EE should be able to program an FPGA just as easily as they could design an analog circuit. How much does that cut down on the number of people? I have no clue. But the hobby is hardly dead, at least until only "licensed" TVs remain.
Look at this from a broader perspective now. With the DMCA we've made a particular hobby practically impossible. Everybody whose direction in life has been affected by yours or somebody else's hobbies, please raise your hands. I'd guess most people turned a hobby into their career. Just think about what will happen to EE then. If you consider that those 100,000 people are irrelevant, then ask yourself, just how will people learn about and become interested in electronics? Now apply Valenti's logic to multiple groups of hobbiests. If only 100,000 people are interested in cross stitch, then why does it need to be protected? If only 100,000 people are interested in model rocketry, then why should it be protected? If only 100,000 people are interested in publishing, then why should it be protected?
Eventually, there will be nothing left. If you do not protect people's ability to learn about and become interested in topics then you have destroyed the very heart of a productive society. Remember, when you try to stop other companies from learning anything about your works, you're also preventing individuals from learning anything about it, and preventing them from becoming interested in it.
There are so many ways that it is important that people have the right to learn from other people's work. Simply generating interest is only one of them. Another important reason is that when people take other things apart, they tend to think about how they could make it better. So limiting what people can do with your products is a very stupid thing. If it's ever successfully enforced, you can kiss invention goodbye.
I don't see any reason to abolish copyright law. I do however see reason to amend it, and the DMCA certainly has to go, everything legitimate that the DMCA covers was illegal before the DMCA after all.
We simply need an amendment stating that copyright is optional and conditional. Either you submit to rules of copyright and gain the protection and rights associated with it under law. OR your work is immediately part of the public domain and you can incorporate whatever vigilante technical measures to protect it you see fit.
Either the RIAA/MPAA/EVERYONE ELSE protects their creations themselves with technical measures or the law protects them with laws, take your pick but you can't have both.
Your point is well taken, but you should know that the label "nerd" is a badge of honor to any MIT alum. Witness.
1.go to DVDCCA and etc
2.licence DVD stuff
3.produce DVD player for linux
4.release DVD player for linux for free (but closed source to keep DVDCCA happy)
5.get loads of good karma from linux fans who can now play their DVDs
Other than the money needed to licence this stuff, would this work?
Concise, cogent and true. Nice!
I've sent an email to you through your webpage, but in case you don't get it: are you able to site a reference for this assertion? It would really help me if you could.
Believe with me, my saplings.
wake up ppl
It's worse than that - they couldn't even buy their own ramps because it would be illegal.
Great point...
they'll (MPAA) get us a licensed DVD player software for LINUX.
As for the encryption, it appears that the cat is out of the bag already; there is no allowing or disallowing to be done.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
After having listened to the entire thing all I wanted to ask was this:
"You have shown an inane inability to grasp the technology and the key issues involved. Given your position, what other abilities & skills can you call on to aid in understanding the issues and how do you envisage resolving the key issues given your limited understanding of the issues at stake?"
He is a very good speaker and to the uninformed would present a quite swaying argument. To the informed he sounds like a great speaker talking about something he has no understanding of and pardon the obscenity, talking out of his ass.
He on more than one occasion used false information to validate his claims on topics he should be well versed in.
To summaries he came across as an ignorant oaf with a great mouth.
Be glad he is being replaced, just hope its someone younger and more in touch with the realities of this day in age.
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
"I have a DVD playing machine here, now.
It can play DVD's on linux
What would it take to get a liscence for it from you, so that I can then dustribute it?"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
My point was that his questions weren't even all that hostile.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box."
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
"You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved."
No state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Yes. Whoever it was that sold CSS to the MPAA sure ripped them off.
The public benefit is clearly the 'desired outcome', and the ownership is the 'carrot'. But I'm not so sure I'd say it places a strong second, the two are co-dependant. You don't get public benefits without a cost, and you can't go around handing out perpetual monopolies at the expense of progress. I think you're right though, the public good should take a slight lead, more like a close second.
Now a DVD decoder for Windows (not a player, just the decoder) will cost about $15. How many Linux users do you think will pay $15 to do something they've already been doing perfectly fine, just to get the MPAA's approval? Unless that decoder is bundled with an excellent player that people are willing to pay for, I doubt many people would pay up. In fact, very few Windows users actually purchase just a DVD decoder by itself either. Most of the time, the decoder came with their DVD drives or came bundled with the player (PowerDVD, WinDVD, etc.) they purchased. Most Linux users probably have already paid for a DVD decoder when they purchased their DVD drives, anyway. Those decoders just don't run on Linux.
There may not be a lot of people in wheelchairs, but I'm sure a high percentage of elderly people appreciate the ramps on places like street corners, as do cyclists. Go watch an elderly person try and get around and maybe you'll understand. I'm also sure that when you get to be that age and arthritic you'll appreciate it as well.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
More to the point: people don't read DVD's; machines do. Machines designed by engineers.
The future access to information by the public is dependent upon the freedom of engineers.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I read this interview, and really expected to be on the Linux side of things. I can't. I feel that you enthusiasts will go to any length to prove you should get what you deserve; equal say, market share, consideration from organizations like the MPAA, etc. etc. You showed someone as unfamiliar with you as one can get and expected to have a good ol' show-him-how-it-should be, comfortable, power-to-the-people argument. I don't think JV cared ... reality bites, folks. Keep Linux as your hobby and server OS where you can, beleiving you are better off, but give up trying to change the world.
JV: Let's say there are a thousand. But there are 284 million people in this country. You can't have public policy that is aimed at 100,000 people when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way.
If Mr. Valenti truly believed that, the law would not have been written in the first place. Let me put it this way: How many of those 284 million people in this country actually copy DVDs for distribution? "You can't have public policy that is aimed at" the few "when the other multi-multi-millions are also involved. You can't do it that way."
There is no harm in watching it on a Linux box.
Then why should it be illegal?
The RAII has no issues with you watching it on a Linux box.
Yes they do. The DMCA says so. The code to view the DVD on a Linux machine "cracks the encryption". Guess what, so does the code to view it on a Windows machine. There is no difference between the Linux machine and the Windows machine when they decode the DVD to be viewed. Yet one is legal and the other is not.
It has nothing to do with your OS, and everything to do with how most people here interpret what is "fair use". Personally, I have no problem paying for the right to view a DVD or listen to a CD.
Nobody is suggesting you should be allowed to view DVD's without paying for them.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
These are the kind of people who would wholeheartedly support the ideas of Thought Police and Pre-Crime style law enforcement.
Well I, for one, will certainly be among the mindless throngs out buying the new iThought iPolice® when it becomes available.
Honestly, what was it you were protesting again?
First off, I didn't mod myself as insightful, so don't get all huffy with me for it. Second, the reaction to "majority rules, right or wrong" is taken a little extreme. Valenti was referring to people who build their own TV sets. An analogy might be that your not allowed to build your own car and drive it on public roads. But some people do,screw them. Lastly, My 'insightful' point was that the interview was using over the top examples to 'slam' Valenti. Reading this artical only made me want to smack the interviewer for being rude, not feel bad about linux users. and no one will EVER be put in prison for renting a blockbuster movie and playing on a linux box. I'll give you a nice crisp $5 bill if they do.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!"
How far we have fallen...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It's not just this small group of people -- it's the entire civilization that depends on them. If it weren't for the generations of tinkerers (the sort of people who build their own TVs/radios/steam engiues/forges/etc.) who are seldom more than one percent of the population, everyone else would be sleeping naked in trees hoping to eat the next day. Mr. Valenti would be dead -- hardly anyone lives to 84 without artificial agriculture and medicine.
Either Mr. Valenti has no idea where technology comes from, or he sees no problem with freezing it where it is now. The scary thing is that a lot of powerful people seem to agree with him.
P.S. my favorite quote: "I never said anything was immoral ... I said it is wrong" -- what if anything does that mean?
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
This reminded me of the old soda bottles that you needed a bottle opener for. Of course, if you didn't have an opener handy, there were all sorts of ingenious ways to open a bottle, and they were NOT illegal. The difference here is that we now have the DMCA, so being creative is illegal.
Corporations keep calling us consumers. They lobby so our laws reflect us as consumers. They want us to believe that that's all we are-- consumers. We are NOT consumers, we are people. People can be creative, we can invent new things, we can make things better. If we are merely consumers, we are drones who buy into whatever corporations say. We cannot invent. We are not an asset to society, and society cannot progress beyond where we are.
Precisely.
Just because "not enough people" want to home-brew DTV stuff, or DVD/DVR stuff, or whatever, it's suddenly OK to make laws prohibiting them?
Wow.
Not many people like SCO. Let's make it illegal!
Before I go any further, I just want you to know that you're a meaningless cunt. But I'll bite.
How the hell does DVD encryption stifle innovation?
And issues of right/wrong and morality are mutually exclusive, although for a lot of douche bags such as yourself, they are one in the same. E.g., the law says murder is wrong, but I wouldn't find it immoral to wipe fucktards such as you off the planet.
mit.edu isn't a real collage.
Ah the irony speaks for itself.
P226
JV: ... But I try to make things simple and clear as I can, and I think
... Because if my ideas have no bottom, then they ought not be even heard.
.... So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason,
.... Un-fucking-believable.
... Let me put it in my simple terms. If you take something that .....
that helps you persuade other people.
Money for votes is very simple and clear.
JV:
Doesn't he mean no foundation instead of no bottom? Hearing bad ideas is not
a problem, applying them is.
JV: How many people in the United States build their own sets?
How many people direct the MPAA?
JV:
you gotta let it down for everybody.
Sounds like a good argument to get rid of copyrights
JV:I don't want to get into the definition of morality. I never said
anything was immoral in what I was saying. I said it is wrong to take
something that belongs to somebody else.
Implying that copying is taking is a definition of morality, but
copying is different than taking, and what isn't immoral isn't wrong.
JV: No, you're not a bad person. But you don't have any right.
Restricting what people copy isn't a right either even if it is legal.
JV:
Agreed.
JV: But you're trying to set your own standards.
And you?
JV:
doesn't belong to you, that's wrong.
Like all those movies taken from the public domain? In simple terms,
copying isn't taking.
JV: Well, we're having it right now. I want to try to find out the point
you make on why are there no Linux licensed players. There must be a
reason -- there has to be a reason. I don't know.
I do, copyrights are about controll, and Linux is about freedom and libery.
Everything has a reason!
Honestly, you get all lathered up about 2 guys getting married.
Yes, its silly.
But who CARES. That's what I don't get about you right-wing nuts. Yea, I get that you think God thinks its wrong for 2 guys to have sex. I personally think its ridiculous (but then, I think that people who pay money for online games are ridiculous).
But at the end of the day, who CARES? You have a life to lead? Lead it. And stop worrying so much about the guy next door. Its none of your business.
Really.
This is an issue, like a lot of things - where we seem to be going backwards. We're peddling backwards.
The greed of major companies, and civil litigations have caused technology and communications to become relatively stagnant. It's nearly becoming a crime to invent and expand.
I'm still pondering whether or not it's illegal to actually watch movies, or listen to music. I find myself quoting movies, replaying scenes in my mind... and whistling songs I've heard previously in the day. Is that wrong? Am I violating any kind of copyright law by closing my eyes, and visualizing a scene of a movie? Sure seems like I would be...
We're being systematically stripped of all our rights as citizens and consumers. A product you purchase, is really no longer your product. You're just using it. As the rate of artificial inflation grows (the inflation growth also applies to movies, music, other), it makes the luxury portion of budgets much smaller. As the prices of these items go up (big surprise), and the ability to buy them goes down.. what's going to happen? It's definitely not right to steal, but it's an interesting situation.
I'm just waiting for the day when you have to register your DVD on your DVD player.. and they use a DRM-like system to track it.
"I'm sorry, you've already watched this movie today."
" It's possible today for someone to license the technology needed to make a legal DVD player for Linux"
No, its not. Primarily because the GPL and the licensing terms for a DVD player are incompatible. The GPL says you must distribute the source code. The DVD licensing says you may not distribute the source code.
So there you have the dilemna. And why technical laws made by the entertainment industry are primarily designed to screw the consumer/customer. Which is why they should be reject on principle.
"Hilary and Jack got their jobs, first and foremost, because they love music and movies"
This is so wrong that I believe you must be paid to support these kinds of positions.
First of all, the job of these guys (people) is to make the legislative envrionment very favorable and to promote the interests of the movie/record companies in every forum.
Its not required these guys even know who invented the motion picture
Shouldn't they provide me with a free replacement in the case my property, the copy, is stolen, broken, or lost?
That is unlikely. A part of their business model that is never explicitly stated - MPAA and RIAA alike - is the regular replacement of media on a cycle about 20 years in length. Wax cylinders went out of style. 78 RPM went out of style. Vinyl went out of style. Cassettes are just about out of style. VHS is on the way out.
Then there is the physical media, which always wears out in one way or another. Records wear out because the stylus wears down the sound impressions in the grooves. Cassette tape players consume a steady diet of tapes. Compact discs and DVD's can be easily scratched. Sure, you can take good care of the media but one mistake can be fatal.
No matter what new medium is released for sound or movies, you can be sure that it is going to be obsolete in 20 to 30 years. The media will also be designed to wear out through normal usage, or at least will not have any special protection. It is unlikely that they will ever sanction the mainstream usage of a medium like a compact disc that is optically read encased in a hard, protective plastic cover like a 3+1/2" floppy disc.
I believe one reason why the MPAA and RIAA fear the accurate digital reproduction of their recordings is that once you can make flawless digital copies, you can do that in perpetuity. If that happens, the MPAA and RIAA will never again be able to resell you that same product when the media becomes obsolete. Witness how desperate they were to kill off digital audiotape (DAT) in the early 1980's. I believe this is why they are more than willing to trample all over your fair-use right of reproduction for personal use. Perhaps it is this reason we see so many products marketed as "special edition", "digitally remastered" and the like.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Please re-read the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution.
The law protects your rights, it does not grant rights. Rights are intrinsic.
The enumeration of certain rights is not intended to disparage other rights. Non-enumerated rights exist.
Other posts have identified how the enumerated First amendment right of free speach is infringed, as well.
He has banked on the promise of DVD software soon being available for Linux, but that has yet to materialize.
Considering that there aren't that many programmers at MPAA, I doubt it will ever materialize out of Jack Valenti's efforts. He's got more than enough on his desk to cater to us.
That is what's wrong.
What's wrong is everyone's targeted hatred about everything, it's crazy. The best thing to do is figure out what you want, in a calm manner, gather your resources and lobby the right people.
Targetting MPAA for the "DVD on Linux" issue is the wrong direction.
Educate the people, make Linux friendly and bring over enough people and the legal-friendly methods will follow suit. Remember the progression, growing pains of MP3, CD-Rs, VCRs, etc.
That is intended to be a joke.
Unfortunately, some take it as a challenge.
This may have been a viable business plan 4 years ago. But today, I'll venture a guess that 90% of people who want to view DVDs on their *nix box already have a player that they had to install manually.
What is the incentive to buy a "licensed" DVD player?
So that you're not violating a corrupt law?
Who will guard the guards?
$$$$->RIAA
Who will guard the guards?
There are fair use exceptions, but buying a DVD does not mean you brought the movie. You brought a copy of it and the means to view it. That's all. After all, it is copyright law.
I'm sure I can't be the only one who saw the bottled water bit on Penn and Teller's show on Showtime.
They revealed that bottled water is regulated by the FDA, and basically has less than one person checking standards on the entire bottled water industry. They found some large percentage of bottled waters exceeded (larger than the ~10% the parent to your post mentioned) safety standards for municipal water. And municipal water has regular checks performed for safety by a larger staff of inspectors.
They also did a fine job showing how gullible people can be with their "Water List" in the restaurant.
Limiting the use of public roads to acceptable vehicles is a safety issue, you can't compare it.
Seriously. If I want to build something in order to use it in my own home, anyone telling me I can't is going to have to come up with a really good reason why.
Except for dead people and gayboys. You pretentious twat.
You're comparing purified, bottled water to spring water. I was asking if bottled water has higher standards than tap water. A quick skim through this page doesn't reveal any stricter standards for bottled vs. tap water. (But, like I said, I skimmed.)
Also, there are numerous types of bottled water -- eg spring water, "drinking water", distilled water, etc. You pointed out that the standards are different for each class. Does that make a difference in purity vs. tap water?
By the way, I wasn't "knock[ing] RO". In fact, I'm not even solidly on one side of the tap water vs. bottled water debate. I'm just a skeptic. And really, I'm not sure why I'm asking all these questions. It's not like we're not off-topic far enough already...
Mod This Up!
"An analogy might be that your not allowed to build your own car and drive it on public roads." Wouldn't that be legal as long as it passed the roadworthy examination (e.g. was safe to use).
"Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does." But it does work correctly. The technology for playing DVD in linux does indeed play DVD in linux, just the DMCA reckons that we aren't allowed to use it.
But why should the movie industry get to decide who can create a player? Why would I have to pay them _and_ comply to their rules? Why shouldn't I be able to build a player when I can't afford a license, but do have the skills to create a player? Why should I not be able to build an open source player?
This is not capitalism. In a free market, I could develop a player without any restrictions or artificial licensing costs and the market would determine who fails and who is succesful. Currently, mr Valenti decides. That is an abusive monopoly on DVD players which should not exist.
It is not the MPAA's job to make sure that someone is selling Linux DVD player software.
Neither is it the MPAA's job to hamper those who want to create DVD playing software.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box.
Wrong.
People have the right to do anything that does not violate the rights of others.
It can be argued that you don't have the right to watch this movie if you haven't paid for the right to do so.
It cannot be reasonably argued that your right to use media that you have legally acquired is subordinate to the pretended "right" of some technophobic media twit to dictate your choice of operating system.
Nonaggression works!
Mr Valenti! It is you! It is you!
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
<tinfoil-hat-mode>So by using the DMCA, which by the line of reasoning that got us this far will restrict engineers from tinkering with stuff, they're planning to stop anyone getting access to information they don't want us to have...?</tinfoil-hat-mode>
Actually... now that I think about this...
"MS Windows is like the Force. It has a Dark Side, a Light... damn, there goes that analogy!"
How about plumbing? I have heard (not stating fact) that homeowners are not allowed to do any kind of plumbing near the main drain of the house. Only licensed plumbers may do pipe work near there. Even if someone was at one time certified to do so, it is illegal. Would this be a better analogy?
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!"
I own an MSI TV-Anywhere capture board, which itself kicks a lot of ass (PAL and NTSC in one card, very good capture quality), but unfortunately they had the shitmonkeys at Intervideo do the software and driver side of things. If you thought that what Valenti said about Winstein's program was rude, well, rest assured my opinions of Intervideo are much ruder. Those shitheads are committed to Linux all right; that's why I can only use the damned card under Windows, only with their software, which only encodes in their proprietary MPEG-II based codecs. If Intervideo did release a licensed DVD player for Linux, I wouldn't even bother looking at it.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
NT=No Text
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Compared to what, exactly? I've programmed in several languages and have found that it is relatively simple and only takes a bit of discipline to write comprehendable code in C++.
It's relatively simple and only takes a bit of discipline to write comprehendable code in most programming languages.
The problem is almost never with the language. It's with the culture of the language's users. I've seen lots of highly-readable C, perl, python, and even VB. Some of the most readable code I've ever seen has been in assembly language. This is because the programmer understood how cryptic assembly code could be, wanted it to be understandable, and took care to make it so.
The reason that C++ has such a bad rap is that a lot of its users seem to think "Hey, C++ is straightforward and self-documenting, so I don't need to bother with making it readable." The result, as in any language, is code that only the original programmer can understand.
I've more than once been hired to work on some C++ code, found it very slow going, and then learned that my predecessors had all resigned because of the incomprehensibility of the code. I don't blame the language, though; I blame the programmers.
Of course, there's a bit of a game in both the perl and C communities of trying to program something in the smallest amount of code. Both languages have annual "Obfuscated" programming contests. This usually leads to code that looks like line noise. But it's intended to be funny, so if you take it as a serious criticism of the language, YHBT.
In cases like DeCCS or the RSA algorithm in only a few lines of code, that's done to make a point. In this case, I suspect that Mr Valenti got the point. And, for those who still miss it, the point is that it's absurd to try to legally "protect" something that can be expressed in such a small piece of code. Just like it's absurd to try to own an English phrase like "fair and balanced".
I have one of those "munition" t-shirts with the RSA algorithm written in four lines of perl. (And one of those lines is a comment.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The MPAA has agreed to distribute high quality copies of their products if the public agrees to abide by the restrictions they impose. If you don't want to abide by those restrictions then don't buy their products.
Why can't I sell a binary only version of my modified Linux kernel?
Q.
It probably depends on where you live, but I think that you are allowed to work on anything on your side of the main valve. The other side of that valve belongs to the local water company, who may or may not also be your local government. If I am remembering my time at the property management company right, breaking something on the house side of the valve floods your house until you shut it off. But breaking something on the company side of the valve causes a lot more flooding and can affect your whole neighborhood until the water company gets out there and shuts off the line. Which moves it a lot closer to the 'public safety' side of the line.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
But doesn't this imply that it would make more sense all around to move the decoding function into the hardware no matter if it is stand alone or a computer drive? Wouldn't this just fix the problems - and make everyone happy, and be legal? Or make the license fee part of the hardware anyway - it is for music CD-R, so why not for DVD-ROM drives? Then you can either pay for the front end software if you want WinDVD or get an OSS free program to display the video.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
"This is so wrong that I believe you must be paid to support these kinds of positions."
My website and e-mail are available for you whenever you want. You can read all about me. You can e-mail me if you like. Please do, in fact. I'd love to talk about this issue further. I'd like to bring together people who want to make real change to defend fair use rights, and get them to sit down with the industry, and figure out how to solve this problem together. Because if we don't have the industry on board with us, they will fight us to the death to prevent us from getting anything we want. That's why I talk about trying to find the win-win scenario.
"First of all, the job of these guys (people) is to make the legislative envrionment very favorable and to promote the interests of the movie/record companies in every forum."
Of course; it goes without saying. It's like any lobbyist job. If he was just a lobbyist, he could have worked for any other industry, any other company -- especially considering the influence he had. He could have been paid a lot more working for the tobacco industry. Compare the results of the tobacco industry Re: legislation to the MPAA. Do you think Big Tobacco wouldn't have paid whatever price he asked to have Valenti on their side?
Why do you think Valenti chose to stick with the MPAA?
"Its not required these guys even know who invented the motion picture."
True, it's not required. When the MPAA makes its decision to hire Valenti's replacement (if it hasn't happened already), I'm sure they won't require each applicant to know who invented the motion picture. If they ask, and the applicant doesn't know, they'll probably try to dig a little further to see how much the applicant DOES know about movies. If the applicant doesn't know much about movies, do you think they'll hire him to represent the movie industry?
To represent movies, the person needs to know movies -- he or she has to know what he or she represents. I won't say that to learn movies is to love them. Those who love movies will learn them. They don't need payment as motivation.
The most important knowledge related to your advancement at a job is knowing your industry. If you write code for a medical device manufacturer, and don't know anything about the healthcare industry or don't care to visit hospitals and doctor's offices... you're not going to get promoted very high. And we're talking about one of the most visible positions in the entire movie industry. Now I ask you; if Valenti doesn't care about movies, how did he get that job and keep it for a few decades? Don't you think he'd get bored with it, if he didn't really love watching movies? Don't you think he'd take a better-paying lobbying job somewhere?
You and I disagree with Valenti's actions; however, it only matters because you, Jack and I really care about the issue. We really care because all three of us are, first and foremost, movie lovers. Even now that Valenti's retired, he's no longer on the payroll of the MPAA, in this article he's still talking about movies and the industry, still defending his case.
He does it because it's something he loves to do.
Linux users do not have a God or country given right to watch American Wedding on their Linux box. And why shouldn't they? Why should anyone need a liscensed DVD player to play DVDs? Clearly it's not preventing piracy, so what's the point?
On top of which its moraly wrong to require someone to buy a licence to view something that they already own. No, I wouldn't buy a licenced player if one came out. Screw you. I bought my DVD and I'm going to watch it when and how I want and if you don't like that TFB. --HC
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
Why can't I sell a binary only version of my modified Linux kernel?
Because it would be copyright infringment. Duh.
the restrictions they impose
What restrictions? I did not agree to any contract when I bought the DVD I now own. The ONLY restriction I am subject to is the law.
We are not talking about copyright infringers. If someone commits copyright infringment, then FINE! GO AFTER COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS.
The issue is the DMCA. The DMCA says it is a crime to do math. This is absurd, and I fully expect it will be struck down as unconstitutional the very first time they actualy attempt to enforce it.
Yes - that's right - the DMCA has been on the books for 6 or 7 years, and there STILL has not been a single criminal convition for circumvention. You can't get an unconstitutional and invalid law struck down until you actually have a conviction to appeal.
The DMCA says it is a crime to "descramble". Descrambling is nothing more than math. And I can do math purely in my head. If I stare at a DRM'd e-book, I can look at the scrambled numbers, I can think through the exact same steps and calculations a as computer program, and I can (slowly) read that book.
It is possible to commit circumvention crime while sitting motionless and thinking. Pure thought crime.
They can choose to sell their DVD's or not, they can go after me if I commit infringment, but they have absolutely no right to imprison an innocent person for making perfectly legal and legitimate use of watching a DVD they own.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Region locking is just a way to let the movie producers price discriminate. I don't think it's necessary and I think it does way more harm than good
I was a typo. Get over it. And it doesn't change the fact that mit.edu is nothing but a spamhaus.
That's cool man, don't be sad. There's still irony in that statement. I never said "I'm upset about this typo," I only pointed out irony.
P226
Linux users need to give up their technology that doesn't work correctly and use that which does.
Except that it does work properly. It's not a matter of linux working properly, it's a matter of being allowed.
Linux plays DVDs right now. If I take my laptop that runs linux with me to the USA or any other country under US jurisdiction, I'll be a law breaker. Yet another reason not to visit the United Corporations of America.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I find it interesting that my posted was labeled Offtopic when so many comments reply and adding to my thread were modded up - especially in light of my cited references. I also think it's sad that both of my reply'ers seemed to criticise me on thigs I never said or implied.
Hmm.. interesting. I actually never say that I think bottled water is superior. How did you get that impression?
It's well known (to my awareness) that there are no standards on bottled water
Hmm.. interesting. I actually never say that I think bottled water, soda, beer, or restaurant water is superior. How did you get that impression?
It's well known (to my awareness) that there are no standards on bottled water
I am glad to see someone mentioning the fact that there is no such thing as "Intellectual Property". You are 100% correct that the specific legal entities are Patent, Trademark, Copyright, and Trade Secret.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?