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."

Comments

Don't underestimate Valenti

[joelparker]

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...

No licensed DVD player for Linux?

[PCM2]

Man, that would have been a great argument. It would have really made Valenti look like a fool ... if he was right, that is...

Re:No licensed DVD player for Linux?

[aussersterne]

From the page: Linspire DVD Player is compatible with Linspire 4.5 and higher. And from a page linked from that page: Note:
Linspire DVD player requires Lindspire 4.5 or higher.

I don't use Linspire. I use Linux. There is no mention of support for Linux, just endless mention of Linspire.

Before anyone says "but it'll probably work with other Linuxes as well," remember that that defeats the entire point of the argument... alicensed player for Linux... This player is clearly not for Linux (i.e. the set of operating systems collectively known as), and I don't have any evidence without buying the product that the EULA even allows me to run it on anything other than Linspire.

So I don't think this link or product particularly alters my reaction to the article, which was to applaud the student (even if he was a bit ham-handed) and to want to vomit on Valenti.

6-line perl script here

[molo]

qrpff.pl (beware slashdot's line wraping)

$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if((@a= unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;
$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map {xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$ d=
unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[ 3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d
>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8)) <<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6) )<<9
,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,1 1,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t
^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a ^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}( 16..271))
[$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128.. $#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval

A discussion of this obfuscated perl program is here: qrpff Explained.

Re:My favorite exchange

[That's Unpossible!]

The article you linked to was posted 9 days after the interview. He may be a good engineer, but I doubt he's built a time machine.

Re:My favorite exchange

[kidgenius]

I read the release, and scoured the site, and was unable to find any information beyond a press release on their site. They don't even have it in the online store. The version you are referring to is not for end users, but instead for embedded systems, much like intervideo's current player.

Who needs PowerDVD Linux?
A:Currently, PowerDVD Linux is targeting those IA(Information Appliance, such as Set-top Boxes) developers as an embedded software DVD playback solution. CyberLink is also looking forward to integrating PowerDVD Linux into various Linux distributions. The time frame will be early next year.

2.Is there any trial version available for individual users?
A:Trial version is not yet available for end users right now. Please check back CyberLink web site constantly and we'll publish related news once it is available.

3.Do you have PowerDVD Linux retail version for we Linuxers?
A:Not yet. Due to the variety of different audio and video hardware devices among systems , there are still many details we have to work out. For example, device manufacturer such as NVIDIA has not released their display drivers with Overlay support for Linux yet. That is why CyberLink can not release the retail version right now. We think it is not responsible to release any product until we can ensure the functionality, general compatibility and program stability when running our software.

That was from here and was also from 2000. Four years later, and we still have nada.

A book everyone should read

[gearmonger]

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).

Re:"You're trying to set your own standard"

[JasonUCF]

Um...

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.

Where do they say this so clearly? I'm afraid you are only familiar with fair use rhetoric and not the actual law. Please consult EFF's Fair Use faq or better still Stanford's Fair Use resource page.

To whit, all fair use legally defines thus far is the ability to briefly use snippets of creative work for one of 6 categories.

The only legal extension that has occurred is under the VHS-Sony-Betamax court case the court argued that time shifting VHS material was a fair use.

Outside of that there is no other fair use legalese language. It's all an "implied" sort of thing based on copyright law that has not been tested substantially in court.

No licensed Linux player not entirely true...

[Robotech_Master]

...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.

Re:The movie industry is within its rights

[bnenning]

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.

Fine. Then they can refuse to sell me their movies, and only lease them to me if I sign away my fair use rights. But that's not what they do.

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.

Not true. Copyright does not entail unlimited control over how a product is used.