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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."
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.
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.
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!!!!
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."
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
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'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
Not at all. He just doesn't care about the consequences to engineers/tinkerers. This illustrates his attitude rather well: "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."
Of course, he's set up a false dichotomy (100,000 engineers vs. 284 million Americans, when it really should be 100,000 engineers vs. ~100 major stockholders).
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Actually, a lot of stupid people get to his level. It's called promotion to incompetence, and it happens every day.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
But still, no one takes them seriously.
If you've been to the theater recently you might have seen before these short interviews before the movie with a stuntman, camera operator, or some "behind the scenes" guy explaining what he or she does in every film, and how it's their work of art. And how if you trade a movie online, or "download it with a click," you're taking that art for granted and not appreciating its beauty, which should be paid for.
First, that person should never have called all movies art. He or she obviously never saw "Ecks vs. Sever."
Second, whenever one of those trailers plays in a theater with several hundred college students inside, everyone's gut response is laughter. I think the first time I saw one of those interviews was right before Spiderman, and the whole theater was balling.
Also, as an interesting note, the original versions of those short interviews were with big-league directors and actors -- not the small guys on the set. For obvious reasons their pleas not to download movies and avoid paying for them weren't too effective on the test audience...
Also, one thing I noticed from the article:
JV: I don't want to get into the definition of morality.
So apprently, we can't get into the definition of morality, but nonetheless we're going to legislate it?
- sm
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.
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.
Yes, but it's often one gets to that level by having substantial skills and experience at rising up through the levels.
This has nothing to do with any other sort of skill, experience or intelligence. Some otherwise rather dull and ignorant people are rather good at it.
In fact, I was just yesterday reading that observation about Idi Amin. A crude, unintelligent man, with obviously no skills at leadership, but with a certain animal cunning that allowed him to rise up through the ranks, and even remain a free, and in certain circles, even respected man, who died at an old age, in bed.
Simply having achieved some sort of lofty status says little to nothing about a man, and might simply say he's a right bastard.
KFG
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!
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
But that's not true. You're breaking the law if you crack the DRM to view it on the OS of your choice. No one is forcing you to only have a Linux box. You may, if you choose, buy a M$ box as well. Or a cheap DVD player.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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
The secret is to ask questions that are so simple they are difficult to dodge without being obvious.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Okay, can somebody put this in politer, more persuasive language...?
Sounds like the beginning of a scholarship essay contest...!!
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? In a world with intellectual property, these arguments actually make sense. Things will only change when (not if) people realize what the consequences of the intellectual property concept are. We haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg yet, we just know it's cold weather.
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?
These people are remarkably crude considering what their business is. You don't persuade people by hitting them over the head with an idea and whinning to them. You want your audience to come to the desired conclusion thinking that it was all their doing. Don't whine at the audience, just point their minds in the right direction.
The part of this that I find the most hilarious is this "why do they pirate" question is followed by several minutes of TV commercial style SPAM.
These spots should have been nothing more than sympathetic profiles with no references to their actual intent.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> 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.
All JV admitted to is not knowing why Linux doesn't have any "licensed" players. Take a look at the rest of the dialogue... it's all circular logic. He contradicts himself left and right.
Get him to admit that the DMCA is wrong and then you'll have a point. Until then, he's ignorant.
The man CLEARLY has no clue as to what he's talking about.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
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.
No, it just sounds reasonable until you scratch the surface.
You could use the same argumentation to support any number of racist or theocratic laws. It's not OK to trample people's rights or ignore broader public policy issues just because a small minority seems to be the focus.
Also, if you can't run Win98 on an iMac that's a TECHNICAL problem and not something that is enforced through a questionable extension of copyright.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Why on earth would I be prohibited from doing -ANYTHING- to my dvd after I legally purchased it?
Distribution is restricted, but they can't tell you how you can USE things in your own home. You aren't licensing some work from them under restrictive conditions. You're BUYING a copy, which you can use for whatever you want as long as you don't redistribute the content (to oversimplify things a little).
That's the point. They can't dictate what you can and what you cannot do with your own things in your own home.
Sadly, companies are more and more moving towards a license-my-IP-for-use-as-I-tell-you scheme (in movies, music, software.. like office subscriptions or sun's licenses for java desktop) and awat from simply selling stuff.
One of these days we'll find ourselves in a situation where we don't actually own anything of what we have, everything will be 'licensed' for a certain specific use.
Personally, I think all this stinks.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
The point here wasn't that your toaster _should_ be able to play the video, but that it shouldn't be illegal for that toaster to do so. Exactly like it isn't illegal for win98 to be run on a Mac.
It takes more than smarts to say, "I don't know." JV seems like a reasonable guy. He's probably a bit too entrenched in his thinking, but he said that he didn't know. I think any time someone in a position of power says they don't know, it reflects very well on their sincerity. It takes guts to say, I don't know, let me investigate further and get back to you.
Seems like an upright guy, just misguided or out of touch with the present day realities. We'd probably get much much further with the MPAA and RIAA if we had better diplomacy skills and stopped flaming injudiciously. They're like your grandparents. They may not get all this new fangled stuff that seems wrong, but beating them over the head isn't going to solve it.
IMHO Steve Jobs, is our best advocate in this arena, somebody who bridges the gap between media and technology successfully and is a leader and visionary.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
I always point out one of two key facts to the people sitting near me when I see those little propagandlets:
A) The guy on screen was most likely paid up front for his work, he's not getting a percentage of the box office take, so "piracy" doesn't affect him. (unless you belive Hollywood is gonna pack up their toys and go home, *and* that nobody will step up to replace them)
2) The people being forced to sit through this shit are the ones that just *paid* to see the damn movie.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
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!!
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.
________________________________
The real criminals, oh like say the ones that they are actively bringing to court over their usage of P2P networks to trade illicit MP3's? But guess what, when they do this, the collective Slashdot community gets up in arms and the story somehow makes it to the "Your Rights Online" (laugh) section. So which is it? Do you want them to go after the tools (which they did in the past.. remember Napster?) even though you've consistently bitched about that? Or, do you want them to go after the law breakers (which they are doing now) even though you still bitch about this?
-Matt
Duke '05
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.
A true "right" shouldn't be conditioned to buying a machine. I have the right to watch a film recorded in an analog tape. I can buy a tape player, or I can build one myself, it doesn't matter.
When I buy a recording of a copyrighted work, I buy together with it the right to use it for whatever legal purpose I want, but the ownership of the work remains with the seller. What Valenti is saying is that I, the owner of the copy, should help the owner of the copyright to protect his property. If the copyright belongs to someone else, why should I be inconvenienced in order to protect it?
In the case someone points out that there is a practical reason for that, because digital copies are so hard to protect against illegal copying, then why can't I get some protection as well? Shouldn't they provide me with a free replacement in the case my property, the copy, is stolen, broken, or lost?
As it's now, I share the burden of protecting someone else's property and, by doing that, I'm losing some protection on my own property, since I cannot make back-up copies.
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.
...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
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.
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.
I, myself, am one of those college kids who laughs at the MPAA pre-movie pity-mercials.
As such, I'd just like to say that:
1) I'm watching this drek after having paid twice as much to see the movie in the theater than to rent it (and thus, presumably, have a more enjoyable experience)
2) I've lived away from my parents for the past six years, since before I graduated highschool, much less college.
3) I pay my own way through college with money from the job that I already have which pays more than some of my professors make a year and, since I intend to someday Be a professor, may well pay more than I will be making after college
So if I want to laugh at the screen as an alternative to crying at the stupidity of our species, I think it's my right.
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
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.
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...
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.
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!
Valenti seemed to be speaking well and acknowledging when he didn't know something whereas the ENTIRE rhetoric of the interviewer was:
- Linux doesn't have a licenced player! You said it would! Waaahhh!
- I want to build a Digital TV! Why can't I? Waaahhhh!
If anything this article made Valenti seem RIGHT.Well, I've got news for you. That's not HIS fault. There's a LOT of things that linux doesn't have. Especially "doesn't have LEGALLY". Is it his fault there's no market for a product that's ( as you so pointedly showed ) routinely circumvented for free and targetted at a small geekish market?
Well unfortunately he's right. No one cares about you. If you're building a TV you're either 1) a student, and therefore no one will pay attention to you unless you try to sell it, or 2) working for a company... WHO can pay for the licencing fees.
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.
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.
So this isn't about the unavailablity of licensed players, but rather just an unwillingness by vendors to pay for a license?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
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
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.
I already _bought_ a DVD player, it's sitting in a bay right below my cdrom.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
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.
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.
Where does Jack think his highly technology-dependant industry would be without those engineers and tinkerers?
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
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?
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!
==========
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.'"
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?
"The guy on screen was most likely paid up front for his work, he's not getting a percentage of the box office take, so "piracy" doesn't affect him."
A lot of Slashdotters misunderstand this. An analogy might make this a bit more comprehensible:
Say you run a game studio. You have a pretty good track record of releasing games that a profitable. You have a staff of, say, twelve programmers, designers, etc. and you produce some kick-ass games that have lots of cool features and really show the efforts of those twelve people.
Then, for whatever reason, the piracy rate of your latest games goes from a tolerably low level to the point that it's noticably eating into your sales. Your profits aren't the same as what they once were, or perhaps you're losing money.
At this point you might say "fuck it, I'm not going to spend so much time and money on these games if people don't think they're worth buying. I've got to cut costs somewhere." You then lay off half of your development staff.
This massively sucks for the development staff, despite the fact that -- just like the gaffer or set painter or whomever it is in those ads -- they are salaried.
Likewise, if film profitability drops due to piracy being a much larger factor than it has been in the past, the studios will look for ways to cut costs. Perhaps they'll consider moving more productions to Canada or other countries where labor is cheaper. Or perhaps they'll try to make do with eight set painters instead of ten. In both these cases, jobs are lost. It's important to understand that a significant chunk of the budget of your typical film goes to the salaries of the behind-the-scenes folks. If fewer films are made, or budgets are slashed, or film production moves offshore, there is less work available for these people. The film industry, just like the computer game and IT indutries and so many others, is one in which there are more talented individuals out there than there are available jobs.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
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."
Right, because it has nothing to do with just not wanting to pay for something. It's because of several minutes of commercials. Okay.
Actually, what pisses me off the most about those stupid ads is that I only see them after I paid $9-14 bucks for my seat.
They should pay for airtime on television if they want to get this message to the "right" people. The way they're doing it now, they're preaching to the choir... and sometimes, that has the effect of making the choir feel more like misbehaving (if they're going to talk to us like criminals, why should we play by the rules?)
Of course, there are other issues with those ads and the message behind them, as you can see from my sig (taken from an Entertainment Weekly article about the ads, just before they were released).
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
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.
My interpretation was that Valenti was miffed about how the out-sourced company came up with such a crappy system. There were many a million invested into this DVD protection scheme. To see a fellow write 6 lines of Perl to circumvent millions in copyright protection investment could well be 'un-fucking-believable' to the fellow vicariously footing the bill.
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!)
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!
Oh please. No law has ever been written perfectly the first time. The Constitution is only a little over 200 years old and it's been ammended 27 times. Shit, even the Ten Commandments have seen a bit of revision.
The DMCA isn't all bad. In time, the parts that are unconstitutional will be repealed and the parts that are vague will be clarified.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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.
More likely, Valenti has become well versed in both the technical and non-technical details, and is choosing to play "dumb". When dealing with a small and inconsequential, but extremely vocal, group, it is a standard tactic to pretend you don't understand the issue, and promise to look into it. Getting involved in an argument on the merits of his position is not his job ... presenting that position clearly and consistently is. Unless he is actually forced to take on the merits of the pro-freely-distributable-DVD-software argument by a constituency that matters (say, Windows users or Congressmen), there isn't any point in bothering. And there currently isn't any group that has proven that they need to be countered. Like it or not, that's how the politics works.... both for you and against you.
The real criminals, oh like say the ones that they are actively bringing to court over their usage of P2P networks to trade illicit MP3's?
The RIAA is not just going after the "real criminals". Borrowing heavily from Lawrence Lessig, there are essentially four kinds of downloading going on:
1) Those who download instead of buying. These are the "real criminals" and nobody is arguing whether this should be illegal.
2) Those who download and then buy. Yes, it does happen. People download a song, like it, and then buy the album. These are not the "real criminals". This is helping the recording industry, not hurting it, and it shouldn't be illegal.
3) Those who download what is no longer commercially available. If they aren't selling it, there's no lost profit from the illicit copy, and thus no harm.
4) Those who download songs the copyright holder has given permission to download, or songs that are in the public domain. This is completely legal.
The RIAA wants you to believe that everyone they're suing is in category 1. But it's not true. They aren't making the distinction.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
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.
People shouldn't be able to sell things entirely under their terms because the buyer should get certain rights when they buy something. When you buy an apple should the seller get to define all the terms as it goes through your digestive tract?
Traditionally it's been the governments who define these types of things as a balance between seller and buyer rights.
My problem with copy protection is that with copy protection in front of it, and with that copy protection defended by law, the can define arbitrary terms.
>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.
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...."
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.
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?
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.
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."
"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