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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."
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.
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?
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
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)
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.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
If it's only a licence, I've got that. I actually have a few spares. Every DVD drive I've bought was bundled with Windows DVD playing software. A few system boards too.
I'd like to see this legal proceeding;
Defendant: I had one, but it didn't run under Linux.
Judge: But you could have used that player.
Defendant: It would be unreasonable your honor.
Judge: Is that a fact?
Defendant: Using the same machine, I would have to purchase an operating system from a third party ... install it ... and use the software for DVD playing, right?
Judge: Continue.
Defendant: The licence has been paid once, why burden myself and others to go out of our way to pay it yet a second time or to go through special steps that bear an additional cost. The proscution has already recieved payment. Forcing the use of a third party product would benifit no one represented in this case. The prosecution is not under any obligation to provide software. They in fact don't provide any software at all, only the licence. They are obligated to live up to the already paid for licence, though. Does the The prosecution does not refute that the licence has been paid for in full already.
Judge: Isn't the licence tied to the software, and the software does not run under Linux?
Defendant: The software was sold as a bundle with my DVD drive. As such, it is already tied to the same hardware -- if Linux is running or some other operating system. That said, if it were purchased without hardware, it would still be one licence paid for the device in question.
Judge: It actually is not, because you aren't using the licenced software under Linux.
Defendant: If two different licenced software players for two different DVD drives were used as the manufacturer recommends...but the two players were switched on each machine...would there be a violation? They are not using the right operating system or hardware, Linux or not, yet the licence has been paid in both cases.
Judge: Yet, you can't use Linux and this licenced software.
Defendant: True, your honor, and for that we do not ask for a remedy from the prosecution. It is a technical issue; the licence has been undisputedly paid. It was tied to the hardware, so any method to make use of the paid for licence would be reasonable and have no impact on both the licensee and the licensor.
Judge: Hmmm....
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.