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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 think that's:
All your DVD belong to JACK.
After reading the interview I have to say valentini had reasonable clear positions on everything he was asked.
here is my synopsis:
the tech: the broad cast flag is bad because it interferres with the two people on the who build a TV in their basement.
VAlentini: You dont create public policy for the benfit of millions of people on how it inconveniences two people.
The tech: If I rent a movie I cant watch it on Linux:
Valentini: so you cant watch it on your grand-ma's vicrtola either. does that violate fair use? It's sold for a particular use.
the tech: But but but but (quivering lip) you said that players for linux would become available soon and its almost my birthday and I cant buy one.
Valentini: I dont make linux machines there must be some reason why the market has not created one.
The tech. but you said I could. You assured me the market would produce one. I hate you I hate you.! THere's 2 million linux users
valentini: two million huh. I'll have to look into this. I dont know.
personally I'd bet that of the 2 million less tahn 1/10th of 1 percent of them are seriously worried they cant watch a movie on thie linux commputer.
Am I being denied fair use becaue I cant run windows 98 on my iMac. After all I bought and paid for that copy, I should be able to use it how I like.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
However, Perl seems to be designed for unreadability, since there are dozens of way to do everything. It encourages poor programming habits.
Here Here, Another "I'm so damn smart, look at me", MIT student. Being an engineer, (in training) he should know how to view debates objectivly and not subjectivly.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!"
This could be the most insightful post I've read yet in this discussion.
To any normal observer, the MIT student comes off looking like the idiot - he's simply whining about something he can't do and then acting like a cocky little shit by talking about designing HDTVs and CSS descramblers.
This kind of interview just emphasizes to everyone in the business world how idiotic linux zealots are since he completely neglected the core issues of fair use and property rights, and instead got into a trivial and stupid argument that any non-technical reader would be hard pressed to follow.
The simple fact is that it's not Valenti's job to provide a DVD player for linux.
$45 per U Colocation Special