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MIT Student Grills Valenti on Fair Use
kcsduke writes "Following a recent speech at MIT on Movies in the Digital Age (streaming audio available), MPAA front man Jack Valenti sat down for a revealing interview with The Tech, MIT's student newspaper. In this entertaining read, Keith J. Winstein grills Valenti on fair use and the right to play DVDs under GNU/Linux. My favorite part is when Winstein shows a dumbfounded Valenti a six-line DVD descrambler he's designed, to which Valenti responds with language inappropriate for the Slashdot homepage. Throughout the interview, Valenti demonstrates his ignorance and misunderstanding of fair use."
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line "qrpff" DVD descrambler.]
The Tech: If you type that in, it'll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this?
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable.
Cause it's spelled right?
Valenti is 82 years old. I have a hard time believing he said "un-fucking-believable." More likely he called Keith a "good for nothing whippersnapper" and then hurled his cane at him.
I'm surprised that they got him to be so open and reasonable to questions, but disappointed that they got some hot head amateur to do the interviewing. Showing off his own stuff with no rhetoric behind it isn't informative and doesn't get anything interesting from the interviewee.
Valenti replies with ascii-art pr0n? Cool!
sulli
RTFJ.
thats truly amazing how Jack Valenti has no clue about the position he is taking.
none whatsoever.
scary.
maybe I should get into the MPAA. im pretty clueless most of the time also, i'd fit right in.
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line "qrpff" DVD descrambler.]
The Tech: If you type that in, it'll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this?
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable.
The Tech: And look at this thing called Freenet, it allows you to publish movies without fear of being caught.
Jack Valenti: Oh my fucking heart, stop! <dies>
Winstein's exaggerating a little, though: I certainly would find it un-fucking-believable if someone developed six lines of Perl that perform all the work involved in decrypting the DVD, decompressing the MPEG, and displaying the movie onscreen (with audio).
All qrpff does is remove the (relatively simple) CSS encryption. Saying "this'll let you watch movies" was a little disingenuous of Winstein.
This space intentionally left blank.
Look, Valenti is a fucker. No doubt about that.
But jumping on him because there's no licensed DVD player for Linux? How is that his fault?
Yes, it sucks that to play DVDs, you have to buy a license. But...so?
There are no licensed DVD players for Linux because no one wants to (or needs to, or would) pay for one. End of story.
Jesus. Someone finally gets a chance to grill Valenti and they blow it.
People like Valenti are paid to have certain beliefs, and they have no incentive to change those beliefs just because they happen to be wrong, moreover, expect Valenti to use every rhetorical technique in the book to obfuscate the real issues.
The value of this type of debate is to point out the inconsistencies in the MPAA position, but you can argue until hell freezes over, Valenti will never (publicly) agree with our position on fair use.
Valenti: You designed this?
Interviewer: Yup.
Valenti: #!$p<>{};!?!!
You can see it might have been misinterpreted as being the transcriber censoring the interview. It's all just a misunderstanding.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'm not sure what to make of Valenti's response; what does he mean by that? UFB that someone would write a decryptor, UFB that the author wrote the code himself, or UFB that six little lines of the code bypasses CSS?
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!!!!
There's langauage inappropriate for Slashdot? News for me.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
Oh, I disagree. This is at least as funny:
"JV: Well, I can't believe there's not any -- there must be a reason for... Let me find out about that. You bring up an interesting question -- I don't know the answer to that... Well, you're telling me a lot of things I don't know
That's actually a very common reaction to seeing your first Perl code & being told that it is not only human readable but actually performs a useful function.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
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.
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
The article you linked to was posted 9 days after the interview. He may be a good engineer, but I doubt he's built a time machine.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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
There are people who've been writing perl code for years and still don't believe the language is "human readable".
I'd rather be lucky than good.
qrpff dvd_file | movie_player
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)
From the page: Linspire DVD Player is compatible with Linspire 4.5 and higher. And from a page linked from that page: Note:
Linspire DVD player requires Lindspire 4.5 or higher.
I don't use Linspire. I use Linux. There is no mention of support for Linux, just endless mention of Linspire.
Before anyone says "but it'll probably work with other Linuxes as well," remember that that defeats the entire point of the argument... alicensed player for Linux... This player is clearly not for Linux (i.e. the set of operating systems collectively known as), and I don't have any evidence without buying the product that the EULA even allows me to run it on anything other than Linspire.
So I don't think this link or product particularly alters my reaction to the article, which was to applaud the student (even if he was a bit ham-handed) and to want to vomit on Valenti.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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
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.
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. (emphasis mine)
Errrr....I think you mean bawling, as balling is usually illegal in a theater, and it's unusual to see an entire theatre doing it at once...
A fellow programmer once called C++ a "write-only" language. I guees this could be extended to PERL.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Who needs PowerDVD Linux?
A:Currently, PowerDVD Linux is targeting those IA(Information Appliance, such as Set-top Boxes) developers as an embedded software DVD playback solution. CyberLink is also looking forward to integrating PowerDVD Linux into various Linux distributions. The time frame will be early next year.
2.Is there any trial version available for individual users?
A:Trial version is not yet available for end users right now. Please check back CyberLink web site constantly and we'll publish related news once it is available.
3.Do you have PowerDVD Linux retail version for we Linuxers?
A:Not yet. Due to the variety of different audio and video hardware devices among systems , there are still many details we have to work out. For example, device manufacturer such as NVIDIA has not released their display drivers with Overlay support for Linux yet. That is why CyberLink can not release the retail version right now. We think it is not responsible to release any product until we can ensure the functionality, general compatibility and program stability when running our software.
That was from here and was also from 2000. Four years later, and we still have nada.
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.
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.
> 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
Not that it's not still a really nifty piece of code.
Yes but designing your own OS from scratch does not give you the right to install it on Apples hardware for instance.
Sure it does. If I bought said apple, it's mine. I can smash it with a hammer, drop it in an acid bath or do any other crazy thing with it including installing my own software in it. I shouldn't expect Apple to help me do any of these things, but I do expect Apple to stay out of the way while I do them since after all the hardware is mine.
With DVD's the same happens. I bought the right to view that movie. If I want to put the DVD under a microscope write down all the bits, do the CSS math in my head, do the MPEG decoding in my head, and then create an image of each frame I can do it. There's nothing wrong about this since it's a fair use of the DVD. The same is true for viewing it in my linux PC. I'm not creating copies or doing a public broadcast I'm just viewing the freaking movie, and that is just plain legal.
Pedro Côrte-Real.
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 ?
If you care about this issue enough to follow any of the links above, you should read Lessig's "Free Culture" -- hell, you don't even have to pay for it (available as a free download). It's an excellent read that clearly outlines both sides of the issue (including de-FUDding many of Valenti's statements).
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.
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.
Your analogy is flawed.
This is not a car, with a physical presence that can destroy property and life. It doesn't need to be regulated on safety grounds.
This is information, which can be replicated and accessed to enrich life at virtually no cost.
It's not information about weapons systems or international spies, so there is also no security issue or danger to society from its spread or any inherent need to control it.
The grounds upon which this information is being regulated aren't even purely "must make profit" grounds, since buying a DVD makes a profit for the movie industry and the bulk of movies are profitable based on theatre and DVD sales alone.
It's simply about control. The MPAA does not want to lose the ability to charge you MORE, LATER, AT WILL... by imposing a fee structure for the player... for the software to look at it... for the transmission of it... or, if they decide they really need a profit bump, by rescinding any licenses to current media and players, releasing some "new" technology and forcing you to buy new media and new licenses to play/see/transmit it all over again, effectively enabling them to charge at will for content that you have already paid for innumerable times, if you want to continue to watch it.
Perhaps in some peoples' moral universes this is "right" and "fair" and the MPAA should be able to do this if they want to and if you don't like it then stop paying for it (even though you've already shelled out $20 for the VHS tape, $10 in IP/trademark license for the VHS technology to play it, $30 for the Laserdisc, $10 for the IP/trademark license for the Laserdisc technology to play it, $35 for the DVD, $10 for the IP/trademark license for the DVD player technology to play it...) and simply give up access to the content, because that's the "right" thing to do.
But I'm telling you that the general public is nowhere near that subtle. The reality of the situation is that if someone holds a VHS or a DVD in their hand and they bought it, they're gonna have no qualms about trying to find whatever they can, hardware or software, at a flea market, at a download site, whatever, to play the film that they "OWN." Trying to explain to them that they a) don't own the technology in the player that they just bought and b) they don't own the DVD that they want to play anyway, so you can't watch the DVD that you're holding under condition x or with player y... is going to be like trying to make water flow uphill.
It goes against all natural sense and logic. It's about as artificial a construct as you can find in the marketplace.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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.
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?
Sounds to me like he was trying to back out of an argument that he knew that there was no way he could possibly win at that time and place. It the classic, "I don't know the answer, but I'll talk to my people and we'll get back to you" technique, which is followed up by vast amounts of never getting back to you.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
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.
________________________________
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.
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.
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!
...Sigma Designs has a Linux DVD player, for use with its Netstream 2000 mpeg decoder card. I've used it. It's still in beta, could be better, but it works.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
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.
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.
looks like there are just a lot of hard returns missing where, in any other context, any sane programmer would put them in.
No one claimed that Perl is sane.
$8.95/mo web hosting
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.
Perl isn't sane??? No WONDER my scanner doesn't work!!
(I couldn't resist...)
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
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
And the movie companies do have a God or country given right to force us not to?
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.