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Two Congressmen Push for DMCA Amendments
silicon not in the v writes "Rep Rick Boucher, D-Va, is proposing a bill to amend the DMCA to specifically allow copying digital media for the purpose of personal backups. This is, of course, being fought hard by the content lobbies, most significantly the MPAA for its potential for bootlegging DVDs. Here was my favorite quote: 'There is no right in the copyright law to make backup copies of motion pictures, so the whole argument that people should have the right to make backup copies of DVDs has no legal support whatsoever,' said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the MPAA." See also stories from the Associated Press and CNet.
Even if backing up your DVDs is illegal, why not just do it anyway? Taking your work copy of Win2k home and installing it on your own computer is illegal too but how many people here have done that? There is no SS that is going to start breaking into your house and checking to see if you have.
I worked on one of his campaigns while in college in Virginia. One smart dude and a certified tech interest guy. Keeps his constituents happy and his politics liberal/libertarian (with the little l).
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
This bill isn't going anywhere. The consumer protection subcommittee (where this is being introduced) has no jurisdiction over copyright law, meaning this will never make it to the House floor.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I'm a die hard Red Hot Chilli Peppers fan and, befora I had a CD recorder, I ruined 2 original copies of one of their albuns.
Recently, I ruined the third. This time, I had the recorder but was too damn lazy or stupid to have made a backup.
I dare any law enforcement agency to arrest me for getting their MP3 out of the Internet when I have 3 useless original CD casings!!! If that's not fair use, call me unfair!!!
WASHINGTON -- Some lawmakers are introducing a bill that Hollywood is not happy about -- one that would allow consumers to make personal copies of digital entertainment like DVDs to be played on whatever device they want.
Gee, what a CRAZY idea, that I actually have the right to watch the $24.99 DVD I bought. For whatever reason, Macrovision absolutely owns my TV, even on legally purchased DVDs (the high and low color changes on Futurama were UN-friggin-believable). I already have to rip and re-burn them just to watch them, or use a macro-scrubber. This is a step in the right direction. Maybe someday I'll be able to watch the originals.
It's not specifically mentioned in any of the articles but I would imagine that the (proposed) right to make backup copies of DVDs would extend to a right to decrypt DVDs for any other legal reason, including watching DVDs under Linux (which requires cracking the encryption). Can anyone shed any light on this? Is is purely for making copies or does it allow for other decryption-requiring activities?
Why is anything anything?
*sigh*
Copyright law says "owner gets to decide who makes copies."
Fair Use is a legislative or judicial allowance for copyright infringement. When I quote your book in a review of said book, I'm committing copyright infringement--it's just legal infringement.
For copyright, only those exceptions to the right to decide who can make copies which can be argued in court are the ones we have.
This is a fundamentally necessary aspect of our law. Liberty means nothing without accountability and freedom. Ergo, whenever a person's rights infringe upon those of another person, the proper balance isn't cut and dry--unlike when a person's rights infringe upon the government's wishes.
Everyone says they want to be able to copy cds so they can backup their apps, games, and dvds. Bull.
;) There is a problem with your analogy, according to the **AA at least. I own my plates, but the **AA would have us believe that they only license the content and I don't actually *own* it. Therefore, if making backups is illegal, then I should be provided a replacement. After all, my license is still valid.
If the dvd falls apart and isn't your fault you can CALL THE MANUFACTURER AND GET A REPLACEMENT.
If you snap a cd in half well too bad, be careful with your belongings, don't let your kids handle them if you don't want them to break.
Afterall do you expect someone to replace your broken plates?
Ok, I'll feed the troll
--
www.nitemarecafe.com
1. Buy DVD of movie you can live without.
2. Snap DVD in half.
3. Mail all DVD pieces to whoever distributes said movies.
4. Include letter saying "A spokesman for MPAA, of which you are a member, states that I'm not allowed to copy my own DVDs. My DVD was damaged. Since I still have license to watch this movie, and I'm not allowed to make fair-use copies according to your organization's representative, please send me a new copy of the DVD.
5. Repeat until they get the point.
To be honest, government has a lot more important shit to worry about than copyright law right now. Look at the news. I'm surprised these guys are even bringing up this stuff (it's going to get lost in the crossfire of how to deal with a particularly drastic international situation that's only growing worse).
The law will be tempered, eventually. Once the economy gets back to growing and we can focus are attention away from war we can take another look copyright law. Now's not the time.
Software companies used to do this. If your CD got too scratched up or even if you lost a CD, you jsut had to send in the first page of the manual or something to prove you owned it, alogn with the damaged CD, and they'd send you a replacement.
How come movie companies don't do this; replace damaged discs?
Did I buy the disc, or did I buy a license to make personal use of the movie on the disc, and the disc is just the transport mechanism?
$8.95/mo web hosting
Too bad the media companies figured this out 30 years ago!
Open Source Sushi
When will these companies learn that protecting intellectual property rights in a way that is against the consumers' best interests is not a good way to win friends and influence people?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Before the DMCA you could legally make as many copies of anything. The only catch was that if you resold it or gave it away, every copy would have to be either destroyed or given to the one person.
So basically you could have a collection of 100 Finding Nemo DVD's, and as long as they stayed together or were destroyed, you could do whatever you wanted with them. They could make it as difficult as they wanted to copy the thing, but if you could copy it, you could copy it.
The funny thing is that software company's have been getting around this for years, licencing software instead of selling it. Let's hope they don't get any funny ideas (shutter.)
That one thing would be: convincing me to pirate all music and movies.
Yep, that's me RIAA/MPAA. I almost never buy the CD/DVD, but whenever I do, you can be damn sure I'm making it available for others to download.
You can also be damn sure that the more you push this bullshit, the more I'm going to pirate and offer to others.
You're shooting yourselves in the feet; I'm more than glad to pull the trigger for you.
feh. stuff.
First, the DMCA contradicts fair use - one that makes it illegal and one that makes it legal.
Just because it's a law doesn't mean it's not wrong; if you're not willing to question the law then it's open to abuse (such as the DMCA). Your duty as a citizen is to participate in the governing of the country, not to blindly accept everything handed to you. Unless, of course, you live in a shitty country where you aren't afforded reasonable rights. Then it's your own damn fault.
Also, I own maybe 40 DVDs - and I've had several of them scratched, broken, lost, or stolen. A backup (provided by fair use) would solve any of those. I copy all of my CDs to play in my car (one of the only places I play CDs) - if they get stolen, I'm not out anything but the relatively minimal cost of the backups.
Sorry, but that's inaccurate. Fair Use started as judicial law; it was codified into statutes after the court decisions which created it. Congress did not giveth, so it's not so clear they can legally taketh away.
Anyway, the DMCA claims to have not taken away fair use -- it instead disingenuously explicitly protects fair use while making it practically impossible to engage in it without violating the new statutes.
On Wednesday the Rocklin Republican pulled his iPod from his pocket and used it as a weapon in his battle to amend copyright laws by removing limitation on copying audio and video compact discs and DVDs for personal use.
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
I respectfully disagree, although with great difficulty. You make a good argument.
If you feed the raw data (the movie itself, I can't argue about the menu system at this point) on a DVD to a CPU (any CPU), the CPU will not make sence it of. The DVD does not contain instructions. The player includes instructions on how to decode the raw data.
On the flip side of the coin, if you write software which produces music, then isn't that program itself just a form of phonorecording-- defintion according to Copyright Law: material objects in which sounds, other than those accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work, are fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the sounds can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term ''phonorecords'' includes the material object in which the sounds are first fixed. Phonorecords have no right to backup, so said program has no right to backup.
Oh dear, I just noticed that it said "material objects". In the above case, does that mean that the computer is a phonorecord? Or that the software is just software.
Too ambigious!
I'm not sure where I stand in the debate, but honestly, I make backup copies of my DVDs. I don't really give a shit who is going to tell me not to, who doesn't like it, or how illegal it is... it's my DVDs... I paid for all of them. And if I wanted to start a movie collection on my computer, what would be the difference in having it on disk and on my PC? So what if I have two copies of it? I don't want to have to change the disks out when I want to go through movies. It's like backing up music and storing MP3s on your computer... Screw you MPAA if you don't like my morals. You didn't make the movies I'm copying.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher