Slashdot Mirror
Industry Group Would Permit (Some) DVD Copying
Zocalo writes "The BBC is carrying the story that agreements have been made to permit legal DVD copying for use on portable devices and The Register appears to have the same story too. While extremely light on details, the mention of Microsoft and AACS leads me to believe this has something to do with Microsoft's Janus system which has been discussed here before. Perhaps more interesting though is that Disney and Time Warner are apparently on board... Can it be that the MPAA has learnt a lesson from the RIAA's heavy handed tactics or has Microsoft convinced them that Janus will work, despite their recent record of bug free coding, and we're going to have a repeat of the DeCSS fiasco?"
Now, if they'd let us make backup copies and leave the originals in their cases, we'd be talking..... It will eventually happen, it's unfortunate that it is technology that forces it due to widespread use of copying techniques (and the "declining" sales due to this piracy), not consumer need.
See how the anti-slash website blows chunks. They're guilty of worse crap than they blame slashdot for.
What a bunch of retards. Check out the forums... they're unusable! (and not wide enough)
I use a little method I like to call "the five finger backup plan."
-
Can it be that the MPAA has learnt a lesson from the RIAA's heavy handed tactics or has Microsoft convinced them that Janus will work, despite their recent record of bug free coding, and we're going to have a repeat of the DeCSS fiasco?
I suspect the whole thing's a ploy by the MPAA and it's member companies to make it look like they're preserving fair-use rights while tightening their technical and legal stranglehold on copyright is all. After all if they can point to something like this when we cry foul about the loss of fair-use rights then they can largely fend off that line of attack. (At least in Congress.)Your fair use rights are still being thrown out a window. I would rather continue to fight the battle and refuse all DRM related technologies when they fail to address my rights to fair use ANYWHERE on ANY DEVICE of my choosing.
I would, of course, encourage the rest of the community to do the same. Don't compromise on your rights. Instead, continue to fight for them.
I'm sure it will be approved devices only, meaning that there will be a specific list of hardware and software that it will work on. They need to stop trying and just let people do their own thing; I wonder how much money they waste on trying to figure out how to stop people.
An article on cnn.com is reporting something similar in the works for the "Next-generation" video discs. The amazing part about their article is how it specificly mentions Disney as part of the alliance. Granted, it looks all encumbered with DRM (here called the Advanced Access Content System)-- but this is a far-cry better than their attempts to push disposable and subscription-based media (DIVX).
So, does this mean we're winning? Or just that we're not losing.
Thanks for 'letting' us do what we have the right to do and what makes us a criminal (unjustly) anyway.
Or are they FINALY starting to see that all this copy protection is more trouble then it's worth and that copying of movies can't be stopped by a silly little encryption?
It's nice to see stories like this - stories that can let the rest of us see the corporate conglomerates as the warm-and-fuzzy, civics-minded, environmentally responsible entities that they truly are...
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
"A new trailer warns that buying a pirate DVD is like stealing a car or phone."
Um... no. That is like saying killing a caterpillar is the same as killing George Bush (No troll intended, first name i though of)
When I buy a legitimate copy of a CD, DVD, or other recording, I obtain a limited copyright. I can make as many copies as I want, provided I don't distribute them to anyone else. That would be unfair competition with the copyright holder - redistribution is not included in the limited copyright I have bought.
Some copyright holders (RIAA) have tried to reduce my rights, preventing me from making copies for my personal use. They never anticipated the bonanza from CD reissues of vinyl records, and they want to reissue incompatible formats every few years to get me to buy more copies. Digital copies for personal use threatens that gravy train, and rights be damned. But they can't stop us from exercising our rights, so they'd better get with the program.
--
make install -not war
I do copy DVDs anyway.
SHE does throw dice.
Of course, they'll need to post officers in your livingroom to prevent you from making illicit copies of your DVDs with camcorders...
I think it's already legal, DCMA notwithstanding. I'm sure there are many illegal ways to circumvent effective DVD copying (what's the current status of that anyways), but there are legal ones as well. Is buying software that isn't macrovision-enabled illegal?
I mean, I have the right to create a backup under fair-use. I have the right to make a copy for another medium. I'm not attacking the the way the story is posted, but I think it's important to re-iterate that coying your DVDs to another medium is fair-use, and fair-use is legal.
Now, maybe they are in discussions to make it easy. Somehow, I doubt it will be any easier than other methods out there (links anyone?), but it will be sanctioned by the MPAA. This is good, and it shows progress, but the MPAA does not have the power to make things legal or illegal.
English teachers beware: reading the above may induce orifice hemorrhaging.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Anybody want to loan me some DVD's?
... hmm, how obvious isn't this?
Maybe this is what Steveo is waiting for.. An easy rip-to-360x240 mechanism, preferably preserving menus and whatnot..
It'd be great for commuters and tech fetishistes..
Wouldn't a better analogy be:
Burning a picture of the White House is like burning down the White House.
Yea... the picture may be stolen... but that's another issue.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
[snip]
Northern Irish paramilitaries and Afghan Sikhs are among those involved in selling DVDs in the UK, according to the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact), the industry's anti-piracy unit.
I remember we (on /. ) used to joke a few months back that it won't take long for pirates to be labelled "terrorists" and puppy killers. Now this is *actually* happening.
From Orrin Hatch labelling piracy as "anti-children" to this latest FUD, I can't believe they'd go so far (in cahoots with the government ofcourse) to spread their lies.
I could argue that the Record companies and "artists" are culprits in the first place, because they *produce* the music/movies which these "terrorists" pirate in the first place to fund their activities?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What's more likely to happen is to permit "restrictive copying" and use the same heavy handed tactics the moment a "licensee" deviates from the said "restrictive copying."
Make no mistake, the corporate entity's sole purpose of existence is to milk their custom.. ahm, licensees for every penny they can get.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Perhaps if I could just borrow the MPAA/RIAA legal documents and color around the edges with a magic marker, all this nonsense would stop!
stuff |
I know that to the Slashdot crowd most decisions made by industry groups bare the stench of conspiracy, but maybe the MPAA figures that movie swapping is likely destined to be what music swapping has been for a few years now, and maybe they're trying to move in the direction of iTunes before movie swapping becomes as commonplace.
Think of how different things would have been if iTunes had been released to the public back in 1999.
Amazing magic tricks
After all, Microsoft is trying to push a portable video player...
Now if you'll be able to copy to anything else but that portable player, or on anything but Windows - very doubtful.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
leave us to our fair use and fack off
Janus was the Roman god of doors and gates (or beginnings and endings). "January" is derived from Janus; the beginning of a year. Janus is generally portrayed as having 2 faces, one looking forward and one looking back.
Hmm, 2 faces... two-faced...
I'm not sure if I should be concerned or amused that Microsoft chose this name for their system.
It means that they're planning on covering the bitter poison pill with a primary colored sugar coating that melts your fair use rights in their approved devices (with attached license fees) instead of remaining in your hands.
KFG
I think anyone that tried to convince a jury that I shouldn't be allowed to watch a movie I bought on a device I bought would be laughed out of court.
I see this current activity as damage control, public relations, and possibly a backdoor into monitoring/ratings. After all, if they can show that x people watched the movie on their portable player, and were forced to view the commercial attached to it, they can get revenue from that commercial.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
You see, if even one of these items gets 'DiVX' certified, all bets are off. By providing what consumers want (DRM issues aside), they hope to blunt some of 'the damage'. Speaking of DiVX, the Philips DVP-642 DVD player with DiVX is an amazing device, and only $69.99 to boot.
DeCSS wasn't needed to copy DVDs. if you had a DVD burner you could still copy DVDs without removing the CSS. CSS never protected against piracy, it only made the files bigger and the requirements a touch higher to pirate (dvd burner, and full dvd files, vs the current reencoded to 700mb avi|vcd files)
if MS Janus protection fails to protect against basic straight coping, then maybe we will have another DeCSS fiasco, but more likely we will have another black sharpy or disable-autorun fiasco.
Microsoft DRM for WMA seems to be holding up pretty well. All the cracks I've seen are equivalent to "burn a CD and rip it". E.g., it seems successful in limiting people to doing exactly what they are licensed to do.
Probably best to save the snide remarks for when someone actually cracks it.
You have a state A where you have the original media. This is (doh) legal. You have a state B with the original media and a back-up. This is also legal.
:p
However, any route between those two states have been made illegal, mostly by the DMCA. So, you have technically not lost any right, only any and all means to exercise that right.
To take the Orwellian analogy: You still have freedom of speech. Except you have to express it in newspeak. Now isn't that doubleplusgood?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
When record companies started putting out album on cdroms, they were concern about the durability of cdroms. Ever wonder why cdrom dics aren't encloded like a 3.5 inch floppy? Record companies were used to selling tapes, which degrade over time, and they could resell the same thing over and over. So they decide not to put protective enclosure (some drives before this had them) on thier cdroms so they would degrade quicker by scratches, kids, spills and what not.
Thats the role DRM is playing today. So you can't buy a copy and use it forever.
Thats why I refuse DRM.
Look, fair use rights are not something corporations grant to us. They are what the government grants to us, the same government that also governs corporations.
It is not industry's place to "grant" us this. It is our right to do so regardless of their wishes.
... if you sit at the table with these guys and can't tell who the sucker is in ten minutes, it's you.
Their histories should speak for themselves. Combined, they're probably trying to get ahold of the One Ring again.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Ladies and gentlemen... the heads have left the asses.
1) I'm glad Microsoft are writing the encryption software because their concept of secure software is laughable so it won't be as hard to break as something written by anyone else.
2) When will the film industry realise that they can't win against supply and demand? If they won't supply, others will.
In the article it mentions that Spiderman 2 was only just now realesed in the UK. its been out in the USA for weeks. No one can be surprised that piracy would be rampant prior to UK official release with:
a) Mass availability in the US
b) Mass demand in UK
If the film industry stopped trying to create artificial markets with differential releases and pricing based solely on geography they would experience a lot less piracy.
Can anyone even tell me why some countries should have to wait sometimes months longer for movie or DVD releases? Whats the point?
that we're losing at a slower pace than before, while at the same time, we're probably thinking that we're not losing.
So, like Tarantino's bartender, not only are we going to get completely pissed on, we're (or some of us) going in to be happy in the process.
I must admit I haven't read about that MS-Janus-thingie. But that Name reminds me on the movie Judge Dredd, where Project Janus was a secret eugenics program, which went wrong.
this sig is useless
More like saying that DOSing George Bush's website is the same as sticking duct tape over his mouth. A movie is an expressive way of communicating an idea; a car is a physical object. Ideas cannot be stolen, they can only have their uniqueness devalued.
At least for the time being, this content will (some time in the next century) fall into the public domain. DRM that fails to remove itself after a reasonable time should be illegal. I agree with everyone else who believes that DRM is restricting our current fair use rights, but as someone who deals with archives, this is a major concern. The media industry is technologically destroying the public domain.
is that they even have the right to permit or not permit me to do something or other with MY DVD.
That's wrong on so many levels...
Playstation portable is supposed to allow viewing of DVD via a half-sized copy you make. Sony is very powerful on the AV format front. What they say pretty much goes w/r/t how people are allowed to watch DVD.
Why can the music/movie corporate people figure this out?
:). Again, its supply and demand. So keep doing what your doing guys. We really sympathize with your business model.
Is there any equivalent to an MP3 or DIVX that takes hours to days to download, of questionable quality, and random completeness to what you buy in the store?
No, hell no there isn't.
Who here has "upgraded" their tape/album collection to CD? I have. Who benefited from this? Yes, the music people (doubful the artists did, maybe a little). I personally have bought 3 copies of "Dark Side of the Moon", on LP, the original release of the CD, and the Original Master Recording CD (out of print now). Once I get my surround system hooked up again, I will buy the SACD as well.
My point being, is that people are willing to sacrifice quality for quanity, and they realize this. I'm not much into pirated stuff, but I know it exists. I know where to get MP3s, I don't know where to get CD quality rips of CDs (except for killer live stuff!).
The music/movie people bitch and complain about bootlegging and pirating, yet they simply refuse to change. Currently (and from here on) there will be a supply from the "traded" (0 monitary cost, low quality, large time investment, no liner notes, etc), the used marked (lower monitary cost, harder to get "what you want when you want it"), and the store bought route (you know what goes here).
The thing that really kills me is that Sony is being a pussy with this opportunity. I mean, damn, they own a vast majority of the material, and they manufacture hardware of varying quality from junk to pretty damn good stuff.
What do I know? I'm only a consumer that has spent thousands of dollars (probably about $6k) in electronics and hundreds a year on music and movies.
People will always want music, and the market demands the price. Go to ebay and look for Coventry Phish tickets. They are going for about $400 a pop (I've got 4
"Can it be that the MPAA has learnt a lesson from the RIAA's heavy handed tactics or has Microsoft convinced them that Janus will work, despite their recent record of bug free coding, and we're going to have a repeat of the DeCSS fiasco?"
Not at all. You see Microsoft is the player here. Just like Puff Diddy and Big Poppa. Portable Media Center is coming out and so are future generations of Windows Media Center Edition for the PC. I just hope these copies can retain the Menu systems.
Did anyone else take offense at this statement?
agreements have been made to permit legal DVD copying for use on portable devices
Permit? It is not these companies' place to permit me to do anything! The rights to use recorded material has been defined by the Supreme court of the United States. These rights are not something to be graciously permitted by companies who only exist by the virtue of money I pay for their products!
Not to mention that this scheme will almost certainly grant Microsoft a virtual monopoly on every playback mechanism for any recorded material. Do you really believe that there is any chance in hell that this DRM scheme will ever run on any platform but Windows?
Vote with your dollars, people! I for one am not going to purchase any damned part of this scheme. And I am an electronics engineer. If it comes to pass that no playback device for any recorded media in the US can be bought without this DRM scheme, then I will make it my sole purpose in life to determine how it may be defeated and spread it throughout the Internet.
Fuck 'em! Just fuck 'em.
So, you're against DRM, and believe that Microsoft writes shitty, buggy software. If you're against DRM, shouldn't you WELCOME Microsoft's Janus into all commerically available movies? This way, it will be exploited quickly and you can get right back to pirating even higher quality versions of movies. In this case, the DMCA is pretty much irrelevant, because it clearly hasn't stopped the proliferation of IP on P2P networks.
Look, I understand the dangerous precedent here...but the short-to-medium term practical reality of this isn't such a big deal.
-Turkey
Stealing a car is exactly like stealing a DVD. I just run my handy deCAR utility, stick the car into my trusty duplicator, and voila, my stolen car is ready for me to drive away. Sure is handy, and much less likely to attract the notice of the authorities since the owner doesn't even know his car has been stolen....MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
Everyone knows Janus grows up/is growing up/will grow up to be Magus, and we know how much of a prick he turned out to be. Do we expect MS's system to turn out any different or do you blame it all on time travel?
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
As if I have to ask for permission to copy something that I own in the first place?
I rent my apartment. I read and signed the lease prior to occupation. I crossed out the parts I didn't agree with, and the landlord accepted the modified lease. I don't pretend that I own my apartment, and the landlord didn't pretend he sold it too me.
But, this DVD thing, is apparently different. According to the MPAA:
When I see the the billboard movie ads says "own it today", I think of actually owning a movie. But after I've shelled out hard cash and pop in the disk, the MPAA informs me that this movie is licensed for home viewing... Wait a minute? - I thought I was buying the DVD, as in, I NOW OWN THE MOVIE. How can the MPAA impose terms on the use of something they no longer own?
What it comes down to is this: If the MPAA can impose terms on me after I've bought something, I don't really own it. And why would I buy something I can't own?
The communists didn't believe in private ownership either. Given Hollywood's leftist leanings, the MPAA's attempt to erode private ownership of goods comes as no surprise.
I'll think about buying a DVD when the MPAA can tell me exactly what, if anything, I own after the purchase
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The Weather Forecasters Union has decided it's OK if you get wet when you go out in the rain.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I think you got it wrong...
Say if you want a copy of some movie that you have in your hands (say rented the DVD at a movie store). If you copy the movie (compress to AVI, copy to DVD, whatever), you are creating a new instance of the movie but haven't compensated the production studio for the right to make a new instance. Theft, by any other name, is still theft.
By your terms about the victim starting to have something, then losing it. In this instance, the victim (movie company) never received compensation due to them.
I hope I made my point clear...
Is it? At least I know how to back up a disposable DVD to an entirely non-encrypted one.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
What gets me is the whole "license" thing - apparently, the MPAA believes they can impose arbitrary terms on the consumer after the sale. If this holds legal precedent, what prevents me from sending them a check for say, $10, and after they cash it claim that I now own the company? After all, if any arbitrary claim is legally allowable, any claim made whatsoever is actionable...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The broadcast flag really cracks me up. TV and radio stations put up freakin' huge antennas so that they can broadcast their signal so strongly I can practically hear it through my orthodontics...and then don't want anyone to record it.
If I stood on top of a mountain and sang a song so loud nobody within twenty miles can avoid hearing it, can I complain if people record it?
Private performances, and things like cable and satellite, are different, because there is an expectation of some privacy: it's not being distributed in a completely public manner. But broadcasting? How can you possibly constrain what people do with what you broadcast?
swap hacks and cracks for tax
No offense, but that's not even the real issue. The real issue is, once I have purchased a DVD, do I have the right to play it on the device of my choice, or not? They are saying "we'll let you play it on this one type of device, if you use our DRM". So basically, they are saying "no." It's that simple.
This is strangely appropriate:y rightWrongLeft .jpg
http://ffasylum.com/~ganryu/art/Cop
(got the idea to the strip from another slashdot discussion)
Good old CD caddies... I think i have a few boxes laying around somewhere, along with an old Apple (not mac yet) cd-rom drive that took them...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
" Copyright is a fairly minor regulation as these things go"
Actually, I agree. So fining people many thousands of dollars, and now threatening them with jail time, for downloading and storing free copies on their hard drives is *not* a minor penalty. And it is not classic theft, and it is certainly not "piracy".
This needs more than a "little" reform.
The music and movie industry has long cried crocodile tears over any form of copying saying it would destroy their industries. Yet it hasn't. They were against reel to reel tape recorders, home vhs recorders, cassette recorders, and now cd/dvd and hard drive recorders. They seek to limit software in various forms, and the actual future designs of computers, let alone their propietary "players" they keep pushing with "regions" and such like absurdities.
Any previous examples have shown it hasn't hurt their industry. In fact it's done the opposite, kept interest higher than, IMO, it should be for their "products", most of which are of quite dubious quality and societal merit, and increased their profits enormously. They are *not* hurting financially. And, the movie and music industry as a group have been guilty,charged and found guilty, over and over again, of colluding as a criminal cartel to keep prices high, and from restricting movies and music and artists which don't fit inside their closed cartel market model, now all the way to legislation which almost forces that.
The phenomenon of P2P was and is a normal outgrowth to obviously screwy industry moves and screwier governmental regulations. The same has happened many times in the past with various stupid laws and industry collusion, and when it's obvious that industry or government refuses to change, then it's up to the people themselves to just ignore them and shun the stupidity.
And please, don't tell me we can "vote" on this, we don't have much in the way of a representative republic any longer, that is LONG gone, we have a government by and for the interests of millionaires and billionaires and their business interests, and that's about it. The vote is a sham, and to make sure it stays that way, they, our new techno-feudalistic corporofascistic overlords have dropped billions across the nation, during a time of massive debt, in the past two years, to make sure everyone will get to "benefit" from black box, unauditable, completely hackable by the insiders, "voting".
Screw WMA, we want WMV cracked, DRM free porn...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Now, if they'd let us make backup copies and leave the originals in their cases, we'd be talking
I can't figure out if people who say this sort of thing are really serious, or it's just a pretext to argue for copying. Perhaps some people just have a knee-jerk notion that everything has to be backed up. Let's suppose that the DVD costs $15 new, and blanks cost 50 cents. Then you will, on the average, lose money by backing up your DVDs unless you treat them so harshly that you manage to ruin more than one DVD out of every 30. It's cheaper just to buy a new copy. And this doesn't even take into account the fact that, by the time you manage to screw the original one up, you'll probably be able to pick up a cheap used copy for 6 bucks or so.
Can't the word Janus be taken to mean two-faced? If so, I can't think of a better term for a Microsoft technology.
There are somethings in this universe that you just can't control; copying is one of them.
Nathan's blog
The supreme court said that fair use is an implied part of the copyright clause. I sure don't remember details now, but it is just as much a part of the constitution as, say, the Miranda rights.
Infuriate left and right
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine if every song, movie, book, and program created before 1999 were in the public domain. What a wonderful world!
Test 1 2 3 4
I buy dvd's I rip them to hd and then create a subtitle track in another language
takes me about 4 hours but why shouldnt I when I want to sit and watch a film with my wife. I like it I learn more of her language; together we get to enjoy a good story together.
It isn't difficult to add a subtitle track to a movie not once the first one is there (just take the timings from an existing track adjusting delays) I shouldnt be doing this. The makers of the dvd should be doing this, I mean we are both from region 2.
well does this count as fair use?
It would appear that New Zealand's recording industry would rather have customers breaking the law with their blessing than to have the law changed to allow format-shifting.
Remember, here in New Zealand we're not allowed to copy our music or video disks for any reason -- there isn't even a personal fair-use provision in our copyright law.
Check out the interview with the head of NZ's recording industry body RIANZ (who also just happens to be the head of Sony NZ) and listen to him sanctioning lawbreaking but defending the laws he advocates breaking.
It's a masterpiece of hypocrisy
What gives? Holywood is supposed to be weary of Microsoft controlling their properties? Given the history of Holywood and Microsoft, I think we can expect:
1. (DRM) Technology is more important than the story line
2. Movies studio pays millions for an actor who can't act and for DRM that can't manage
3. The DRM is full of bugs
4. The DRM is broken due to <sarcasm>insecurity through popularity argument</sarcasm>
5. Microsoft starts bundling^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfusing DRM into Windows and control media
6. Holywood is Netscaped
7. DRM will no longer be developed
8. Finally, DRM is the foundation of MadCow due in 2010^H5
Did anybody else fall on the floor in a fit of hysterics when they read this:
DVDs are presently protected by content scrambling which prevents copying.
"Your bullets cannot harm me, for I will hide behind a sheet of paper."
Like patents, other IP should be forced to provide the information that is needed to reproduce it after copyright expires.
A central key escrow or an unprotected copy of every work at the Library of Congress would be ok(in that respect).
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
How exactly does one force individuals to require a justification?
Someone already has found a way to strip a WM* file of the DRM. The free program FreeMe is downloadable over the internet, along with an exhaustive technical white-paper on how the DRM works, and how to un-DRM it. http://home.wanadoo.nl/lc.staak/freeme.htm
...I wonder how long it will take someone to make a deDRM so we can listen to those copy-protected files in Linux?