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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.
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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.
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?
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.
... 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..
[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
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
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
> Uh, no. Buying pirated goods is theft.
Nope, sorry. Theft means that your "victim" starts out having something, and ends up not having it anymore. It's really that simple.
If you can explain how unauthorized copying meets that standard, *without* invoking some parallel dimension where I buy an authorized copy of every single movie I see and then claiming losses relative to that alternate dimension, then you win.
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Doesn't theft usually imply that the legitimate owner no longer has the posession in question?
Yes. What's more it implies that you intended that the legitimate owner no longer have posession.
Saying infringing copyright is theft is like saying taking a Georgia stop sign is theft.
Rights of way are infringed, not stolen. The only way a right to copy can be stolen is by stealing the copyright.
Of course the music industry has made something of science of that last, even going so far as to attach "rights" to works that were previously donated into the public domain by the author, in print.
KFG
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.
Actually, it's not something the government grants - it's a birth-right! just like freedom of speech, freedom of choice, etc. pp.
The rights are not specifically provided, to be sure, but the fair use statute is quite broad and open to a great deal of interpretation. It essentially lays out the basic considerations and leaves it up to the judge.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
That fact that you have a backup is not at issue here. That is fair use.
The fact that, in exercising your rights to create that backup, you probably decrypted the video stream, THAT is where you broke the law. The DMCA classifies that as circumvention of a protection method, and that's the issue that we have with the DMCA (well, one of them, anyways): We retain our fair use rights, but if we want to exercise them, we break the law.
At least, that's how I remember it being explained to me from my Intellectual Property class...
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
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.
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
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The right to drink beer anywhere you want isn't, so you can drink it at home but not at the park or on the beach or in your car.
As I may be held criminally liable for saying certain things in certain situations, and civilly liable if I say certain other things in certain situations without a license.
The right to listen to a CD is granted by the purchase of a license.
No. The right to play a CD is granted by the purchase of the physical object. There is no license attached. My wife may listen to the same CD without purchasing anything and the CD, as my property, can be resold with no transfer of the nonexistant license because I have a right, by law not license, to play and transfer ownership of said CD.
If I wish to make 100 copies to distribute to my neighbors I'll need a license, because someone else holds the copyright.
KFG
Funny, I still think that the parent's post has merit. To take. This word has a physical connotation, I think. Something has to be tangible to be taken. Taken means that it was moved from one spot to another. No?
If I TAKE your CD, I remove it from your posession, for example, you no longer have any physical item to use.
If I copy that CD, or whatever, you still have it to use. Which is what the parent's point was. The proper word is not theft. It's not piracy, either. It's not many another word (like cat dog, fizblat, woofpang, etc.)
I think, that by definition, copyright infringements CANNOT be called theft, stealing or anything other than the above.
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.
> By your terms about the victim starting to have something, then losing it.
Right, that's the definition of theft.
> In this instance, the victim (movie company) never received compensation due to them.
That's _not_ the definition of theft.
> I hope I made my point clear...
The point is, it's not theft. It's unauthorized copying. That also happens to be illegal (in the US), and there's no argument from
anyone on that point. Incidentally, many of us don't feel it's _immoral_, something which theft is. And if something is illegal but
not immoral, it just means the law is (arguably) wrong. Whether or not you choose to follow the law even when it's wrong is a
personal decision you have to make.
Complicating the whole situation is the fact that the copy-control lobby has made many leaps towards denying fair-use rights,
chilling free expression, and has done a number of other things which many feel _are_ immoral, and so some feel self-righteous
in circumventing the restrictions they impose. That doesn't make it right to use circumvention tools for un-fair use means,
but it makes it understandable that the copy-control crowd doesn't get much sympathy.
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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?
Copyright infringement is stealing.
No. It's copyright infringement.
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There are somethings in this universe that you just can't control; copying is one of them.
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