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MPAA Sues DVD Chip Manufacturers
WhatAmIDoingHere writes "The Motion Picture Association of America has sued two chip manufacturing companies for selling integrated circuits to manufacturers that produce non-approved DVD players."
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If the chipmakers violated their licenses, they have broken the law and possibly caused a loss of revenue at the same time. Pulling the licenses does not reverse the damage done, so MPAA is justified in trying to recover those damages.
Love, Stu
I mean, it's not illegal to modify your own hardware now is it?
It depends on where you live.
If you live in America, it is indeed illegal to modify your own hardware in order to bypass copy protection or access controls on copyrighted works. Technically, if you take a Sharpie to the edge of a copy-protected CD to get it to play in your PC, you've committed a felony. Download a "crack" or no-cd "fix" for a game? Go to jail. Thank our friend the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which prohibits any circumvention of copy protection or access controls -- and also makes it a crime to "traffic" in the technologies to do so.
Make cheese not war 8:)
If you RTFM, the manufacturers were sued because their licenses prohibited them from selling their chips to non-CSS licensed buyers.
I'm not saying I'm a big fan of the MPAA, but this sounds like a tempest in a teapot. It's not like these companies somehow came up with some workaround and the MPAA was jumping all over them.
Fanatics who don't want to RTFM are welcomed to mod me down.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
>The TV thinks that I am trying to copy DVD's and enables Macrovision.
I'm sure you're aware of this, but to clarify: The DVD is marked with a macrovision flag that tells the DVD player to produce an incorrect NTSC signal intended to mess with the automatic gain of a VCR. The DVD player obligingly corrupts the signal. Many TVs have problems with a macrovision-corrupted signal, especially TV/VCR combos.
I have this problem as well, but I get around it by only buying DVD players in which the macrovision "feature" can be disabled. I don't do this to copy DVDs, I do it so I can watch them.
It does make it more difficult for people to produce region free DVD players though, because only authorized DVD players may access the DVD (legally bypass the ACM), and a DVD player will not be authorized if it's region free, at least in the US. (Yes, there are hacks for many DVD players, but they're not supposed to be there, and more importantly, if a DVD manufacturer advertised the feature they'd lose their license instantly.)
It's all about price fixing in the end. And it's legal. Don't you just love it?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What rubbish! If you want to be a "pirate" (and let's call it something else, please), you can copy a DVD any time you want. Just do a bit-by-bit copy, and voila! A copied DVD. These manufacturers do not enable theft in any way.
I you're talking about copying to a DVD-R, a bit-by-bit copy would produce an unplayable DVD. The CSS key is pre-recorded and thus the copy can't be decrypted.
"But I'm still like a little kid, see?
I just don't know when to quit."
- Rei
No distribution required. Just having something that by passes the encryption is enough. My understanding of the law is this, If you break an encryption scheme which is used to protect copyrighted material then you've broken the DMCA.
bit by bit copies do not work for dvd movies... the data is encrypted. one must decode the .VOB (video object) files using the CSS key first, then rewrite them onto new media.
[stock rant]
The press rightly continues to use the word 'piracy' for illicit copying and distribution of original materials. Some think it's a new phenomenon, and hard to square with the traditional image of the Jolly Roger and swashbuckling robbers-at-sea. The use of the word 'piracy' as signifying an unauthorized copy of a manuscript is hundreds of years old, long before modern Copyright doctrine was developed. From http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.report.html:
That's Dr. John Fell (1625-86), who was given the title of Bishop of Oxford in 1675.
[/stock rant]
Now, the word "theft" is the word I object. One cannot steal an idea, one cannot steal the text of a book, one cannot steal the image of a mouse. Even if it is copied and the copy is somehow proven to impact the sales payable to the original creator, it is not theft. The original creator is not denied the chance to continue to sell their creation. It is a crime to infringe the creator's rights of monopoly, but it is not "theft." Rightly, the courts have also recently been pointing out to the MPAA that their aggressive rhetoric is squarely outside the definitions of law.
[
this is plain old contract law, period.
This isn't some sinister, DMCA-like assault on a company's rights to sell any product they want. They signed a contract to license certain technology, and they violated the terms of that contract.
It sounded like the "journalist" cut and pasted the paragraph from the MPAA's press release to bump his word count up.
You'd be surprised just how many articles in major newspapers are provided by PR companies and departments, and simply printed more-or-less verbatim. The chances are, all the journalist did was write the first paragraph (if that).
Probably yes. This is a contract case, not a copyright case. The MPAA claim they signed a contract preventing these suppliers from selling the chips to unlicensed manufacturers.
Using a gun analogy, if a gun maker signed a deal with the US Gov, so that they were to be the sole purchasers of a new gun the manufacturer had designed, this would be akin to the manufacturer then selling to another country on the side.
The MPAA claim they have exclusivity, not under the DMCA, not under old copyright law etc, but under a contract between them and the defendants. This is nothing more than that.
Zenith DVB318 and Momitsu V880. They both upscale DVD's to HD resolution and output the unencrypted result over analog component cables. The DVD consortium (and the content industry in general), state that everything must be either encrypted with HDCP (when using digital outputs like DVI or HDMI), or messed up with Macrovision. The only exception is for component outputs (where the Macrovision algorithm doesn't work), so they contractually limit the legal output resolution over component to 480p for DVD's.
People who were early adopters of HDTV's (i.e. they ONLY have component inputs for HD, no DVI or HDMI) are pretty pissed about the whole situation.
Dan
Bull...
(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS. (1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that (etc.)
and
(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED. (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
Nothing about possessing or using technology that bypasses encryption. Its legal to have, use and modify, just not distribute. Kind of like the GPL.
Contract is an agreement that is enforceable by law. Contracts are enforced under common law. Violation of contracts leads to various remedies, the chief being damages. Your idea that violation of law and contract are different things is wrong. May be you are thinking of criminal laws where the state is the prosecuting agency.
A good bet would be Kiss technology DP series, as they are sigma design based systems. Liteon/Rimax/Yamada/Procaster are lesser known manufacturers using the same chips (and embedded Linux!). Basicly any dvd player that says it supports divx is probably sigma design based. I guess some them didn't bother licensing css and sigma forgot to ask..
Contracts are considered legally binding. The GPL is a contract. If a court deems a contract to be either enforceable or nonenforceable, it sets a precedent, which is sort of pseudo-law, but you generally do not go to jail or the federal pen for breaching a contract, unless the State, the Federal Government, or a private party files criminal charges against you. Criminal charges show up rarely in business, except for things like shoplifting, fraud, and tax evasion; usually, it's just civil charges, and those are pretty much all private party money exchange (and sometimes a way for the big guy with the good lawyers to screw over the little guy who can't afford a nice lawyer).
I know you wanted a lawyer, but I just like the sound of "I, Anal!" (or is that Aye, Anal! Or.. Eye-Anal!)---don't you?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Contract violation is a civil offense, not a criminal offense. Someone who has broken a contract has not violated the law.
Thanks, Steve.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Among other choices... Provision+ DVD Decoder I have it on good authority that it works like a champ, although I personally would never own anything like this that would allow me to circumvent a content protection system. :-)
On-on!
It's all about price fixing in the end. And it's legal. Don't you just love it?
To quote Larry Lessig...
Note to citizens: We're permitted to change the law.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
"With most U.S. independent films, the producer sells the right to distribute his film in the U.S. at a loss to a distributer like Sony...
to
"Thus, if you buy a region free DVD player, you're stealing from the producer, not the big bad distributer ...."?
Seems to me enforcing a system where the independent film maker sells American distribution rights at a loss it's Sony who's doing the stealing.
The Macrovision is usually disabled because it fucks up the picture not only on VCRs (who copies DVDs to tape, really?!) but also on high end CRT projectors that some home cinema enthusiasts use.
So, you can't watch your films on your $4,000+ projector because of the crippleware.
However, if you put a DVD into the line, and run it through a TBC, you ca nthen re-record it onto a digital target, and make as many copies as you want. Sure: there's some loss, and a good TBC costs several hundred bucks, but IT WORKS.
The MPAA is so full of shit. Grrrr.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Just some points:
1. Home DVD burners (including consumer DVD-R and DVD+R) cannot use CSS encryption. They just physically are not able to do so because the media does not support the burning of the CSS key.
2. Professional burners do exist that can use CSS. These require different media (consumer media won't burn in these) due to the wavelength of the laser being different and a section on the disc to receive the CSS key.
3. The cost of the professional burners and media are considerably more than the consumer units.
The end result is that the studios think their stuff is worth protecting, while the consumer's isn't. It just makes me feel all warm inside.
For the PC, you can decrypt and burn a DVD to a blank disc. This disc will be playable in nearly ANY DVD player Because of the country I live in, I cannot tell you how to do this.
If you hook a PC up to a TV, or vice-versa, some video cards/drivers are now enforcing Macrovision copy protection.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Give me a break. All of their "security" features have been easily broken by widely known software/hardware out there. In fact the only thing that "security features" do is make the general public annoyed.
Ditto. When I worked for a DVD chip maker (not one in the lawsuit) all of the microcode engineers had a copy of DeCSS and had all kinds of fun. I spent one day working with them and quickly realized how ridiculously easy it was to crack CSS and othe other "security" schemes they used. They said it was comical, and might as well not even used it in the first place because of it's bad design.
That said it still pisses me off in general.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Isn't breaching a contract against the law? Maybe not a criminal offense, but nevertheless illegal.
Depends whether the contract is legal and enforcable or not.
For example, if your contract requires you to break some other law, then it's fine to breach it by keeping the other law, because that contract would not stand up in court.
Note to large organized groups of citizens which have the capability to buy or strongarm enough congresscritters
That's why organizations such as the EFF work to "strongarm" our legislators through education and appropriate persuasian.
Financially and morally support them (and organizations like them) if these issues matter to you.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Man, its getting bad when even news articles spell LOSE wrong....
You can lose money.
A shoe string can come loose.
They mean different things...and are pronounced differently...PLEASE get it right...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
In that case, a court would be enforcing a promise (to provide the source code) that was given in exchange for a license to distribute copyrighted material. That sure smells like a contract to me.
My reading is that if a person distributes under the GPL and chooses either option (a) or option (c) under section 3, the GPL functions as a simple license--permission to engage in a certain use of copyrighted material. If the distributor chooses option (b), however, the GPL functions as both a license and a contract. That is, the license to distribute under the GPL is granted in exchange for a promise to distibute source code on request in the future.
Ultimately the label doesn't matter a great deal, since copyright remedies are generally more desirable to a free software author than breach of contract remedies are. In particular, copyright law allows damages without any proof of harm. There are two places where having contract remedies available could be useful:
Who modded this troll up?
He blatantly skipped (a) which makes circumventing criminal. Courts have ruled the DVD-CCA system is an "effective access control system", and short of having the DMCA overturned, circumventing their system is clearly illegal.
His refference to "(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED" is pointless because violating the DMCA is not copyright infringment. There is no fair use defence to violating the DMCA. Saying a non-existant defence is "not affected" is just plain offensive.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.