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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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So it is no longer legal to add additional functionality to a device you are creating? There goes my idea of building a more secure website than my managers asked for, can't have that.
Damien
it said proved the two were selling microchips to companies, whose DVD players lack what the MPAA called "appropriate security features.
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.
Take for example the TV/VCR combo I use in my bedroom. I have no need for a huge TV in there as I have two larger TVs elsewhere in the house. I hooked up an old DVD player to it. The TV thinks that I am trying to copy DVD's and enables Macrovision. There is no way to disable the Macrovision (at least from what I can find on the net) for that DVD player.
Thus I am stuck w/removing the macrovision using available software and reburning so I can enjoy the DVDs I have purchased.
I thought it was illegal (in the U.S. at least) if you bypass a copy protection technology. Or does the DMCA only apply if you redistribute the info?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Are you saying that now we can, for example, sue Ford because they produced the car that was purchased by a drunken driver who killed someone?
A book publisher can sue Xerox because one of their copy machines was purchased for the purpose of making illegal copies of books?
A camera maker? Companies that make pens?
that produce non-approved DVD players
...or something?
Of course...because approved piracy/ region modding is okay, but heaven forbid it be done without approval?
"The MPAA said the suits against Sigma Designs Inc. and MediaTek Inc. followed testing that it said proved the two were selling microchips to companies, whose DVD players lack what the MPAA called "appropriate security features."
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.
And what's with all this Orwellian "piracy" anyway? Those manufacturers don't conform to the precise specs the industry wants, so off with their heads? How about what the consumer wants? Oh, right, we don't count.
"The MPAA, recognizing the damage the advent of digital file-sharing did to the music industry, has waged an aggressive campaign against movie piracy."
I still haven't seen a single piece of documentation that can dirrectly link a damage to the music industry as a result (even in part) by file-sharing.
Your mammas flamebait.
I read the article, and I have to agree this is probably a valid lawsuit. This is purely contract law, not copyrights or patents. The contract the manufacturers signed said they would not produce or sell devices that could be used for copying DVDs. The manufacturers didn't hold up their end of the deal. Yeah, it stinks, but that's the way it is.
We could dress up as Americans and throw tea in the harbor... or sand in their gas tanks... or grenades in their toilets... or...
No, I don't think I'm out of control. I think the industry is out of control, and the government's going right along with it (both major parties).
In other words, "We didn't learn from the backlash against the recording industry, so we'll do it again. Only harder."
How about suing tobacco companies for producing cigarettes that people choose to smoke, or gun manufacturers for making weapons that are used to commit crimes? Pretty crazy world, isn't it?
1 word... never.
More words... Where there is money to be had there is conflict. The MPAA represents lots of money. Even if the courts come down hard on the MPAA it'll figure something else out.
I didn't get to be head of the department because I'm a moron.
I got to be head of the department because I..I..I.I.I'm not moron.
"If the chipmakers violated their licenses, they have broken the law"
No, they have not broken the law, they have violated the terms of a contractual agreement. If they had broken the law a government entity (fed/state/county/etc) would be filing the charges not a company.
they have broken the law
They didn't break the LAW, they broke a CONTRACT.
Not the same thing
And DVDs would have been less successful if CSS didn't exist? There is proof of that?
Haven't we seen studies claiming that the record industry has not been damaged, e.g. that sales are only lower than the RIAA's flawed and over-optimistic projections? Even studies claiming that file sharing might have a positive impact on record sales?
It seems to me that many journalists these days don't actually investigate or research anything, they just take industry or political press releases and report the spin as fact. Or am I too cynical?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, they have not broken any law, unless there is some yet unrevealed aspect. As near as I can tell, there is only the allegation that they've breached some agreement. Since we don't know the particulars of any agreement, the veracity of the allegation is unknown.
Shouldn't the DVD-CCA, rather than the MPAA be the be the organization responsible for enforcing the rules behind the CSS system? Granted, the two organizations are very similar, but the MPAA should be calling its friends rather than be the entity in the headline.
This is all about control. The movie industry wants complete control over the distribution of movies. DVD regions is about controling the distribution of movies. Yes control allows them to maximize profits. They might be able to make even more money with a more open and free distribution, but that is not guaranteed. So to guarantee healthy profits they demand complete control. It is safe and mostly risk free.
We know litigation is the last gasp of industries with outdated models, why else would you actively want to sue the people you are in business with or YOUR CUSTOMERS?
The meteor has crashed, the dinosaur is dying.
Speaking with a family friend who is getting involved in indie film production, the big studios are banking more and more on the one profitable hit out of the ten movies produced and on DVD sales and rentals than ever. Neither of us go to the movies very often any more to see anything produced by a big studio (the last movie I saw was Eternal Sunshine... and before that? Lord of the Rings 3?). I'd just as soon keep my money and see student films or whatnot over repackaged fluff. It all makes it to HBO within a year anyway.
This is one reason I think the studios are balking at going digital, for while it appears to slash their distribution costs, it also enables theatre owners to use the equivelent of an iTunes Music Store for their first-run movies.
Sorry dinosaur, comet has hit. Why sue chip manufacturers? The only image your damaging is your own, makes fuck-all difference to any with either 1) a modicum of nerdibility or 2) anyone with a hobby that is of lower abstract cost than watching fabricated reality (meaning people flock to most benefit for least effort; if the MPAA continues alienative customers, customers will choose other form of entertainment and forget Hollywood ever existed).
It's Darwiniaan (sp?): adapt or die. Lawsuits are not indications of adaptation.
There has GOT to be some legal precedent set somewhere that says "You cannot be sued for making or selling something that is legal when someone else does something illegal, unlawful or otherwise infinging on the rights of others using it."
I should not be liable for murder selling a knife used to kill someone. I should not be liable for murder for selling a car that someone used to kill someone. I should not be liable for copyright infringement for selling a photocopier to someone who uses it to copy books. And I certainly shouldn't be liable for infringement for selling legally licensed chips to someone who misuses them... and neither should these chip makers.
Surely there is legal precedent to such a simple argument.
Cigarettes will fuck me up, no matter what I do. so selling cigarettes is like selling cyonide sweets, not normal sweets that may make you fat if you eat too many.
Guns were designed to kill things, so I suppose they shouldn't really sue the manufactures for making guns, they should sue the government for letting them.
Media-players should be designed to play media, not prevent you from playing media.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
In Rhode Island, an automobile manufacturer (I forget if it was Ford or GM) was sued when a drunk driver killed someone with a leased vehicle. The family of the victim *won*. What's even more scary is that the highest court of RI upheld this.
Utterly insane. It's always someone else's fault.
These companies now refuse to lease cars in Rhode Island.
There will always be a way to copy movies/music and other media. You can never stop it, or my cousin that works at the chip company and sells them under the table to whoever wants them.
LAWS DONT WORK so quit wasting your time and money and quit bitching. Drugs are a great thing to compare this to, they have been illegal for many moons but they are still everywhere because DOING THINGS THE LEGAL WAY DOESN'T WORK! Laws aren't scary until you get caught. No matter how hard you try things the legal way, it will never be as effective as hiring mercenaries instead of lawyers. Maybe we should start saving the money we waste on your cds and dvds and have you all killed by our own mercenary...now that is a plan.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
Why don't these companies just say they don't make DVD chips/players. The RIAA sells CDs that violate the CD specification and it gets away with it because it doesnt sell 'CDs'. Anyway the MPAAs methods should be illigal, region coding is totally over the line and you are fully within your right to disable/bypass it for fair-use (ie buying DVDs abroad)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Note: The DMCA is more than four years old. It isn't Bush's fault. That's not to say that he wouldn't have signed it, I believe he would have. But.. Clinton did sign it and I think Kerry would sign it too.
The scary part is that there are no politicians who care about what consumers (citizens by the way) are being forced to accept to defend the big corporation's revenue streams.
If we had the same group of scumbags in government back when the car was invented, I'd probably own a ridiculously overpriced horse and carriage today.
Pick yer platform
;)
Stand-alone player sans computer, please.
YOu seem to have left out that link.
everything in moderation
Insightful? WTF? The parent post is a flat-out troll posted by an AC and nothing more. You talk about our rights being taken away, and yet you forget about the right to "have and bear arms." The "right" to watch movies isn't in the Constitution, the 2nd amendment is. Furthermore, if armed insurrection becomes necessary to prevent tyranny (god forbid), what are you going to do? Show the government Region 2 DVD's on your Region 1 DVD player? Sorry, that won't work. I agree that the MPAA is being a bunch of bastards. However, it's their right to do so. Nobody is forcing them to distribute DVD's. They are doing so of their own free will, influenced mainly by their desire to make money. Since they don't HAVE to sell you movies, they have the right to distribute them under any terms they want. If that includes the concept of regions, so be it. It may be onerous, but it's their right to do so. In this respect, we don't have as many rights as the parent would like to believe. We have the right to purchase the DVD's on the MPAA's terms, or we have the right not to. If you don't like the concept of Regioning and CSS, then DON'T BUY THE F'ING DVD'S. Plain and simple. We DO NOT have the right to purchase them on our own terms; we do not have the right to copy them freely.
Or selling rights to be the exclusive distributor in a specific market with little or no recourse for customers who want DVDs in that market to shop elsewhere? In other words, selling rights to price fix?
Well, few producers actually distribute, but in any case, does it matter who's not competing against who? If it's all down to contractual arrangements, how is it a different breach of contract for one distributor to issue region-free DVDs compared to, say, a distributor selling to outlets and advertising heavily in a region they're not supposed to be?It really boils down to one thing: distributors want to be able to monopolize a market rather than risk people comparing prices in some other market and importing craploads - either directly through the world wide web, or indirectly through grey-importers. And if it forces someone to buy the same DVD twice, both times at an uncompetitive price, when they move, then all the better.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Actually, regional DVD's aren't about price fixing as much as it has to do with selling rights"
No, it is about discouraging sales and encouraging cracking and duplication. I have many CDs from outside my region. The company does not produce them for my region, and never intends to. I have to "crack" them using a computer utility and then burn watchable ones in order to view the out-region DVDs I bought. What a hassle. It is insane.
", if you buy a region free DVD player, you're stealing from the producer,"
You are not stealing from anyone. It is impossible to steal using such a device.
If the thinking behind the DVD region encoding is simply to prevent a producer selling DVD's in competition to a distributor, then I can only think that the distributors can't write contracts. If I were a distributor, and I wanted exclusive rights to distribute a film, I'd damn well say so in any contract, and I'd specify damages if that clause was broken. Then if the producer attempted to make another deal with another distributor in the same region, I'd sue.
I'd suggest that distributors are, in fact, very good at writing contracts. One only needs to look at book deals to see this. I find it hard to believe that a film distributor is completely incapable of writing an exclusive distribution agreement into a contract and enforcing it, whereas the book publishing industry has no such problem.
Thus if I buy a region-free DVD player (as I have) I fail to see how I have "stolen" anything from anybody. I certainly haven't stolen from the producer so long as I buy a copy of the film I watch; if the producer has a good contract, he still gets his royalty cheque. If the producer does not have a good contract, then the only person "stealing" anything from anybody is the big bad distributor.
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
Note to citizens: We're permitted to change the law.
With all due respect to Larry Lessig...
Note to large organized groups of citizens which have the capability to buy or strongarm enough congresscritters: you are permitted to change the law.
Note to the rest: you are still screwed.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
On certain DVD players, usually made by not very well known Chinese companies. It's not illegal to do so, but those manufacturers may have breached their contract with the DVD-Concortium (wish gives the license to make DVD players) by allowing this.
Well of course it's a monopoly. Copyright is a legal monopoly. Maybe someday we'll ditch the free market for information and the prices of DVD's will be fixed by government committee. But until then, yes, the producer of a work has a monopoly on its distribution, and can sell pieces of that monopoly (regional distribution agreements) for whatever the market will bear.
If this is still a problem for you, you should remind yourself that it's only a show and you should really just relax. If you don't like what they are selling it for, then vote with your pocketbook and don't buy it. This isn't food, it's entertainment, and the government shouldn't get involved in what entertainment costs.
Cavaet: Copyright extentions still suck and are completely inappropriate, and, in my opinion, are nothing more than corporate theft from the public domain. But, while a copyright of reasonable length is still in effect, the owner of the copyright should have complete control of the work.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
If the chipmakers violated their licenses, they have broken the law [...]
If one of the contract provisions is illegal, the party to the contract is not bound by it, and may violate it with impunity.
Unless there is verbage to the effect that some rights granted to that party conditional on his performance on that provision, and are voided if he can not perform on his side due to laws to the contray, he doesn't lose the rights granted. The illegal provisions are by default separable.
At least that's how I, who ANAL, understand it.
The primary function of the CSS and its licensing regime is not to inhibit unauthorized copying (although it does make it - along with fair use - slightly more difficult for the non-techies among the general population).
The primary purpose is to support both shady and explicitly illegal business activity: Regional pricing / price fixing and inhibition of international resale, regional distribution timing and availability control, and regional content censorship.
This could be construed to make adherence to the contract terms that require sale of chips only to licensees who build products that adhere to the regional coding schemes unenforcable.
= = = =
I just realized: It might be possible to bring a suit against the MPAA/CSS scheme in international courts under GATT!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
(actually, URLs). /. story about this subject which teases us by not disclosing:
This the second tantalizing
exactly WHO are the makers and vendors of the liberalized equipment containing the subject chips?
(I quit looking after the first 50 posts.)
The government brings civil actions all the time - speeding tickets, for instance.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
You are not stealing from anyone if you buy a region free DVD player.
Stealing is the unlawful taking of property, not merely hurting someone's profits.
Am I stealing from Opera because I am using Mozilla as my web browser?
No.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
From TFA, second-to-last paragraph: "The MPAA, recognizing the damage the advent of digital file-sharing did to the music industry, has waged an aggressive campaign against movie piracy. [emphasis mine]"
This is a damned bad sign. I know it's popular to bash on the media, but really, they're supposed to print objective fact rather than opinion. The fact that this article simply claims that P2P has damaged the music industry, rather than attributing it as an opinion of someone else's, says to me that we've already lost that particular part of this fight.
Really, they could (and should!) have said something like "The MPAA, agreeing with the music industry's claims that file-sharing has caused it massive damage, has waged an aggressive campaign against movie piracy." By phrasing it as they did, Reuters seems to be claiming that it's simply an established fact that P2P has hurt the RIAA.
And it's probably too late to fix that.
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
OK. Show me the 'copyright expiration field' in the DVD/CSS format.
Actually, I don't KNOW that it's not there, because I've never looked at the specs. But I'm absolutely sure it's not, because otherwise we'd have seen 'clock hacks' to bypass "protection" long ago. The lack of a 'copyright expiration field' might be taken as an indication of intent to keep extending copyrights forever. (I suspect it's really negligence, but I'll bet the MPAA never gets sued over their negliegnce, only chipmakers.)
I don't disagree with you. This is indicative of another problem the US is refusing to face. Back in 1992, Clinton tried to make health care reform a national focus. AS A NATION, we turned our backs on the whole issue, and it has come back to bite us badly. IMHO, health care costs are in large responsible for migration of jobs overseas. Not that I necessarily cared for Clinton's plan, BUT WE REFUSED TO EVEN DEBATE THE MATTER! Our bad!
The entire field of intellectual property NOW needs the same kind of national debate. We are in the process of screwing over our national competitive posture by pretending to stay with existing ways.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It is a way of making those in regions where DVD prices are higher buy at the higher price instead of importing cheaper DVDs.
Guns: Sacred and necessary.
...
I know you were being facetious. But yes they are.
"God created men. Sam Colt made them equal."
Disarming the law-abiding doesn't solve the crime problem.
Even if you lived in a fantasy universe where you could de-gun everybody including the crooks, there are arrows, swords, spears, clubs, sling, rocks,
And if you managed to disarm everybody and everything, would you have stopped crime and violence? Absolutely not. You'd just have put everybody at the mercy of the strongest bullies. Kiss civilization goodby - it's back to feudialism, or worse.
What guns do is make it possible for anyone, strong or weak, young or old, male or female, black, white, yellow, or brown, to be about equally deadly - with minimal expense and a few hours of training.
The net result is a massive and sustained reduction in violence. The good guys were never a problem. The bad guys mostly learn to stop attacking the good guys (and stick to stealing their stuff when they're not there to watch). The few who insist on attacking an armed population repeatedly are soon wounded and taken "out of service".
And on the political level, the government with an armed population is much less able to oppress it.
A vote for citizen disarmament is a vote for violent crime, tyranny, genocide, and the rule of psychpathic strongmen - at both the wholesale and retail level.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Copyright is a legal monopoly. Maybe someday we'll ditch the free market for information..."
You do realize what you just said is a contradiction in terms?
It is a monopoly, it is a free market of information... well which do you think it is?
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
This isn't food, it's entertainment, and the government shouldn't get involved in what entertainment costs.
Explain why copyright exists again except to effect the cost of copyrighted works (ie, entertainment)? Or as another post states, what about the legal monopoly makes it a free market of information?
The free market is a way of describing how things behave assuming individual control. The only free part about the free market then is free will. Free markets exist in socialism, capitalism, etc to varying degrees given that no authorative allocation process is 100% efficient and side trading occurs. To that end, mentioning the free market in the positive when in fact copyright inhibits the describable behavior seem disingenuous. P2P is a free market of sorts, but look at how legal most of that is.
Copyright then is just a part of legally mandated monopoly. Why is it then that copyright is so non-regulated? The main excuse I can think of to explain this is that copyright does not provide regional control which is the firm basis for requiring governmental regulation (with a note that this is more a point needed for natural monopolies like utilities); or should I say, it didn't offer regional control until the DMCA. I guess it's time to regulate the MPAA and RIAA.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
I'm sorry, but as a lawyer I feel compelled to point out that copyright has nothing at all to do with region coding. It's simply not true that the owner of the copyright has "complete control" over the work. If that were the case, the copyright owner could call you up and demand you stop watching his DVD, or tell you to only watch it on Thursdays and then only if you eat at Burger King. Copyright is in fact a very limited right - and rightly so: it gives the owner the right to control how the goods are first marketed (I'm not dealing with issues of public performance here). The person who owns the copyright in a movie can control who sells the DVD; he can sell the right to different people in different countries. But once the consumer has bought the DVD, the copright holder loses all his rights as to where that person uses the DVD. If I buy my DVDs dirt cheap (but legally) in Asia, then there is nothing in copyright law to stop me from bringing them into the US and watching them - I can even sell them on to someone else in the US since under the "first sale" rule, once the item has been sold on the copyright holder loses his right to control its marketing.
DVD region coding goes far beyond copyright. It tries to stop me watching the DVDs I purchased in the US after I moved back to the UK (lucky it's easy to buy region-free machines here). It tries to stop me ordering cheap DVDs from overseas online stores.
It is without any doubt, monopolistic, anticompetitive price-fixing with no justification in copyright law and I'm sorry, but it's the job of government to prevent businesses from abusing the marketplace and screwing the consumer.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
You are correct. Region encoding should not be protected under the law, because it has nothing to do with copyright. It's a matter of the contracts between the copyright holders and its various distributors. Since this contractural relationship has nothing to do with consumers, consumers should be allowed to 1) buy anywhere they like; and 2) circumvent region encoding without fear of penalty.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
I'm suprised people rarely bring up Canada in this arguement. They have higher per capita gun ownership rate than the USA yet check out the violent crime statistics.
USA 26% of violent crimes involved guns.
Canada 3% of violent crimes involved guns.
(2001)
Also look at the growth rate of violent crime in England and Wales vs the USA. (I'll give you a hint, it's lower in the USA)
I for one am happy that all these countries are passing these ridiculous gun control laws as they provide good crime statistics that exactly show that gun control does not in fact help reduce crime but in fact appears to lead to an increase in crime (especially in robbery rates)
This phonetic spelling thing ought to be successful, then, if everyone pronounces the words differently. Eh?
Mark Twain simplified spelling