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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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FTA: Sigma and MediaTek make chips to decode the Content Scramble System, or CSS, which is the copy-protection system used for DVDs. Their licenses require that they sell only to other CSS-licensed companies.
Let me get this straight. The content scramble system can be disabled with chips sold to companies with licenses to distribute systems with copy-protection? I smell another SCO-styled lawsuit. When will people learn? These chips could be valuable in the development of technology to prevent copy theft, and even then, since these chips are only being sold to licensed distributors, I see that the MPAA, or whoever is in charge of these licenses, could have simply yanked the licenses instead of wasting precious court time and money... that is, unless, the MPAA knew damn well they didn't have a case for revoking these licenses, so they figured they had better make an example of these companies by suing them for lost revenue. It's almost parallel to a police department charging another department for sending drugs or illegal firearms to a third party for analysis. It's totally trumped up! IANAL, but I think with these kinds of cases going around the block, I would like to be one! Lawyers are the only ones who profit from these hyped up dramas!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
There are still people worrying with playback control on DVD players?
Media Player Classic
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/
VLC
http://www.videolan.org/
Pick yer platform
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Who are these DVD makers and what models are they talking about. Pirating minds want to know.
They are suing them for violating a contract. Do you have a contract with Ford forbidding them from selling cars to drunks? I doubt it. But the MPAA apparently has a contract limiting who the chip manufacturers can sell their chips to, and the MPAA claims the chip manufacturers are violating that contract.
Seince when did the MPAA have the right to go telling companies what they can sell. Can't this be used if you make a home dvd? Becase the MPAA does not think your dvd player has enough "appropriate security features" whatever the heck they mean by that they sue. Also can't I just put a burned copy of a dvd in my PC? You can hook your tv into your pc these days. When will they learn...If they just made movies people actually wanted to buy.
In most places they are not illegal to purchase or own (in your own domicile). But in many places you don't want to get caught driving around with them in your car, especially not if you have other things that might be considered by police to the 'theives tools'. In many places they don't even have to catch you breaking in someplace, or with stolen goods, just possession of said 'theives tools' is enough. Many of the other items that would be considered to be 'theives tools' are even more innocuous, like wire coathangers, various types of wrenches and screwdriver bits.
Of course, where I live, it is illegal to carry wire cutters in your pocket. But that is one of those bizzare laws that has been on the books since like the 1860s that they just never get around to repealing even though nobody is really that worried about cattle rustlers cutting barbed wire fences any more (the original reason for the prohibition).
Huh?
The MPAA owns CSS. They license it to these companies, and say "You can use our CSS stuff, but only sell it to people on this list". Sell outside the list, break the agreement, get sued. That's what's happening.
This is more like Apple suing Real because Real is using Apple's DRM without Apple's permission, though that's not the same either, but it's closer.
They've been selling these chips forever, and the MPAA has been happily collecting it's royalties for CSS. What I wonder is, why now?
That is, is the REAL MONEY motivating this - that is, the electronics manufacturers who make approved DVD players?
Sony's getting it's ass kicked in the market by WingWong's knockoff brand, because the knockoff isn't crippled. It may be a cheaper, lousier machine, but in the end - it plays that DVD your cousin Beauregard sent you from Region 5.
Hmm.. Despite the rhetoric around here, the entertainment industry only makes pennies to the tech industries dollar. Sony (the maker of CD and DVD burners) is much much larger than Sony (the publisher of DVDs and PS2 games) - hence the 'paradox' that protects us. They will never lobby to outlaw recording and duplication tech, since that's which side their bread is buttered on.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
What if you modify the hardware in such a way that it does not facilitate copying but does get around other "access controls". The last I checked even the DMCA does not guarantee the movie studios the right to create these little geographic monopolies called "regions". The problem is that most of the hacks to make a DVD player region free also disables macrovision as well. If someone were to hack the firmware of a player to enable region free access but left the macrovision copy protection in place(as long as were at it lets also disable the crap that keeps you from skipping past the FBI warning, etc) I think a good argument could be made that you in fact have not violated the DMCA.
Heh I did one better. In a rented house (furnished), for a test I plugged my G4 into the video player to see if I could watch it on TV.
Worked great, then for a test pressed record. It activated the macrovision, after that nothing worked in the VCR.
Remington develops their own rifle round and has someone else manufacture it. Their contract with the manufacturer states the manufacturer can't make those bullets for another company. They do anyway. Hey, Lawsuit!
It's a contract dispute. This shit happens all the time. When you are handed a contract with specific stipulations not to do something, YOU DON'T FUCKING DO IT. That this is the MPAA is COMPLETELY irrelevant to anything. A contract is a contract, you don't fuck with it without answering for it.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Might the MPAA's own actions be in violation of anti-trust laws?
That part has never been tested in court. Actually, very little of the DMCA has been tested. If I recall, the only prosecution was that of Elcomsoft and they were acquitted. Would courts convict someone for giving a speech, writing a paper, or posting a mesage that informed people about how to bypass access controls? I suspect they wouldn't -- but until we know whether speech is considered a form of "trafficking" the chilling effect of the law will continue to be felt.
Make cheese not war 8:)
Pretty soon you will have to buy DVD players from the motion picture companies, and, lord willing each one will have a different standard and cost several hundred dollars each. Phase 2 will be that you have to buy your television set from motion picture companies as well and these too will all be different and incompatible from one another.
It will be a Federal crime, to hack either DVD players or TV's to do anything other than what you pay the motion picture companies to permit you to do. On/off switches will be made illegal.
In copying the latest music from the 'net, you have acquired something that by all rights you should have paid for. You received something for nothing. Any way you slice it, you've stolen.
check 2600.com and their lawsuit for LINKING to the source of DeCSS. They lost. New York Times did the same thing, but wasn't sued.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The MPAA suing chip manufactures for allowing "pirated" copy protection to be played on DVD players? This only shows me how clueless MPAA really is about how DVD's are actually copied.
So you haven't seen the lawsuits against the gun industry for selling a perfectly legal product, in a very highly regulated industry and yet they're being sued by victims of crime who decided to go after the deep pockets instead of the guilty party - the person who used the gun in a crime.
P.S. the claim that "teddy bears are more regulated than guns" is bull - when was the last time you needed a license to buy a teddy bear? Teddy bear manufacturers are also not subject to criminal background checks, warrantless searches, and extensive documentation of every teddy bear they produce.
See gun industry quote above. Or refer to the tobacco industry cases. People choose to smoke (ugh, nasty habit) and then they somehow become helpless "victims." It isn't their fault, it's the tobacco industry's fault!
Have you been to Kinko's lately? They have signs everywhere about how they will stop you from copying copyrighted materials so that they will not be held liable. I assume that Xerox has to jump through similar hoops. How about anti-counterfeiting technology that is installed in colour copiers, lest the goverment accuse the manufacturer of aiding and abetting counterfeiting?I was going to point out that the common thread in all of those cases was greedy f*cking lawyers, but then I thought better of it. Lawyers are involved in most of those cases, but common to all is the lack of personal responsibility.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
Well, it is legal where I live (Norway), but many others can be thrown in jail for this. Nevertheless, I'm not doing it: Even if I can make myself a region-free DVD player, if they don't respect me as a customer enough to sell me one without that crap, they're not getting my money. Those are my terms. I know that it may imply that I can't play some DVDs that refuse to play on region-free players, but again, I don't care, I won't be interested in those DVDs anyway.
Come to think of it, these companies sound like they may be worthy of my business. Anybody know where I can get a region-free DVD player for my box, that is, one that fits in a 5.25" slot?
Actually, I think I could even use a DVD burner... Anybody know of a company that sells that? It needs to work well under Linux.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
What the MPAA is doing to these chip manufacturers sounds a lot (to me) like what Microsoft got into trouble with the DOJ for doing. Enlighten me if I'm way off base... W.E.P.
to vote with your wallets? I'm suggesting, not buying DVDs of MPAA products. If the industry thinks it's losing money because of chips that are too feature-rich, wait til they lose money due to lack of sales period.
Hmm, it seems that I accidentally started a small debate from my categorical error (or misnomer, seen from the other end). I've learned an awful lot about contracts versus licenses today =D I had always considered a license a diminuitive form of a contract, but, touche.
It seems to me that this is the simplest way of defining it:
License = you gain something you did NOT have before (previously, you were prohibited), often via purchase, or through acceptance of terms of usage (which is an agreement, but not a "contractual agreement" in the courts). Licensing is like letting a kid borrow your calculator for an evening if he gives you a couple dimes.
Contract = some sort of definite terms of agreement (very broad); generally, there is an exchange of goods/services/money. Contract can be used in a broad sense, but it has a specific legal meaning.
Or something like that. I give up. Time to go home now...heh.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
For all of the above stats, compare the position of the USA to other countries in a similar economic situation but without common firearms, such as the UK, Germany, Japan (I don't believe they have widespread guns). I don't think you'll see any evidence for your massive decrease.
The US has only an order of magnitude more murders than the UK or Germany for instance. But gun deaths are at least two orders of magnitude more likely in the US. If all guns went away, the US would *still* have a higher crime rate, and it is likely that many gun deaths would turn into stabbing/beating deaths.
Not to mention that the UK has an abysmal assault rate only a few percent lower than the US.
On the other hand, burglaries are much higher in European nations with gun control than in the US. I don't suppose that means that guns have a deterrant on thefts, does it? If you knew you could walk into any shop, take what you want, and leave, would you do it? How about if some nutty American might blow your head off if you tried it?
The fact is, gun control has almost no effect on violent crimes, but increases lesser crimes.
The point is that it's much harder to kill someone with a sling than a gun. If something is harder to do, it's (a) less likely to happen by accident and (b) less likely to happen at all. If you took away the guns, less people would die - simple. Maybe more people would get hit over the head with rocks (though I don't see that happening) but if that saved lives, so be it.
Yes, and sports cars probably kill more people than guns do. And sports cars (as opposed to other cars) have even less utility than guns (as opposed to other weapons or tools). But you don't see a rush to ban them. The point is that you can save more lives by focusing on deadlier things. Compared to disease, drowning, car accidents, and other ills, guns are a minor annoyance. The cost of removing every single gun in the country and enforcing a strict ban would be comparable to the current drug war, but worse, because legal guns currently exist. How many lives do you suppose might be lost as extremists fought to keep their guns? What if it started small civil wars? Would the cost of life be worth it to ban them?
Do you have any actual real world evidence for this conjecture? Because I have many examples (as noted above) which contradict you.
Washington D.C has some of the worst crime in the US despite very strict gun control (as well as being the capitol, for crying out loud. You'd expect better). In general, highly populated cities are where violent crime occurs. Most highly populated cities have stricter gun control than rural areas. This leads one to believe that violent crime is necessarily a social problem of some kind, not a gun problem.