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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.
It's still pretty easy to make DVD player region-free. I mean, it's not illegal to modify your own hardware now is it? Is this where they are going now?
Hmmm.
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.
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?
Oh dear god, how could a Reuters article make such a stupid mistake?
"...which claims its members loose billions of dollars annually to copyright piracy".
*Sigh*
"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.
Guns: Sacred and necessary
Devices which inadvertently allow consumers to exercise fair use rights: Dangerous and damaging
"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.
Who are these DVD makers and what models are they talking about. Pirating minds want to know.
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.
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?
"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.
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?
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.
[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.
[
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.
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:)
MPAA Sues DVD Chip Manufacturers For Making Things People Want To Buy
Thanks to Intellectual Property, the feudal system lives!
Hunt thou not in the King's Forest, knave! Double not thy clicks, nor singly if for commerce they be. Scribe ye not the holy GIF format, nor the code of Linux employ within thine enterprise, lest ye suffer sorely in combat with the royal tort attorneys!
No, it's not.
1) Modifications you make yourself are NOT illegal under the DMCA.
2) Distributing those modifications (parts or instructions) IS illegal.
3) Making your modifications does not relieve you of the burden of copyright law.
How did you get modded +5 informative?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?