MGM Concedes Some Fair-Use Rights Exist

jambarama writes "MGM seems to have given a little in the Grokster case. After getting nailed on the possible implications of banning P2P software, they've now admitted it is perfectly legal to rip one's own CD and store it. Is this a return to the stripped down 'fair use' rights or a temporary court concession?"

Comments

Thank you, MGM

[Dorsai65]

for giving me my rights back.[/sarcasm]

Re:Thank you, MGM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that MGM is admitting it to keep the court itself from saying it. Once the case is over MGM can always go back to claiming otherwise. And this way the court will not have to explicitly uphold our fair use rights again. So, it makes a lot of sense for MGM to say this at this point. They don't want fair use validated any more by the court than minimum.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[mOdQuArK!]

It is a limitation on a copyright holder's rights.

You mean a limitation on a copyright holder's privileges.

Nobody has a "right" to control copying (even given the misleading name for it) - they are granted the privilege of controlling it with the goal of benefiting society.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[timeOday]

A lot of freedoms aren't expressly protected by the Constitution, because the original idea of our govt. was that people could do whatever wasn't forbidden, and it was govt. that was limited to a specific list of behaviors.

Your post attests that this idea is dying out.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[Fjornir]

opps, wait a minute, Privacy isn't expressly listed in the Constitution either.

You missed the part about "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches..." I take it?

Re:Thank you, MGM

[xgamer04]

Privacy isn't expressly listed in the Constitution either.

From the US Constitution:

Article the fifth [Amendment III]

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Article the sixth [Amendment IV]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[Trillinon]

Nor shall we forget the all important: Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. If the people want the right of privacy, that power is granted to them.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[glsunder]

You missed the part about "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches..." I take it?

I think we all miss that.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[bill_mcgonigle]

This comment if just an FYI to everyone who feels that Fair Use ranks right up there with Privacy -- opps, wait a minute, Privacy isn't expressly listed in the Constitution either.

Pragmatically, in this case what matters is what the SCOTUS thinks. Here's one opinion:

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art."
- Sandra Day O'Connor

A popular quip around the SCOTUS, due to its divided nature, is "let's just take the case to Sandra Day O'Connor".

Re:Thank you, MGM

[Spock the Baptist]

So you need proof that the 'Axiom of equality' is true.

'Axiom of equality' For all x (x = x).

Re:Thank you, MGM

[Alsee]

Do you realize that 17 USC Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use doesn't actually do anything? That it could be stricken from law and nothing would change?

Section 107 does not define or grant fair use.
Section 107 was first added to copyright law in 1976. Fair use was established by the courts in the early 1800's. It is impossible for a law passed in 1976 to grant or create something that had existed well over a hundred years.

If you check the 1976 congression record when 107 was added to the text of law you'll find the legislators explicitly stated that 107 was not intended to expand, diminish, or alter existing fair use in any way. That it was merely intended to reflect the existing fact of fair use.

If you read the text of 107 very carefully the only thing is actually enforces as a matter of law is "the fair use of a copyrighted work [] is not an infringement of copyright", period. The rest of the text merely gives a list of examples of things that are usually fair use, and the last half lists four examples a court shall consider in determining fair use. Courts are perfectly free to consider other factors, and courts routinely do consider other factors such as whether a use is "transformative". The courts are perfectly free to give the four listed factors zero relative weight if they wish. So the only part of the law that actually says anything binding is that fair use is not infringment.

There is a reason the law does not attempt to define or restrict fair use in any way, a reason the law allows the courts can define fair use however they wish. The reason is that fair use was established by the courts on constitutional grounds. The court had found that the raw text of copyright law was unconstitutional. That copyright law would be struck down as null and void if the courts did not invent 'fair use' to rescue copyright from being stuck down. The courts assumed that copyright law implicitly does not actually attempt to restrict what it claims to restrict. That copyright law implicitly flees in the face of fair use, to avoid being unconstitutional and invalidated.

Most of fair use was established on First Amendment grounds. The raw text of copyright claims to restrict any and all copying. The raw text of copyright claims it would be infringment for a critical review in a newspaper to copy even a small excerpt of text for that review. The raw text of copyright law claims to make effective criticism illegal. This is an unconstitutional prohibition of vital free speech. In this case it is also a violation of the copyright clause of the constitution stating that the purpose of copyright is to promote progress. Suppressing effective review and criticism would not only burden free speech, it would be an intolerable hinderance of progress. Doubly unconstitutional, and making copyright law doubly invalid if it actually restricted what it claims to restrict.

Fair use is the embodiment of Constitutionally protected rights. Copyright does not grant ot define fair use, it is fair use which sweeps away and restricts copyright. Fair use is the only thing saving copyright law from being null and void. Any attempt to pass a law to infringe or revoke fair use use would be unconstitutional.

Fair use does indeed trump copyright.

-

Re:Thank you, MGM

[BrainInAJar]

Actually, I'm familiar with the writings of John Locke. Furthermore, there ARE a postereori proofs in philosophy, most of them come from the philosophical tradition of empiricism of which John Locke is concidered a member of.

Furthermore, the "proof" given by John Locke is paper-thin and rests soley on there being a creator, unless one wants to examine the dubious claims as to the original state of mankind pre-large society. Since acheological evidence shows that man was never, in fact, a free individual running around in a romanticised "state of nature" as Locke's philosophical inquiry in to the matter depends on, it is safe to assume that John Locke's philosophy can be safely disregarded by any right-thinking individual.

Philosophy has long since discarded the idea of natural rights (with a couple deviations, notably Libertarianism, although Nozick uses different justification for his rights than the state of nature of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau), The only remnants of a true-to Locke version being enshrined in the constitution and declaration of independence of the USA.

Re:Thank you, MGM

[cpt kangarooski]

Or put more simply, an exclusive right is a right to exclude others.

Interestingly, copyrights don't confer a right to do anything; that falls to the rights of free speech and press, as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

A corollary of this is that everyone essentially has the same right to e.g. reproduce a work as the author does. However, for the term of copyright, most people are generally excluded from doing so. Upon expiration of the copyright, the public doesn't gain rights, but is no longer impaired from exercising the rights they've had all along.

Hopefully...

[quark101]

This is the first step in P2P being declared legal. Although it may seem like an obvious decision to the people here, remember that not everyone understands the issues so well- i.e. Politicians who make these decisions.

What about DeCSS?

[SchnauzerGuy]

A movie company saying that it is legal to rip audio CDs isn't really big news.

Now if MGM said that ripping video DVDs is legal, then we would have something to talk about.

Re:What about DeCSS?

[kraada]

Actually, I think this is big news, and here's why:

If they say that it's ok for fair use to be able to rip media for personal use, then it follows that they must admit users can do the same for DVDs.

If they are saying it is only allowed in cases where compact discs are involved, then the question becomes: "What makes music special in this way?"

I for one cannot think of why it would be ok to rip cds but not rip dvds. If it is fair use to rip a medium (cd) for use on another device (like an iPod), it should be just as legal to rip a medium (dvd) for use on another device (like xine).

They better think hard and long as to why one is okay and not the other, because the courts will draw the analogy I just made and agree that if some ripping is ok, then all should be (so long as you have the media in question legally, of course).

Re:What about DeCSS?

[timeOday]

I would say all recorded knowlege must be encoded, but encryptiond is encoding with the intent that not just anybody can read it. It's a question of intent. Granted that's not a very technically meaningful distinction, but through the DMCA it is a distinction enshrined in law (hopefully not permanantly but I'm not holding my breath).

So.....

[FS1]

So, basically Hell has frozen over, or is it just experiencing a temporary ice age?

Declared legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you start thinking like that, you've already admitted defeat. Things are legal until otherwise shown/declared. P2P is legal and does not need to be declared legal at this point.

'stripped down fair use rights'

[Richard_at_work]

Uhm, I know that most Slashdotters like to think otherwise, but Fair Use doesnt actually cover most of the things that are commented on on this site. Yes, its may be Fair Use to rip your own CDs, but this is an 'if possible' right, nowhere in copyright law is fair use actually a requirement of distribution - copyright owners dont have to make any considerations for it when implementing copyright protection.

Re:'stripped down fair use rights'

[mark-t]

Actually, ripping your own CD's isn't fair use, it's personal use, which at least in Canada is _specifically_ described in the Copyright Act. Fair use is something else, covering things like satires, research purposes, and the like.

Re:'stripped down fair use rights'

[mindstrm]

No, they don't.

However.

In most countries, and in the US up until recently, (before the DMCA), copyright owners also had no recourse if their anti-copying measures were circumvented. They implemented them to make a statistical difference, not a legal one (and it worked more or less)

Fair use was not spelled out, but was a defence against copyright violation.
Nowadays, in the US, if you break copy protection in order to make fair use of the work, you have STILL broken copyright law.. making fair use moot.

It's not black and white, but the fact is, the DMCA and other proposed legislations put far too much power in the hands of copyright holders; where before there was balance, now there is not.

Re:'stripped down fair use rights'

[kraada]

If it's Fair use to rip your CDs, then it's Fair Use to rip your CDs even if there is DRM in the way. You are converting from one medium to another. This would severely weaken the DMCA, a law about which we have all been complaining profusely.

You're right that the music and video industries can try and implement more and more complicated DRM in order to make it very hard for people to rip said materials. However, they will continue to be broken. And if the conversion is legal, the tool used to do the conversion (via the Betamax decision) is legal as well.

All of which is indeed important and good for the consumer in the long term. (Now I'm just hoping this wasn't an april fool's joke by the zdnet bloggers . . .)

Re:'stripped down fair use rights'

[cpt kangarooski]

Setting aside that your logic is really flawed in light of what the law authoritatively says must be proved to make out a prima facie case, you might find this essay enlightening.

But they weren't going after rippers to begin with

[SlashChick]

AFAIK, all of the lawsuits thus far were from people sharing large volumes of MP3s on P2P networks. Have the record companies have ever even threatened to prosecute people who rip music from CDs and put it on their portable MP3 players? I highly doubt that this really the big concession that the ZDNet blog says it is.

short term problem

[geoff lane]

Writers and artists survived for a long time before copyright laws existed and will continue to survive for a long time after copyright laws are abandoned as unenforceable because of modern technology.

Of course

[bonch]

As technically-inclined people, we need to make sure society as a whole understands that there is a difference between technology and the use of technology. P2P is just a technology. Banning P2P because there are people who use it illegally is ludicrous. We have to make sure the fair and legal uses for P2P are known.

Naturally, this opens up other discussions about technologies and their uses. Some might argue that based on the above argument, everyone should have the right to own a gun, since it's not the technology that's bad but the use of it by certain people. But these are debates that need to be had to mature the discussion about the difference between a simple object or technology and the way human beings use it for their own gains or against others.

Basically, confronting the issue with education and discussion, instead of reacting with lawsuits, is the way to find a position the majority of society can agree on.

DeCSS violates IP if used as a DVD player

[geekee]

"What about using DeCSS to watch DVDs on Linux or other platforms? It should be interesting to see MGM try to wriggle out of this, since I doubt that the company is going to champion any expansion of fair use."

Although it should be legal to rip a DVD to make a backup, there are IP issues with using DeCSS. DVD player manufacturers must pay a licensing fee to use the DVD format. By using DeCSS to play your own movies on your computer, you are not violating fair use, but you are using the technology without paying the licensing fee. Therefore, it seems DeCSS should be legal as a copying tool, but not as a playback tool, although IANAL.

DVD Packaging Warnings

[lxt]

This seems like a good time to ask a question that's been bugging me since I bought a new release DVD a few days ago - as well as some copy propaganda video that came up, I also got a FACT (the UK copy protection "federation") warning which in very bold letters told me "It is illegal to copy this DVD".

It didn't say anything about distribution - merely "It is illegal to copy this DVD". But I thought under UK (and US) law I was allowed to copy physical media for my own personal use, or if not that for my use as a backup copy.

If I'm right, does that mean someone could actually have some sort of legal case against FACT, seeing as they are wrongly informing consumers of their legal rights?

I'm obviously not a lawyer, and I only ask this out of curiousity...

Re:DVD Packaging Warnings

[arkhan_jg]

Actually, that's not an explicit defence against infringement under UK copyright law. Our version of Fair Use is called Fair Dealing, and has very limited exceptions -
basically, you can only use a limited portion of a copyrighted work for education or news reporting etc. A wholesale copy, even if it's for your own use, is technically illegal. Ergo, ripping a CD to MP3's, or a DVD to your hard drive are not legal - but not enforced.

However, the courts have generally ruled that a non-distributive, non-profit copying is legal, such as timeshifting by taping radio shows, or making transient copies in order to run a program.

It's likely that ripping a CD or DVD, for your own personal use (and not say, your mate) would equally be judged non-infringing if it ever came up in court.

That is until the EUCD comes into force. The UK has already signed up to this european legislation, we're just waiting on the patent office to write a version of the law for parliament to pass. The EUCD is more restrictive than the DMCA, and the UK version will almost certainly prevent the bypassing of copy-control mechanisms by any means. Therefore when it passes, bypassing CSS to rip your own copy will likely be explicitly illegal, rather than technically as at the moment.

Property Rights

[hhawk]

Lots of issues here; let's walk through them all

1) File sharing and "ripping and sharing" in general expand the market and drive up sales and possible, disintermediation of the record labels.

2) MPIA has been wrong about this issue; they would have killed the VCR rental market, for example; instead a multi-billion dollar business was created.

3) For a song, there is the copyright on the words (Lyrics; song writer) and the (Music; composer) and is their copyright for the performance as well (e.g., the artists). I believe the record companies also assert a copyright on the finished album (CD) as well; which maybe legal and all, but well isn't really for something all that creative and artistic that it would worth copyrighting (and the some day releasing it into the public domain.

4) You certainly have the right to make archive copies and/or to use that copy and keep the "master/original" safely stored for safe keeping.

5) If you also have the right to lend your CD to a friend or have a library and lend out CDs/DVDs.

6) Do you really however, have the right make copies of your archive and lend/give those?

6a) While it's good for business to do so (my belief), I think it is illegal.

6b) I've driven through south central LA and seen crack being sold in 20 sec. transactions and at the time said, when you can sell 1 Terabyte of music that way, legal or NOT, copyright becomes some you can not enforce. That doesn't make it legal, but makes it so you would want to change the law...

7) Economist and Hover Inst. Fellow, Thomas Sowell called P2P sharing akin to fencing stolen goods, but for that to fly you'd have to "selling" the copies... It's not fencing, if anything its accessory to theft, but it's possible (AND THIS IS BIG THING) that accepting that it is THEFT, that there is NO Damage and NO Loss; again it actually has inverse damages; it enriches the copyright holders (see points 2 and 6a.

Not fair use - unregulated use!

[superdude72]

For the thousandth time: Copyright regulates *distribution*. It simply doesn't apply to making a copy for my own use. I can make as many copies as I want for myself and the copyright holder has no right to any control over this, provided I don't distribute the copies. I don't need a "fair use" exemption--the law simply doesn't apply.

"Fair use" is an exception to the law. This is what permits me to reprint verbatim part of a copyrighted work in, say, a book review, and publish that review without violating copyright.

This is what is so evil about the DMCA. It enables copyright holders to invent new rights for themselves--such as the right to prevent me from making copies for personal use--with DRM technology, then enforce that new right by making it illegal for me to circumvent the DRM.

Re:Completely meaningless statement

[jasomill]

There is no such thing as "judicial estoppel". If he meant collateral estoppel or res judicata, those only apply to rulings by the court, not statements made in court.

judicial estoppel. Estoppel that prevents a party from contradicting previous declarations made during the same or a later proceeding if the change in position would adversely affect the proceeding or constitute a fraud on the court. --- Also termed doctrine of preclusion of inconsistent positions; doctrine of the conclusiveness of the judgment.

--- Black's Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition

MGM loses before the verdict is even in

[Rightcoast]

Like the article says:

But they've now conceded the contrary in open court, so if they actually win this case they ll be barred from challenging ripping in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel.

It is of course obvious to most us that this is allowed, and has been for some time. There are many people who aren't sure if this is legal or not, and as they find out it is, will begin to wonder:

If I can rip a Song off of my compact disk, what makes it so wrong to rip one I have paid for and my kid scratched, broke, etc.

I wonder if the major players in litigation realize that by taking these cases to court, they are hurting their cause. The more people become educated though soundbytes alone, the less power over our rights the MGM's of the world will have.

Re:But they weren't going after rippers to begin w

[dalutong]

I highly doubt that this really the big concession that the ZDNet blog says it is.

Ah, but it is. Admitting that people have _any_ rights to their purchase (other than listening to it in its original form) is a big step. After all, you can't argue that you have the right to share something legally until you have crossed the very basic step of establishing that you have the right to do something with it besides listen to it on the original medium.

If this could be done 100 years ago...

[Husgaard]

This reminds me of what I think was the best April 1st joke this year, claiming that a 100 years old supreme court decision said:

Therefore, in the matter of defendant Thomas Alva Edison versus respondent the Book Authors Guild and respondent the Sheet Music Publishers Association, this court unanimously concurs with the lower court's decree. In inventing and offering for sale his "moving picture" and "phonograph" devices, the defendant induced countless infringing acts against the holders of copyrights for books and music. Defendant Edison's assets are to be seized in order to make restitution to the respondents. Furthermore, all phonographs, record players, moving picture equipment and similar devices are to be confiscated and destroyed. All "record" companies and "film studios" most disgorge their ill-gotten gains and henceforth cease and desist all operations now and forevermore.

One side of this court case does IMHO not know what they are doing.

The recording industry tried the courts to stop radio airplay of recordings. Now radio is both a revenue source and a major free (except for payola) advertising channel.

The movie industry tried the courts to make the video recorder illegal. Now video rentals and sales are one of their largest revenue streams.

And now they try the courts to make new technology illegal - again. I bet that p2p will end up generating more revenue for these companies. (In France and several other european countries they already are generating revenue from p2p.)

Don't these companies want to earn money?

321 studios should sue

[bravo369]

they were put out of business by the movie industry and now they concede it's perfectly fine to make copies. With that revelation, 321 studios should be allowed to sell dvdxcopy again.

Re:Keep telling yourself that...

[Stalyn]

Without copyright law, people would have no incentive at all to write music since anyone could play it without paying them.

no incentive... how about being creative?... the money earned afterwards is just a bonus.

Btw, getting rid of copyrights will also destroy every open source project as some greedy company would be able to easily rip off the hard work of the developers.

If you eliminate IP then selling ideas would be against the law. All ideas would be free and without copyrights any idea is public domain. I mean of course you wouldn't be able to provide yourself a means to live if you were in the trade of ideas.

However maybe there is a business model or economic system that can provide a means to live for those who do work in the trade of ideas. Just because there doesn't seem to exist one currently doesn't mean there will never exist one.

Re:copy protected CDs

[pla]

What does this mean for copy protected CDs?

Legally, absolutely nothing. MGM can tell us we have a moon made of green cheese, God wants us to kill gay baby whales, and that we can copy CDs, and none of it means anything at all in court.

Also, we need to skip over the fact that Phillips has denounced these broken CDs as not actually CDs. So let's reduce the question to referring to more-or-less CD-like audio discs.


So... Ignoring all of the above... The answer still depends. CD copy protection refers to quite a few different technologies, ranging from the "copyright" bit, to broken TOCs, to unrecoverable C2 errors, to trying to install what amounts to a virus on your computer, to (haven't seen these come out yet, but I fully expect it eventually) data-only discs that will never ever play on a normal audio CD player.

In the first case (copyright bit), this does nothing more than the "Copyright 2005" already on the outside of the CD packaging. Fair use wins.

In the second and third cases, if your player can still read the disc, you probably don't even know the disc has any form of structural damage, so you don't need to circumvent any protections. Fair use wins.

In the fifth case, this would pretty much match the current internally-inconsistant legal situation with DVDs... You have the "right" to copy it, but you would have to break the law (DMCA) to do so, by breaking whatever access control mechanisms (however weak) the disc has.

The fourth case gets really interesting, though... These discs usually have two sections, an audio section and a data section containing something like WMA files. Once you get infected with the "driver" for these discs, you cannot access the audio tracks, only the digital ones. So post-infection, the situation reduces to #5 (thus my elaboration on that one out-of-order). Before infection, we get into a whole world of nasty tangled legal problems that I do not have the qualifications (IANAL, obviously) to comment on beyond mere speculation. For example, do you have the "right" to not install unwanted software on your computer? If so, press the shift key and have a ball. And what if you run Linux? Does the non-availability of a virus/driver for the protected content exempt you from having to worry about its existance (in that case, you would simply access the otherwise-unprotected audio tracks, you couldn't access the data track)? What if you have autoplay disabled by default, for security reasons (as EVERYONE should!)? Could that still count as circumvention, even though it doesn't require you to "do" anything? Tricky.


Overall, it will take either a new law like the DMCA, or a massive shift in public opinion on this matter, before you'll see any media companies try to take someone to court simply for ripping their own CDs or even DVDs. They would have an exceedingly difficult time proving you broke the law, they would risk the courts declaring sections of laws such as the DMCA invalid, and the cost of losing would set a precedent that, in their current mindset, would completely destroy their current business model. Not to mention, if they win, they would risk enormous public backlash, along with the possibility of huge lawsuits in some cases (Sony, for example, producing CDs, CD copy protection, and MP3 players, can only get away with that level of corporate psychosis because the law remains somewhat unclear on the entire issue).

Comparison to DVD...

[doormat]

I like the last question in the article. Basically it poses the question that since MGM admitted its legal, vis a vis fair use, to rip CDs to put on an iPod, shouldn't fair use cover ripping DVDs to another device (like a PSP, or some portable media jukebox).

The answer involves the DMCA and encryption and how the DMCA is worded to excerpt fair use, even though you broke the encryption. I'm quite interested to see what legal geeks say about this (since IANAL).

Re:Completely meaningless statement

[WebHostingGuy]

You can see the key word in that defination as "declaration". This word has special meaning is is not what happened here. The attorney was arguing a case and not making a legal declaration. Further, it was in response to a question, and could be constued as a hypothetical.

In real life attorneys state a lot of different things in arguments and easily go back and forth on positions. This case does not have the issue of fair use in front of it so a passing statement like this will get news headlines but will not be binding.

Furthermore, even if this does come back up it can be easily defended by stating that one interpretation under the law is that it is fair use. However, at any time a client can assert a position contrary if they feel the situation has changed or they believe an extension or repeal in the law is now proper. That is, "I changed my mind and a better reading of the law now is that it is now fair use." That's okay to do.

If you had the situation where MGM was relying on fair use to win a case where they copied something as used it and stated that ripping a CD was okay under their circumstances then later they try to win another case where they are now asserting that it is illegal--that's was the defination is talking about.

MGM OKs Ripping [Re:Thank you, MGM]

[chronicon]

Once the case is over MGM can always go back to claiming otherwise

No they can't, according to this article:

...if they actually win this case they ll be barred from challenging ripping in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel.

This is a very important point. They cannot have it both ways--whether they like it or not. They have let the proverbial cat out of the bag.

Re:MGM OKs Ripping [Re:Thank you, MGM]

[ePhil_One]

FYI Judicial Estoppel precludes a party from asserting a position in a legal proceeding that is contrary to a position taken by him or her in a prior legal proceeding.

Still, This isn't why they are trying to implement copy protection and it won't affect their attempts to create an uncopyable media. If they can stop you from ripping to MP3, they can keep the song/movie/whatever off the P2P networks. The fact that its impossible to make it uncopyable without making it unlistenable won't stop them from trying.

Re:MGM OKs Ripping [Re:Thank you, MGM]

[l0b0]

The fact that its impossible to make it uncopyable without making it unlistenable won't stop them from trying.

They're already doing this. Haven't you seen the latest MTV Top 20?

The third also.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

[...] it is easy to understand that part of the intent of the 4th was to insure privacy.

It may not be quite as easy to see, but the third amendment is also about both privacy, not just a form of taxation.

Part of the reason for quartering troops with the locals is so the troops can act as spys, observing, for the government, the activity of each family and its neighbors, and reporting anything suspicious to the officers of the army.

It's an old tradition, and one of the things that the founders wanted to end.

For the last time, you are wrong.

[Rumor]

For the last time, you are wrong.

The right to copy belongs solely to the copyright holder. There is no caveat on that right except fair use. The right to make one copy, for you, for someone else, for throwing in the garbage, for anything, is a right solely vested in the copyright holder.

There is no law against distribution. If there were, there would be no First Sale doctrine, because only the copyright holder would be able to sell or give away a copyrighted work. Anyone who possesses a copyrighted work can sell it or give it away (in general). If copyright was distroright, then you would never be able to sell your books or your cds to anyone, or even give them away. But that would be stupid. You simply cannot make a duplicate of a copyrighted work, for any purpose.

Unless it falls under fair use.

Fair Use

[Nom du Keyboard]

Fair Use should always cover translation to a new format when the old format cannot be used in that situation (e.g. ripping a CD to MP3 to play on a portable player that does not include CD capabilities).

I'm not saying it does -- although I hope the court will say so -- but it should. The copyright owner should have no ability to determine or limit how you view the work.

Re:Assigned rights

[cpt kangarooski]

The Constitution calls for reserving the rights to authors and inventors. Current copyright law isn't really doing that if it's allowing the industry to strongarm the artists into assigning the rights through a contract.

No, the law is doing its job. Just because artists are willing to give away their rights doesn't mean that the rights didn't vest in them initially. In fact, it means that the rights must have done so, or else there'd be nothing to transfer.

The Constitution doesn't say a word about whether rights must remain with artists for their duration, and in fact every single copyright law in our history, including English ones that guided the framers, and the first federal one, allowed for copyrights to be assigned.

People have unequal bargaining positions. That's a fact of life. Taking away their ability to bargain doesn't help much.

Fair Use doesn't apply to private collections

[wombert]

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

Read sections 107 and 108 -

"Fair Use" refers to reproducing works in part or in whole for comment, criticism, or scholarship. It doesn't work for your private DVD collection

Archival copies are permitted for public libraries or research archives. Again (and unfortunately), this doesn't apply to your private DVD collection.

Extend copyright terms in exchange for source...

[rice_burners_suck]

I have an idea: Congress should step in and create new legislation that returns the time-restricted copyright and patent protections to their original length, retroactively.

Keep the part of the law that states that any work is immediately copyrighted by its creator, even if a notice is not present, but you only get so many years, and then, that's it. It goes into the public domain.

And here's something cool: Offer an additional "extra bonus" copyright protection term, say, ten years extra, for full release of "source"... If it's music, all notation, lyrics, recordings, and other matter used in production. If it's a movie, all the original film, etc. If it's software, the source code and building scripts. Whatever it is, it must be submitted to a government agency created for the purpose a year or so before the copyright expires, and that agency will make sure that all the required materials are there. If they are, the additional "extra bonus" time will be awarded, with the materials released to the public domain when that additional term expires.

You'll find a lot of software companies running up against the copyright limit for versions they released so many years ago, and they'll be desperate for the additional time. Say it's version 9 right now, but version 1 is nearing the copyright limit... Ten years from now, when it's version 12, the complete source code for version 1 will come out. May seem like a huge lag of so many years, but UNIX was created how many years ago? Ten years ago they were saying that BSD is dying. And what the heck am I using to type this up? A Mac. Running BSD. Some of the code running in this thing, I'd bet you, is at least 20 years old. Probably crap they wrote, perfected, and never touched again. How often do you look at the code for tail?

So, yes, you could get additional time in exchange for all the source, or simply let the release go into the public domain and keep the source secret.

Send this to your non-tech friends and family

[michaelmalak]

In response to a casual user of the Internet who asked me what FTP is, I ranted off the response below. You can send it to your non-tech friends and family who may not be aware of what the Internet was meant for.

File Transfer Protocol -- the original "P2P" file sharing from the 1980's.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc959.html

As the Internet was used mainly by the military and by universities back then, it was used to allow researchers to share published papers, research data, and software they had written.

That's why MGM v. Grokster is so bogus. P2P file sharing was one of the main purposes of the Internet (it wasn't to surf cnn.com).

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120228,0 0.asp
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster

Which brings me to another pet peeve. I keep seeing news reports on various topics that say things like "Internet and e-mail access". What they really meant to say was "web and e-mail". HTTP is but one of many protocols that run on the Internet. "The Internet" is much bigger than just "the web".

To make that even more clear, prior to the web, when you signed up to the Internet, you would expect "e-mail and UseNet". Now you expect "e-mail and web and maybe UseNet if the ISP is a) nice and b) retro".

It just illustrates that Internet protocols come and go. FTP was a file sharing protocol. Grokster, Kazaa, etc. are just new file sharing protocols.

UseNet itself is actually also based on peer-to-peer technology. UseNet is the globally distributed message board system. groups.google.com archives UseNet posts, but they are just one of thousands of UseNet servers across the globe collaborating to provide the service. UseNet servers talk to each other as "peers" to synchronize their message postings.

The whole nature of the Internet was originally "peer-to-peer". But two things have come along to keep that concept out of the minds of most Internet users:

a) Web technology, which is more client-server than peer-to-peer. The popularity of the HTTP protocol has made it seem to most people that the web is the Internet, and thus most people think that to participate on the Internet means you are supposed to "log in" to some "official" computer (e.g. browsing to cnn.com)

b) Dynamic IP. The inventors of the Internet thought that 2 billion IP addresses was enough for the world. Well, we've run out, and so now when you get an Internet account you no longer get your own "static" IP address. Instead, you get a "dynamic" IP address. That makes it impossible to register a domain name (like underreported.com) to your own computer at home. Instead, you have to pay a "hosting provider" to use their computer running on their network that happens to be privileged enough to have static IP addresses. In the old days, everyone's computer handled their own e-mail, their own FTP server, etc. FTP is really only effective with static IP addresses. The rise in popularity of so-called "P2P file-sharing apps" is due in part that they were built to work with dynamic IP addresses (because they advertise themselves on a custom protocol as opposed to relying on the DNS (Domain Name System, where names like underreported.com are recorded along with their static IP addresses)).