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More Freedom for DVD Players?
weopenlatest writes "According to this Wired article, the House just passed a bill allowing DVD players to skip through programming. While the article stressed using this ability for parental controls, it would seem like it would also apply to annoying previews and ads that load automatically. Could this be a step in the right direction towards uncrippled DVD players?"
Although it may be legal to create a DVD player that can be programed to skip sections, that doesn't mean that the industry has to license CSS to a maker who wants to do this in the future.
Under the new proposed HD DVD standard, any player manufacturer's key can be rescinded for future HD DVD releases, so DRM may prevent the ability to enable would-be bowdlerizers from implementing their schemes.
The government has to get involved in permitting stuff like this because they previously MADE IT ILLEGAL with the DMCA. The market isn't likely to help with that.
The Directors Guild of America sued ClearPlay in federal court in Colorado alleging copyright violations. Basically the argument was that ClearPlay was creating a derivative work (actually 2^N - 1 derivative works) by placing markers throughout a movie denoting skippable scenes containing sex or violence. This provision was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) to specifically exempt such marking from being considered a derivative work for purposes of copyright law.
I'd like to think this is an instance of enlightenment in regard to our ridiculous copyright law, but I think it's just a coincidence that this is a reasonable provision. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting something like this for commercials. The culture war- specifically hatred of Hollywood- probably had more to do with this law. Color me cynical, but I suspect it may be a gift to ClearPlay as well, who will be especially well positioned after this. Once the bill is signed into law, the suit against them will be dismissed.
Nothing was prohibiting the players, but Clearplay the company had wrote a program to skip over non-family friendly scenes. The movie industry was aghast, saying it was against the director's wishes, the vision of the film, and a violation of copyright. This new law allows them to legally strip videos without breaking copyright.
You can circumvent the region coding on a lot of DVD players, a quick search on google should provide you with a lot of information on it. And don't bother using any of the services that require you to pay for the information, just look around, you'll find it for free.
I am studying a foriegn language, and purchased movies from amazon.fr to help learn listening to the language. If I set my DVD drive to region 2 to watch a French movie, then later back to region 1 to watch an USA movie, one I do that 5 times my DVD locks so I can't change the region on it. WHY? The movies I am buying from France are not even available in the USA.
Not that it's a solution to the underlying problem, but you should check out amazon.ca for French movies. They have a sizeable selection of French-only stuff, and Canadian DVDs are region-1, just like the US. They're also NTSC, so your TV and DVD player should handle them too.
You'd be surprised, actually. The branching on the Alien Quadrilogy and The Incredibles was flawless. What's that, you say? No branching on The Incredbiles you say? Try watching it in another language and check out the opening sequence (or just about any scene that had text in-picture). You'll see a different title number listed, but you can bet they didn't encode the full movie twice on the same disc. Same goes for any of the Alien movies for Director vs Theatrical.
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