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French Courts Ban DRM on DVDs
blamanj writes "According to a story on Boing-Boing, the French courts have banned DRM copy-protection on DVDs, because it is a consumer right to make a backup or to change formats (in this case, to VHS). Original story (in French) is also available."
I don't believe this. I'll believe it when I see it... it seems too farfectched to be true.
Gravity Sucks
the French make the right decision! Guess I don't have to worry about my "backed-up" DVDs then ;)
But this judgement goes in the opposite direction of the EMI case, by a Versailles appeal juge. They said EMI could apply the copy protection scheme on audio-CD, given that the costumers knew what they bought. The court asked EMI to give 10 000E to UFC-Que choisir to repair the moral damage, since this system cause some players not to read their audio-CDs. http://www.clubic.com/actualite-19778-la-protectio n-dvd-rendue-illegale-.html/
The answer IS 42.
Looks like I'll be buying my movies from France here on out. It's not like the MPAA would stop selling DVD's in France...
Would they?
Bless you France for your gift of liberty.
I like the French. They cut through the crap, and they have pretty girls. Like that court ruling that you could pirate stuff, as you'd already paid the "piracy" tax on the blank CDs. Rock on, La France.
Get your own free personal location tracker
et tu?
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
The French are invaded by the MPAA. Resistance crumbles within the hour.
-ShadowRanger
Wow, I'm shocked.
This must be a first.
Now France will be known for wine, cheese, and DRM-free DVDs!!
So what's going on here? Generally we don't like what the french courts are doing (such as their lawsuits against nazi junk on auction sites), but this seems like a Good Thing (tm).
Is this another thing that appears to be good, but actually creates more problems than it solves? Or is it truly a boon for DVD lovers everywhere?
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
that since we are all gods children it is legal for me to share with my brothers and sisters via P2P.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
No wonder people called them Freedom Fries. It seems the French are endowed with the natural freedoms us Americans have become used to losing.
From this day forth, I proclaim the French to be the bravest, politest and sweetest-smelling of all Nations! Let's hope this extends to the next generation of media, also.
I think this is a good step on the process to beat the simple fact that DRM is a fundamentally bad idea into the skulls of the greedy movie corporations.
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But the french! They hate google! They didn't support our war! They... they... put mayonnaise on their fren- freedom fries! They're freaks! They're cheese-eating surrender monkeys! I don't care if they gave us the statue of liberty or helped us in the war of independence! They... they... [head explodes]
I feel proud to be an American ripped off by good American corporations rather than a filthy Eurofag and their misguided economic and social liberalism.
Source (linked to by the boingboing article)1 3
http://www.allpeers.com/blog/?page_id=1
UFC-Que Choisir (a French consumer protection organization) has been granted a prohibition on DVD copy protection devices by the Paris Court of Appeal, these devices having been judged to be incompatible with private copying rights.
Arnaud Devillard, 01net., April 22, 2005 at 7:28pm
What consumer protection groups have not yet succeeded in gaining for CDs, they have just obtained for DVDs. On April 22nd, the Paris Court of Appeal prohibited the use of DVD-based copy protection systems. The reason? The incompatibility of this practice with private copying rights.
Two companies, Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, thus suffered a serious setback after having won the case in the Court of First Instance at the end of April 2004.
UFC-Que Choisir latched onto the case of a consumer who was unable to copy a DVD of Mulholland Drive, a David Lynch film produced by Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, onto a video cassette. This person wanted to watch the film at his mother's, who did not have a DVD player. The strict familial context mandated for the exercise of private copying rights was therefore applicable.
The tribunal also faulted the DVD producers for lack of consumer information. This was not entirely absent but was judged to be insufficient. The label "CP" for "Copy Protected" was indeed present on the jacket, but in "small characters" and not sufficiently explicit.
A worrying judgement for the French Video Producers' Association.
Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal have one month to unblock their DVDs. At the same time, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France must pay 100 euros in damages to the consumer in question. The same two companies, and Studio Canal, must also pay him 150 euros as well as 1,500 euros to the consumer association.
On the other hand, the court refused the request for damages and interest by UFC-Que Choisir against Studio Canal. The consumer association admitted to a legal misstep on its part, having chosen the wrong target for its request. The court also refused to release a judiciary communiqué on the decision.
It goes without saying, however, that UFC-Que Choisir is more than satisfied, as the damages and interest were not the main object of the case. This was rather the acceptance of its argument regarding private copying. This, and the fact that the decision can be applied to other cases "as long as the original DVD was purchased legally," says Gaëlle Patetta of the association's legal department.
But for the delegate general of the Video Producers' Association, Jean-Yves Mirski, the decision is "worrisome". Not having had the time to analyze the decision in detail, the VPA has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to a higher court (the Court of Cassation). But this is far from out of the question.
In any case, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, this judicial turn of events "directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive." The latter permits the use of copy protection systems. This will certainly not make future legal action on this subject any simpler.
just a few days ago, another court said a CD-audio can be copy-protected, under the only condition that the customer is warned before he boughts.
Boing Boingd 71c2eb0 c831d29fb00/index.html
1 536304e 7b924880606/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/904e40073d016
French - 01Net
http://mirrordot.org/stories/f034fc323a2cc
English Translation here.
Does this mean we can call them French Frys again and stop with all the Freedom Fry nonsense?
Just when I thought we had finally stopped with the overzealous* French bashing here in the US. There's no way that Bush Co. and his corporate masters will not unleash the anti-French/patriotic jingoism after a ruiling like this.
just kidding...mostly...
*I say overzealous because a little French bashing, a la The Onion's "France Surrenders" second headlines in Our Dumb Century is a good thing.
my pet machine
But on the other hand, man, it's the French. I mean, really. They suck. I mean, what are they going to do, surrender to the RIAA (as a Slashbot, I don't know the difference between the RIAA and MPAA, nor am I aware that these American organizations are industry lobbying groups and are therefore completely irrelevent in every sense in the context of this story.)? The French are terrible people, I mean, the other day I read some blog that said that they hate America which they proved by not disarming Saddam Hussein of his limitless WMD arsenal. Had they done so, perhaps I wouldn't have to put Freedom Mustard in my hotdog, which sure doesn't taste as nice as the old French Mustard.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm torn on this one. And, really, there's only one thing I can do about my mixed feelings and the confusion this is causing me: blame the French.
Support Bush. Remember, if you don't support everything he does, then you hate America.
And in other news this morning, hell.. errr I mean France froze over.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
Wow. Something good coming out of France. Who'da thought?
I wonder what will happen here. The French market is not so large that it gets all DVDs made specifically for it. Instead, they tend to use multiple languages and market to a lot of Europe at the same time. If that is the case, do the big media companies stop selling in France or do they start selling non-protected DVDs more broadly? This could get interesting. I wonder if France's actions will snowball or make it a backwater for digital media.
MOD PARENT UP
I blow my nose at you, so-called "DRM" - you and all your silly corporate supporters!
As the automatic translations aren't great here is a link to a manually translated one. http://www.allpeers.com/blog/?page_id=113
The parent needs more freaks.
Maybe we ought to rename French DVDs as "Freedom DVDs", but this time not as a political statement, but rather because of the true freedom one has in DRM-less content.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Wow, a court making a sane decision when it comes to DRM. And in France, again.
Rember, it was also french courts that ruled that the music industry had to give people their money back when they sold copy protected CDs.
And last but not least, a former french PM, now member of the EU parliament is up front in the fight against software patents in the EU.
Make as many lame France jokes as you like, I definately am impressed.
Go France!
Dangit,
I don't know what to think.....aren't we supposed to hate France according to Dub? Stupid media...why cant they just tell us what to think once and for all!
Does this make my DeCSS t-shirt legal in France?
But the parent wasn't redundant when I posted it. :puts head between legs and runs away from evil mods:
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
For me, the MPAA should be able to sell DVDs with any amount of DRM that they desire, as long as they indicate that the DVD is DRMed. I just want the right to be able to break the encryption, or even do simple things like interoperate my devices without being sued.
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
If you really believe in free speech you should admit that Corporations and individuals both should have the right to distribute (and sell) any kind of information they want. Anti-DRM leglisation is socialist and wrong. If citizens get too used to the government protecting them, they will have weak bullshit detectors and will become dependent on the nanny state to tell them how to be "free". As long as no person or property is physically harmed, the government should stay the fuck out of the way. Bring the DRM on!!! Let the idiotic masses pay too much for RIAA music and MPAA movies that they can only watch in very restricted ways. Anyone with at least some partially functioning cognative tissue in their heads will just find innovative indipendent artists. A new market for cheep intelligent media that allows fair use (probably distributed via the internet) will emerge.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
it is only dropped once you idiot.
French military rifles for sale.
Great condition.
Only dropped once.
So much for the french never winning any significant victories. Vive la France!
Most of the DVDs I have purchased in France don't even have CSS protection. A lot of them seem to be cheaply made too - a shitty menu stuck with just French and English soundtrack and the standard film with chapters. These DVDs are a lot cheaper than the special edition (often less than 10) and are very quick to rip to my hard drive.
The PAL standard is an advantage too, it being higher resolution and framerate than the NTSC stuff on my zone 1 DVDs...
Vive les DVDs libres!
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
(Translated from the original French.)
UFC-Que Choisir (a French consumer protection organization) has been granted a prohibition on DVD copy protection devices by the Paris Court of Appeal, these devices having been judged to be incompatible with private copying rights.
Arnaud Devillard, 01net., April 22, 2005 at 7:28pm
What consumer protection groups have not yet succeeded in gaining for CDs, they have just obtained for DVDs. On April 22nd, the Paris Court of Appeal prohibited the use of DVD-based copy protection systems. The reason? The incompatibility of this practice with private copying rights.
Two companies, Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, thus suffered a serious setback after having won the case in the Court of First Instance at the end of April 2004.
UFC-Que Choisir latched onto the case of a consumer who was unable to copy a DVD of Mulholland Drive, a David Lynch film produced by Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, onto a video cassette. This person wanted to watch the film at his mothers, who did not have a DVD player. The strict familial context mandated for the exercise of private copying rights was therefore applicable.
The tribunal also faulted the DVD producers for lack of consumer information. This was not entirely absent but was judged to be insufficient. The label CP for Copy Protected was indeed present on the jacket, but in small characters and not sufficiently explicit.
A worrying judgement for the French Video Producers Association.
Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal have one month to unblock their DVDs. At the same time, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France must pay 100 euros in damages to the consumer in question. The same two companies, and Studio Canal, must also pay him 150 euros as well as 1,500 euros to the consumer association.
On the other hand, the court refused the request for damages and interest by UFC-Que Choisir against Studio Canal. The consumer association admitted to a legal misstep on its part, having chosen the wrong target for its request. The court also refused to release a judiciary communiqué on the decision.
It goes without saying, however, that UFC-Que Choisir is more than satisfied, as the damages and interest were not the main object of the case. This was rather the acceptance of its argument regarding private copying. This, and the fact that the decision can be applied to other cases as long as the original DVD was purchased legally, says Gaëlle Patetta of the associations legal department.
But for the delegate general of the Video Producers Association, Jean-Yves Mirski, the decision is worrisome. Not having had the time to analyze the decision in detail, the VPA has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to a higher court (the Court of Cassation). But this is far from out of the question.
In any case, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, this judicial turn of events directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive. The latter permits the use of copy protection systems. This will certainly not make future legal action on this subject any simpler.
This must be a plot to return the French language back to its world wide popularity!
Wow, I've never been impressed by France before today.
I think the case was easy to understand, easier for a Judge to agree.
This is after a man who was not able to copy a DVD he purchase to a VHS cassette so he can watch it at his mother's place. Which is considered private copying and is a consumer right in France.
Until it affects you, and you can see the problem, most people dont understand the issue. This was the perfect example of people seeing the outcome of copyprotection on something you bought and no longer have control over how you use it.
Of course, I have no idea if I can copy a DVD to VHS tape legally for my own personal use in America, with the laws being passed on riders on bills for IRAQ, who knows.
Granted, this'll get overturned in a heartbeat, but here's something interesting: according to my lawyer-friend, it should be perfectly legal to help people rip their DVDs with De-CSS now, because it's basically become proper fair use. Though he did mention that for anyone hoping to sell a ripping service to les Français, if money trades hands, you'll likely get sued when this is all over. Still, wouldn't this be the first case of it being legal to break encryption?
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Copyright law was created to encourage development, in recognition that works are easy to copy. If works are easy to copy, so the though is, the law can make it illegal to copy them, so publishers can hope to recover the cost of licensing the work from the author.
With encryption of the data, the work is no longer easy to copy; it is redundant to also have legal protection. There isn't copyright protection on a physical device; I can copy a coffee mug, it's just easier to buy one.
I say you get to choose; release in an easily-copyable form, and get copyright protection on that version, or release in a difficult to copy form, and trust that your encryption is adequate.
(And copyright should be no longer than 14 years, renewable once, but that's a different story :) )
OK, *technically* correct, but misleading. The EUCD does NOT permit the denial of personal copying of purchased material.
The EUCD *does* allow copy protection and gives legal criminal sanctions against anyone else giving out cracks.
However, it does not stop the distributor from giving out a crack or NOT USING DRM. The purchaser then is allowed to use that crack or copy non-DRM'd copy as they are allowed under copyright law.
Silly man.
a violation of the DMCA? Turning to the courts sounds like a circumvention technology to me.
BG
For the humor-impaired, this was an attempt to make fun of people who fear culture, liberty, and peace on the grounds that it sounds to homosexuality, piracy, and pupppet governments. Just because it's not funny is no excuse to fail to recognize this as an attempt at humor and not dialog.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Looks like I'll be buying my movies from France here on out. It's not like the MPAA would stop selling DVD's in France...
I wonder if this is part of the hidden agenda with the ruling. The French do not like U.S cultural imperialism as embodied by Hollywood movies. If Hollywood's movie distributors stop selling into the French market, will the French be that upset? And if France becomes a center for the distribution of non-DRM DVDs that hurts Hollywood's profits, will the French be that upset?
It sounds like a win-win proposition for defenders of the French culture.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Good for you! Now, the new word of the day is "sarcasm". Go look it up.
There weren't a whole lot of details, but it said an "Appeals Court".. not being familiar with the French legal system I'd guess that there's probably a higher court and if the verdict can be appealed to a higher court it will, also they (the MPAA) may be able to get an injunction (a stay of the verdict) until the decision is reviewed by a high court.
This would be a good thing if it holds up but somehow I have a feeling that the motion picture industry will likely find a way to quash this. After all don't I remember some Australian court ruling saying that region coding was illegal due to some trade regulations, and that was more than a year ago and region coding is still with us.
But you can't use the phrase "win-win" when talking about France... : p
The MPAA has banned DVDs in France.
I'm suprised the French haven't banned Hollywood movies already, at least ones that aren't filmed in French...
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Obviously, the protection systems are hurting the loyal consumers (yes, there are some, trust me) as a side effect.
.2 cents
In France, it is legal to copy your CD and DVD, and anything. What is forbidden is to widespread them around, or even worse, selling illegal copies (the latter have always been toughly sued).
But now, with these protection systems, when you damage your cd/dvd (kids scratching them, anyone ?), you've lost the benefits of them.
IMHO, i globally agree the idea that you have to pay for what you consume (stealing is BAD. final dot.) -but may disagree on the price it is sold, or the insane way the bill is dispatched to the artists and producer amongst others-.
A good thing would be to life guarantee the possible exchange of your broken/damaged CD/DVD, thus allowing them to be protected and uncopy-able. Also coming as a MUST is "stop making protection system that make your CD/DVD unusable on some legacy device" (like protected CD that could not be played on car player).
That would be a good idea. But that implies that the majors invest some money in these, and also implies the majors cares about the consumer as a whole, not only his money...
my
I'm not excited. In fact, I'm disappointed.
This is not what we should want. We don't want courts or legislation dictating how we provide our content. Just like we don't want courts and legislation dictating how we should consume our content.
Organizations should be free to encumber their products with encrypted copy protected nonsense. Just as we should be free to circumvent that nonsense.
CSS is not the problem. It's laws like the DMCA that are the problem.
... do we like the french, now?
It's only that people must be able to make a private copy.. So you can still make it "Region 2 only", but you must be able to circumvent the Macrovision copy control..
I wonder how they will do that..
I'll be contacting you tomorrow with your instructions for the rest of the week. Don't worry, you can trust me to think for you...
Does anyone have any contact info for the judge/court that decided the case? I'd love to send some flowers
http://www.delcamp.net/forum/fr/files/barrios_limo sna_cecile.mp3
> > Bless you France for your gift of liberty.
> You mean the big statue in New York? I guess
> slashdot really IS late with the news lately!
Regrettably, following the wave of anti-French sentiments in the United States in the past couple of years, the Statue of Liberty was dismantled and sold off for scrap. From a news report:-
"Although it had become something of a national icon, it was felt that the French-built statue from old Europe had no place in modern America.
This was necessary to demonstrate that we had the guts to stand up for what we said, even if that meant sacrificing our statue.
Had we not been willing to back up our words in this way, actions such as the renaming of "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries" would have been seen as cheap-and-easy point scoring or kneejerk xenophobia.
Our willingness to destroy the Statue of Liberty shows that this is not the case; we have principles and when we say something, we *mean* it."
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Disclaimer: Ask yourself: Does what I just read even make sense? Could this guy even be serious?
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
In other news, Slashdot.org gets sued by France for deep linking to a copyrighted news article. Viva France!
He wanted to watch Mulholland Drive with his mother? I hope he's comfortable watching it her when the hot lesbian scene comes on.
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people. - James Russell Lowell
Every morning, 60 million Frenchmen wake up and think about how they can annoy the Americans. Every single day of their lives. Even before taking their first glass of wine and heading to the bakery to get their freshly-baked baguette. This is really their single most important duty to fulfill every day.
/. make it sound like we have nothing else to do of our time than to think about the mighty US of America, how to annoy it, how to counter it. Believe it or not, it happens sometimes that we have ideas, rules, laws of our own, that are not just there to be "against" the US.
Yes, I know it sounds stupid, but you guys here on
And by the way, even though you almost never see them in the US, there is actually a lot of movies produced in France. This ruling is going mostly to piss off the french movie producers. And there is absolutely no need for a "hidden agenda" to explain it.
There was that time they pissed off the President of the United States of America by encouraging Iraq to sell oil in Euro instead of USD.
That ended badly.
then we must follow suit. After all they are world leaders in everything civilized. Viva le France!
As always, this isn't legal advice, this is a Slashdot post, if you want real legal advice, get a lawyer in your area. So take it for what it's worth.
However, my understanding of the DMCA is that it only applies to digital copies and protections. Thus you are still legally allowed to circumvent analogue copy protections, which is what prevents you from copying a DVD to VHS.
The reason you can't make the copy is Macrovision. It's a "protection" that functions by varying the signal intensity in areas that are off screen. This causes the automatic gain control of the VCR to wig out and you get an unstable signal. Some newer devices actually look for it and will just refuse to accept the signal at all.
Well you can eaisly get commercial devices that will filter this out with no ill effects. You can then make a copy as normal. As a practical matter, even if these were to become unavailable (they are still around as of today) you could get a semi-pro or pro VCR that will allow you to manually set the gain, which will then copy fine (though the copy will then have Macrovision present on it).
So at this point it appears to be legal, as well as easy to do. That could change, however.
Alot of canadians put mayonnaise on their french fries too. This always grossed me out in high school. I consider myself more of a tradionalist, I use ketchup and salt only.
The guy would have been prevented from copying his DVD onto video because of the Macrovision copy protection.
So if this goes ahead they will just require that any DVD player hardware sold in France does not have this copy protection system. (But the DVDs still are CSS encrypted).
Wouldn't that be cool- A giant, copper DVD of liberty in NY harbor!
Almost every Harvard student was High School Valedictorian- After a year of college, half are in the bottom of the class
my .2 cents
I want one too!
It wont migrate across the ocean.. And it will get lobbied into oblivion anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Expect all region free DVDs selling in France to offer *only* French soundtracks and *only* French subtitles. It might actually be beneficial for consumers in France since with less languages, the the quality will be better. Though equally, I expect certain DVD producers to hike their prices, citing "increased costs", even though it costs pennies to master and print DVDs, even if just to one country.
When I was checking the comment's actual point assignments I saw it was 50% troll (-1), 50% overrated (-1). Shouldn't saying a troll is overrated mean it is less troll-worthy, and hence should have its negativity docked?
Ummm, this is France - they have hot lesbian scenes in darned toothpaste commercials.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Second off, inciteful ISNT A WORD. look it up. yeah, its not there.
I doubt the guy wants to copy the DVD. More likely he wants to edit it to put the scenes into chronological order so we can finally understand what Lynch was thinking.
What would really rock is if the entire EU adopted an anti-DRM strategy. Since international businesses have to abide by EU rulings (if they want to do business in the hugh market that is the EU), such a ruling EU wide would be effectively world-wide. How do ya like them apples, MPAA?
http://www.answers.com/french&r=67
french: To cut (green beans, for example) into thin strips before cooking.
Some national pride: Fries were invented by some Belgian guy, over a hundred years ago. (Radio 1 luisteraars, wat was die zijn naam nu ook al weer? Don't remember the name, though.) With the amounts we consumed, you could say it's our national food. Besides chocolat.
Some may be, but the vast majority of DVDs sold in Canada are English with French dubbing available. Same goes for videogames. What really sucks for our francophone neighbours is that to save costs, the english (colour) packaging is maintained, but crappy B&W french inserts are added to DVDs and games to comply with bilinguilism.
If I understand this French ruling correctly, it means that completely different DVDs, stripped of copy protections, must be supplied to France.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
- the rulling applies to all DVDs, it nevers says explicitly that american movies have to be unprotected. And yes, in France we actually make some DVDs
- Mulholland Drive was actually produced partly by a french company (http://www.mulholland-drive.net/load.htm?threads
/ film.htm/), le studio canal, which now has to remove protection from all its dvds. This is really american imperialism.
if you want to bash the french, try at least to dig a bit.That's it, I'm moving to France. First they choose not to support a, in my uninformed opinion, bogus war, but now this. Viva la France!
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
Once again, Slashdot's nerdly and politically naive masses applaud the destruction of liberty--in the name of freedom.
A company has--or should have--the right to sell its wares under any terms it wishes. And consumers have the right not to buy it. If we want to see DRM go away, we have to get corporations to voluntarily change their policy, not advocate fascism that forbids digital rights management.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The movie industry has hoisted itself by its petard. How many advertisements have you seen saying "Own it on DVD!"? Well, if they are advertising that they are selling you a copy of the movie, then how can they legally enforce claims that they actually sold you only a licence to view the movie?
Thus, once the copy is yours, it logically follows that you can do anything with it you like, as far as your personal use is concerned. (Copying it for others is still a copyright violation.)
YHBT. HAND.
...they have a different word for EVERYTHING!
I just hates the damn whole lot of em. With their Maginot line and their people not bein' properly mortified when Chiraq's wife & mistress both show up at his funeral and runnin'und nekkid under their clothes.
Its a darn sin I tells yas.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Interest in items of historical value now synonymous with Neo-Nazism.
with Eastasia
we have always been allies of Eurasia...
or was it the other way around?
it's been a while since I've read it.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
doesn't that mean there is no copyright?
There is another good reason to buy DVDs in France. They are an excellent new tool for learning the language.
In North America, most new DVDs come with language choices. Most new DVDs are Hollywood productions and their original audio is in English. There is a subtitle set in English for the deaf. This is a great tool for learning English as a Second Language because the student can read the words as they are spoken. Even if the student's grasp of English is not yet to the point where the words can be understood, it is still an important learning tool.
The hardest part of learning a language like French or English is separating the stream of spoken phrases into individual words. In learning Romance languages like French and Spanish from English (and vice-versa), the vocabulary isn't the biggest problem because 50% of the words are the same. It's the rhythms of the pronunciations that is so hard to understand. Being able to see the words being spoken on the screen as they are being said goes a long way to understanding what is being said after getting an initial mastery of the language's basic vocabulary and grammar structure.
Hollywood films have a big problem with this learning approach, however. The audio and subtitles are translated by different teams and they never match. For this learning technique to work, you need an exact match between the spoken dialog and the subtitles.
Movies made in France and put on DVD do have this needed exact match.
This is a great tool for learning a language and I suggest giving it a try. However, I would not recommend learning French if you are living in the US. Spanish is the most important foreign language to learn at this time.
In Canada, however, definitely go with learning French if you are a native English speaker. The first time that you go from Kamloops to Chicoutimi you'll see instantly how smart that it was to take a little time fooling around with audio and subtitles on your DVD player. Even if all your friends do tell you that there isn't any real reason to learn any French because you'll never ever use it. You will.
French movies used to the coolest films on the planet for a short period in the early 1960s and a major contender at all other times. The French invented cinema even if Edison invented motion pictures. But lately French movies have become either really stupid or really stupid and boring. For that reason very few of them actually make it to the US as DVD releases. Or they get filmed in English and dubbed into French. Usually these dub translations have the audio/title mismatch problem. A really great movie to start with is "La Femme Nikita" from early 1990s. Unfortunately, few of the Nouvelle Vague films from the 1960s have both French and English subtitles. And many have not aged well: becoming boring and incomprehensible over the decades. The two best French New Wave films still worth watching are "Jules And Jim" and "La Jetee", both from 1962.
Ummm, this is France - they have hot lesbian scenes in darned toothpaste commercials.
That seals it. I'm moving to France. Either that or buying a lot of French toothpaste.
That green slime had it coming.
By what right do producers of DVDs have on restricting when I can fast-forward or next chapter. I just recently watched a movie and I couldn't jump past the trailers. I got a "operation not permitted". And I was pissed! Just because they own the IP to the movie doesn't give them the right (at least in my mind) to control how I watch the movie and what I must see first before the movie begins. These guys are going too far.
Now we know how the MPAA will exploit Region Codes. DVDs stripped of copy protection will only be sold on French coded discs. Before you rush to buy DVDs from french online stores, make sure your non-french DVD player will play them at all.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
On freedom fries: I always thought it would be cool to have a concession stand at a county fair or other major event, with a sign that reads:
French Fries......$1.00
Freedom fries......$2.00
NEW
Freedom on the march Fries..... $5.00*
*$4.00 goes to pay for the war in Iraq.
"This is after a man who was not able to copy a DVD he purchase to a VHS cassette so he can watch it at his mother's place. Which is considered private copying and is a consumer right in France."
Gee I thought that was a right in the US too.
What happened to our government where it stands for the people/consumer and not the corporations/ceo's.
Too bad advancement in technology is an excuse to get rid of those dam constitutional stupid ideas.
When will the U.S. government realize how unconstitutional our current government is - I guess it will take another revolution.
Every once in a while the french find their testicles to stand up and do the right thing. The last time they did was 1776.
This slashdot article shoots to the top of Google's ranking for the search query "viva".
One good turn - gets all the covers.
This has made my day. Perhaps this will make it even harder for the movie industry to continue their ludicrous DRM crap.
As a Brit now living in the USA, I feel totally ripped off by the movie industry. They have prevented me from even fair use with their artificial region restrictions.
While in the UK I spent a LOT of money on a big DVD collection, which is now totally unuseable/uplayable since I emigrated to the USA just because of region-specifc encryption.
Must be great to have a government that is not in the pockets of the corporations.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
But at least they are being consistant in the matter, and banning the display of crosses, stars of david, yamikas and all other religous symbols...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
From TFA this judicial turn of events "directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive." The latter permits the use of copy protection systems.
European directives are overruling the local laws. So basically we might get a few weeks where copy protection would be prohibited but Europe will enforce the fact that it's actually allowed.
Ummm, this is France - they have hot lesbian scenes in darned toothpaste commercials.
God Bless The French!
That is far from being a uniquely french flaw.
You could say that our (US) preparations for the current war in Iraq were based far too much on the expectation that it would be similar to the 1991 gulf war.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
However, this may make programs such as DeCSS legal in France, which means French servers can make the program available.
And watch the movie studios demand that Congress mandate ingress filtering of foreign packets from hosts known to offer downloadable computer programs whose importation into the United States is a crime. If the Great Firewall of China works...
You wrote:
A company has--or should have--the right to sell its wares under any terms it wishes.
Not if the people (acting through their govt) decide otherwise. Corporations have EXACTLY whatever rights WE CITIZENS decide to give them. THEIR rights are determined by US. If the French govt contrains corporate rights, then it is because the fRench PEOPLE want it that way.
You see, teh American propaganda has warped your perspective. A country is supposed to be "by the people and FOR the people' not by and for the corporations.
See how that works?
So how do we get America headed in that direction? How about trying our politicians for treason?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
But noone can force them to sell the DVD's with frence voice-over/subtitles....
I'm sure they'll find a way to make that 1994 Toubon law apply, or pass a new law to extend it from covering just advertising of goods and services to the actual goods and services being provided to be in French.
Speaking of the Toubon law, what was the legal result of that suit against Georgia Tech Lorraine? I can only see that their website offers a French translation and is working on a German one.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
....corporate power. Al Qaeda? The Nazis? Caesar's armies? Nothing compared to the multinational corporate enemy we all face now. And the worst part is that they have inflitrated our political class. Our treasonous politcians have betrayed us in our hour of need.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
"and they have pretty girls"
With hairy armpits. nice.
Freedom Fried indeed, Looks like france is much more in tune with the times than the USA
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
programs such as DeCSS are legal everywhere in the world, except the U.S., which outlaws the technology even if it would be used for otherwise-legal purposes.
it's easier to resist when you'll, oh, get shot for resisting. Really, France surrendering to Germany is something that we criticize them far too much for. If Germany had, say, bordered the States . . . remember that at the time the U.S. didn't even really have a military force to speak of, compared especially to the German Reich's forces. Nearly anyone could have been steamrolled.
Furthermore, while we make a big deal of our sacrifices in WWI, we did it from the safety of distance; soldiers went over, but the threat to North America was never there. Meanwhile, the horror of war was literally in the backyards at best of the countries in Europe. The French especially had a rough time of it, and just in general Europe was pretty much experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The German forces just overwhelmed them; the military might was just too much to bear (and, it would be quite some time before American production and conscription raised enough military force to be able to help even if it had been the popular opinion). No, France, though admittedly acting with much defeatism, was outmatched, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. The strategic reserve, which had saved France in the First World War, was nonexistent. General de Gaulle managed to forestall the fate of Paris for quite some time, but eventually the crushing weight of German reinforcements.
And if we're going to berate France, then berate Britain at the same time; great friends that they are, they hastily pulled their forces out of the continent as France was being overrun (of course, this was strategically the only sane option at the time, but since when did logic and historical accuracy have anything to do with these kinds of accusations?).
The bottom line is that the causes aren't so straightforward as to just be "oh, those French pansies". It seems to me almost as if the current trend of "belittle the French" might stem more from modern annoyance in the States with France's political opposition to current administrative doctrine than any historical accuracy or fairness. This whole meme is quite suspect.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
You haven't won until you can pack up and go home.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Does anyone know if this mean they will also have region-less DVDs in France now?
Because as it is French movies coming out in Region1 format are realeased for the U.S. market (don't they know you guys hate them with a nationalistic brand of racism? Silly French), so French Canadians get shafted.
I hate region coding, I want japanese, hong kong, australian, french, british and american movies and tv shows, and I don't want to be forced to have the bastardised Disney version!
Damn cartels... why does the MPAA hate freedom?
You can't take the sky from me...
I thought it stood for Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal.
Or is that just for Gigli?
If there was a source of non-DRM none-pirated movies I'd definately buy from it. I think DRM and region coding are things consumers should refuse to accept. Let's create a consumer rights group to fight these things. Even if we have to buy from France or even create our own company, or open content project, to produce movies.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
US, the home the nanny government.
i'm always surprised when people say that producers "have every right" to put on whatever kind of conditions they want when they sell something.
there is simply no "god given" right to absolute unlimited copyright. whatever rights you have are defined by the laws of the country you live in. if the law (and the courts' interpretation of the law) says you don't have a certain right, then you just don't have it.
there are certain "inalienable" human rights that seem to be widely accepted - freedom of thought, freedom of religion, security of the person, due process, etc., that i think you could make a reasonable argument that those rights apply to say, people in china, even if their laws say the don't. but copyright just isn't in that category.
NDAs, EULAs, etc., conditions that try to say "this product comes with no warranty", and so on, always have some clause that says "except where prohibited by law" or some such. there are consumer-protection laws that say all products must have some sort of basic warranty. producers don't have the right to negate those warranties, whatever they might say in their EULAs.
France is full of cunning stunts...
correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the difference that in the U.S., even though you pay these royalties, you still don't have the legal right to make copies?
then shouldn't the government really stay out of the way, and not pass pro-DRM legislation either?
why should they protect the corporations any more than the individuals?
i strongly believe in free speech, and i believe that information is not the same thing as physical property. no-one should be compelled to divulge information. but once they do, if i get information from you, you are not deprived of that information. you still have it. i have it too, and i should be able to do whatever the hell i want with it. i believe the government should not step in to protect corporations' right to make a profit, by limiting what people can do with information, under threat of incarceration.
You guys here on /. make it sound like we have nothing else to do of our time than to think about the mighty US of America, how to annoy it, how to counter it. Believe it or not, it happens sometimes that we have ideas, rules, laws of our own, that are not just there to be "against" the US.
If I offended you, then I apologize.
What I said was not meant to imply that the French spend all their time cooking up schemes to annoy the U.S. As you say, the French have their own laws for their own reasons. I saw the court ruling as a legitimate way to change the economics of imported American movies with an eye toward preserving French culture.
And by the way, even though you almost never see them in the US, there is actually a lot of movies produced in France.
Absolutely! The local university has an excellent International Film Series where I have seen some very enjoyable French movies.
If this ruling stands, it might be a very interesting test of the validity of arguments about DRM. If DRM really is essential to the economics of the motion picture industry, then the ruling will hurt French film industry especially. If DRM is a barrier to film consumption, then the absence of DRM on French DVD should mean prosperity for French film makers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The overwhelming preponderance of /. readers' responses to this story seems to have been a thoughtless regurgitation of all things anti-French. I sort of feel like pointing out that, based on those posts, at least on this side of the Atlantic precisely the sort of idiotic self-centeredness you're describing holds true. The French don't think that way, no, but apparently slashdot does.
This isn't about France -- it's about the suppression of dissenting views. The entirety of the anti-French idiocy over here amounts to one big "ad hominem" attack; nobody really had an answer to Villepain's Security Council arguments, so we demonized the speaker rather than countering the speech.
(Cue jokes about how the French won the American Revolution by pitching in with their navy at the opportune moment... Oh, never mind, we're supposed to forget that one. Surrender monkeys and all that. Yeah. That stuff. Belgian fries. Etcetera.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
It's unofficial DeCSS (really libdvdcss) packages already come from France. (Thanks Marillat!)
Lets expand your history a little farther. When WWI broke out people in Europe had street dances in celebration. Even today when mention WWI to someone from Europe they tell me the world needed that war. (Not was itching for it, but needed it, as if it was a good thing)
Then when WWI was settled the winners in Europe went on a blame Germany rampage and forced restitution fines that Germany had no ability to pay. Germany was desperate, and thus willing for any desperate chance. Hitler was the name that happened to have taken advantage of it, but anyone could have done it.
When Germany rolled over France all those payments stopped.
France was allies with other countires that Germany ran over previously. They had treaties saying they would go to war with Germany, yet they did nothing as those countries fell. There is no excuse for not seeing Germany as a war machine and training troops to take them out, when your allies have already fallen! While I can accept that Germany had a better army, France should have given them a tough fight all the way to the sea. Somehow, despite being technically at war with Germany before troops started crossing the border, France didn't have enough of an army to slow Germany.
The US is annoyed with France. We have learned that like it or not we will be dragged into the world problems. We were reminded again in 2001 when a couple buildings fell, even though Bush was up to that time persuing a more isolationist policy. The US cannot be an isolationist. We are too big for the world to ignore. So we take the alternate approach and deal with the world before we have to dedicate our entire economy to war. We see France standing in the way, as if they want us to wait until things are really bad, and then sacrifice 10,000 soldiers per month, instead of ~ 1000/year now. Seems like a bad deal to me. (with the understanding that nobody can perdict the future, so who knows what would really happen if we had let thing go)
sure. but copying is not stealing. in order for theft to occur, the owner must be deprived of the original item.
and how does one "consume" information? you can consume a physical DVD, but until the last remaining copy in the world is destroyed, the information is not "consumed".
i don't mean to be critical, it's just that this whole thing of equating copying with stealing, to me is just parroting the hysterical propaganda of the RIAA/MPAA. do you know that in former soviet countries, the RIAA has anti-copying campaigns, but there they don't talk about stealing, they talk about it being "communism". they spread whatever FUD and misinformation is necessary to protect their bottom-line profits.
the bible says "thou shalt not steal". but it doesn't say "though shalt not infringe copyright". it just isn't in the same category.
Ketchup, salt, and PEPPER. gotta have the pepper.
If you say so!"
Very good. I was wondering when someone would notice this contradiction. Excellent response to my imperative statement.
The reason the French and Americans don't get along is quite simple: We hate the French for thinking that they are more arrogant than we are. So there!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Now if they'd outlaw non opensource like Brazil
Maybe the motherfuckers would get a clue !!!!!
What one can do is drag the COUNTRY to the appropriate EU court for not implementing the directive correctly
And what makes you think the MPA, the export division of the MPAA, won't take the government of France to court over this issue? Is that how it works?
marker was a rive gauche cineaste. he was never part of the original cahiers group, which kicked off the new wave.
btw, la jetee is coming to DVD soon
So you think putting your whole army (no reserves left) into a long defensive line that the Germans could just drive around the side to avoid was a Good Idea? It worked great for the Germans! A defensive line is supposed to Increase your defense, NO? It is referred to this way because it was a huge white elephant.
Now only if the US will do the same and allow fair use copying so a backup can be made. Of course tha's only a dream, only a congress that's not in the MPAA or RIAA's back pocket can make the change.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The term "Maginot Line" has been used as a metaphor for something that is confidently relied upon despite being ineffectual.
Wow! That sounds remarkably like DRM!
>>>>He wanted to watch Mulholland Drive with his mother? I hope he's comfortable watching it her when the hot lesbian scene comes on.
>>Ummm, this is France - they have hot lesbian scenes in darned toothpaste commercials.
God bless the French!
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
They could have stopped or significantly hurt the Germans. They couldn't.
allofdvd.com
please, please, please.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
You *must* be a troll, because I refuse to believe that anyone can be that stupid.
La Jetee is a great shortish film that every science fiction fan should see (in the original French, if possible). The Hollwood movie 12 Monkeys is based on La Jetee, but as is usually the case, the original is the best. La Jetee is also commonly cited as an influence on The Terminator, and on time travel movies in general. I was flipping through an old New Worlds magazine the other night and found a review of La Jetee by J.G. Ballard in which he describes it as the most realistic example of time travel ever shown on screen. Forty years later, I'd say that's still the case.
It's not too difficult to dig up a copy of La Jetee. There are two DVD versions and one VHS version, each with different cuts and language setup. The most recent DVD version is a region 2 PAL double feature with Sans Soleil, and you can get it from Amazon UK (ref. free link).
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling