Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
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.
We have a double-agent in the government, it both protects and abuses us. Our only hope going forward is we can swing them our way. Forbidding DRM makes things like the DMCA irrelevant. This also levels the field for a lot of hardware manufacturers. They no longer have to pay a fee to make DVD players.
The end result may be that DVDs won't be sold in France but there's this little thing called the European Union...if they refuse to sell DVDs to France, they cannot do business in the Union. So no DVDs for Europe? Doubt it.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Your interpretation of the basic premise of copyright law is in error. They don't own the content, they own the copyright. This right to copy is a government granted limited monopoly of producing copies of a given work. It is not up to the copyright owner to determine the legal reach of this monopoly, it is up to the courts and the legislatures. If the French courts decide that this government-granted monopoly does not extend to limiting personal copying for the purpose of transfering to a different media format, then that's just tough nuts.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
CSS is a big problem. It's how they implement their illegal price fixing.
It's illegal to sell the same product for different prices in different markets and attempt to prevent enterprising individuals from reselling the product if the price difference is sufficient to make it profitable.
Like selling discs in the east for a buck, selling them in North America for 20 and using region coding to prevent us from ordering discs from overseas. Or selling them in North America and preventing them from being resold in Europe.
CSS and region coding aren't about copy protection at all. Copy protection is just the excuse they use to justify their price fixing measures.
It's not really that different from that RAM price fixing story that ran the last couple of days, and if there was any justice, the perps would be dealt with the same way. But, of course, there isn't any justice, just goons in government uniforms acting on behalf of the highest bidder.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth