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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."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Is this really the "right" decision? 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.
No, they're fries, not frys. Unless you eat electronics stores.
I don't get it.
Moreover it's retarded to think of France and all things French as some sort of homogenous class that should be entirely hated or loved. It's perfectly OK to like some things, like their women and their food, and not like other things like their snooty attitude. And even then those have caveats, like French women can be snooty, and the French only seem to act snooty because you don't understand their politeness rules (they think you're being rude to them).
I don't support the PATRIOT act or the DMCA. I agree with your assessment that corporations do not really deserve ANY rights, but under the current legal system corporations are deamed legal persons. This should be changed, but its a seperate issue. I still stand by what I said originally. What if an INDIVIDUAL wants to sell some DRM software? They should be able to do it. You don't need consumer rights, you need human rights. If you give people free speech and free assembly they will form unions and boycots and will crush unjust corporate practices. We don't need the government to decide what is dangerous or true. Blatant lying in advertising and selling hazardous products should be allowed because I believe people are the best judges of what is true, not the government. If the masses are so easily duped, they are idiots and get what they deserve. You can't save people from themselves. (Think of the irrational drug war) If you allow free speech, eventually people will learn who they can trust. Compare a heavily government regulated media-- TV, to a free one--the Internet. On TV there a quite a narow corporate agenda that nevertheless is mostly free from blatent lies and the selling of dangerous things. The internet containes lots of harmful and false information, but also has data on issues that corporations refuse to report. The diversity and freedom of the internet creates smarter media consummers.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
they're no more belgian than they are french, they were actually invented somewhere between Paris and Brusselles. nobody really knows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fries#History
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.
The people in those "socialist" countries appear to be a lot more aware of their freedoms, despite the government giving them many protections.
Governments go do three things regarding the people and corporations: they can help the corporations to the detriment of the people (the US model), or they can help the people by restricting corporations (the state socialist model), or they can leave things be and let the free market decide (the libertarian model....libertarianism can be either capitalist or socialist. Libertarian capitalism assumes the corporations will compete and improve as a result...libertarian socialism assumes that the masses will get sick of the corporate bullshit and take things into their own hands by developing alternative free industries or by unionising, or etc)
I perfer the socialist model to the US (fascist) model, but like the libertarian-socialist model best.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
The enforcement of the french belief of secularism is definitely one of their "right decisions". To pretend that a portion of the muslim society does not mistreet their woman compared to standards set and expected in western society is pure bull shit.
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.
Stephan