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Circuit City Ripping DVDs for Users
Grooves writes "Circuit City is offering a DVD transfer service that's sure to enrage the MPAA. For $10 for 1 DVD or $30 for 5, Circuit City will violate the DMCA and
rip commercial DVDs for users to put on their mobile players. From the article: 'This should be a viable market. Software and services are losing out to draconian digital rights management philosophies and anti-consumer technologies aimed at increasing revenues stemming from double-dipping--what I call the industry's penchant for charging twice for the same thing.' They note that fair use
backups of DVDs have not been tested in court because all of the attention is focused on the circumvention software itself." Update: 08/04 22:40 GMT by Z : Acererak writes "Red Herring reports that Circuit City isn't offering any DVD-to-DVD copying scheme. The Slashdotted sign was an isolated screwup."
Circuit City already has one foot in the grave, so why not take a chance. They've been losing their @ss to Best Buy for years. I wish them the best of luck though!
http://religiousfreaks.com/And 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... *whistle and confetti!* congratulations Circuit City!!! You just got sued!
That is, unless Circuit City is giving a cut of the money to the MPAA. Thankfully Circuit City has deep pockets and good lawyers, it should be interesting to see the MPAA go up against them instead of picking on little kids.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Its good to see someone that actually matters standing up. It would be even better to see them refuse to sell DVDs without being allowed to rip them for customers. I wonder if Circuit City actually sells enough DVDs for that to make a difference?
Did some bean counter had a brain fart when performing the benefit analysis? Make gobs of money by ripping DVDS minus bigger gobs of money paying attorney fee equals a world of hurt.
I don't care much for Circuit City, but I'm glad they're taking this on. It's going to take companies like this to change the mindset (god knows no one wants to listen to "the little guys")
My studio - www.graylands.ca
10 bucks per CD? Better option is to get the DVD Decrypter and donate a few bucks to the developers :)
S
As the content pushers (Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart) try to go into these new arenas to sell content. What happens if WalMart goes to the RIAA and MPAA and says "we want to be able to sell the content however we want." Will /. cheer then as they push their weight around to shake up the *IAA monopolies?
I know they're just looking for another revenue stream, but its great to see big companies (even inadvertently) fighting the system on behalf of individuals rights.
Didn't DVD Decrypter get shut down by the British version of MPAA?
[VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!]
They must have thought this through. You don't do something risky like this if you're a massive business. They must have talked to a lawyer and have A) a loophole, or B) a license to do this (sharing profits with MPAA?). I mean, million or billion dollar companies are careful to avoid these sorts of lawsuit-risking moves, simply because they're a huge target.
In what way would this violate the DMCA?
Since Circuit City has the software and tools to do the copy and would presumably not be handing them out to customers the standard "providing tools to circumvent copyright" issue wouldn't apply. Since backups for play on another device are fair use and legal I don't see the issue.
Obviously, since companies don't like getting sued into non-existence I suspect Circuit City feels they are on sold legal ground as well.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
It's a shame that only Circuit City is challenging the MPAA. Their offering is commercially viable. But I don't think Circuit City has the financial wherewithall to take this to its conclusion.
I would love it if some large corporations would gang up against the MPAA and RIAA. Power without challenge is a dangerous thing -- evidenced by DRM, and the litigious nature of these two agencies.
Many years ago Circuit City bravely (but foolishly) pursued the DivX versus DVD issue (the betamax vs. VHS of its time). That battle, which, if it had gone Circuit City's way, would have hurt the consumer. It's ironic now, because DivX was a kind of DRM back then. You bought a movie at a lower price but had to renew via a special player that connected to a site over a phoneline to renew your ability to watch that movie. Or, you could spend more and get "unlimited viewing" -- assuming, of course, the movie studio even offered it. From the initial releases there were only a handful of movies that could be had for "unlimited viewing."
There was a grass-roots effort to thwart this nonsense (DRM over the phone) and DVD as we know it now won the battle; only to be replaced by another DRM years later. A much more pervasive and restrictive DRM. The irony of Circuit City's current stand is thick.
This time, however, I'd back 'em up... Is someone up to the cause? Does the grass even have roots anymore? In spite of all of the podders out there, I don't think most of them have the mental fortitude to stand against the MPAA/RIAA. Are they even aware?
(objectively speaking: this could be a bad idea because you can bring in any number of iPods and copy a single movie to each of them. This, I believe, it's ethically reprehensible; it's also a major flaw behind this service.)
My ZooLoo
Just you leave those FINE PURVEYORS of three-chord British blues rock out of this, will you???
What's are you going to do next???
Slap a curfew on Jethro Tull??? Handcuff Emerson Lake And Palmer??? Or how about you just dig up Led Zeppelin's deceased drummer, John Bonham, and slap a speeding ticket on him???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Not every joe sixpack is savvy enough to have backed up his DVD collection. Some of my old original disks are already failing on commercial players. (Stargate season 1, bought when it first came out, is now unplayable.)
As people find more and more of their disks failing, these services could become seriously mainstream. And at 10bucks a pop, a lucrative source of cash.
I'm quite surprised to see this coming from a major retail chain - a mom and pop computer store (yes, one of the three still in existence) I could see having a helpful staff member who was willing to "stick it to the man" and do this for people, but a major corporation making the decision to do this definitely seems to show that the lawmakers of the U.S. need to wake up and stop legislating to keep business models alive past their prime.
Does anyone have the numbers on whether or not circuit city can afford to stand its legal ground against the MPAA? I imagine they'll probally settle out of court such that Circuit City can make the copies, provided that they include the same copy-protection stuff on the copied DVD as was on the original. The stakes that Circuit City and the MPAA are gambling are frighteningly high, as they risk setting a legal precident that says that you can't bypass copy protection for your own fair-use rights. On the other hand, a precident the other way would be a deathknell to a lot of the provision of the DMCA.
This is pretty interesting, especially coming from the company who was one of the original partners in DIVX...you remember, the "pay-per-view" DVD's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX. Even if they are only driven by profit, it's nice to see them take a more "consumer friendly" position.
----- Connection reset by beer
Actually, this seems to be aimed more at the true "consumer" - your thirty-something gagdet freak with his Crackberry and his video iPod who probably isn't inclined to go out and find "illegal" software to get content on his mobile devices. Remember, there are plenty of people out there who pay for VHS-to-DVD transfers.
Because two 10,000 lb gorillas fighting is entertainment at the very least.
If they kill each other all the better.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
No, it got bought out, and the new owners changed the licence to prevent further redistribution.
So now it takes 2 minutes of googling to find it, rather than 30 seconds...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
In what way would this violate the DMCA?
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A).
Legally, a corporation is a 'person,' and movies on DVD are almost all protected by copyright.
geek. lawyer.
In what way would this violate the DMCA?
They're defeating encryption without permission. Same as if you or I use deCSS to do the same thing. It's illegal whether or not we commit infringement. Dumb Law, needs to go.
Good for Circuit City for taking this route. It may be driven by the need to compete with bigger competitors (aka Best Buy), but it is exactly this kind of thing that is needed to bring attention to the larger issues. Now when Circuit City is sued, it will be national news, and the discussion regarding fair use will be held at a much more visible level. It may take years, but I'm optimistic that something like this is needed to get Joe Average interested.
This is an interesting point. Does the DMCA specifically disallow the sale or distribution of tools that provide for a circumvention, or does it disallow the circumvention itself? If it is the former, then Circuit City is just providing a service that enables the fair use rights of the consumer.
Now, if the act of circumvention itself is illegal, then CC is up a creek without a legal paddle.
http://www.tuxers.net/dmca/dmca-guide.html
Subparagraph (a)(1)(A) forbids circumvention of "a technological measure that effectively controls access to [copyrighted works]."
Since they are circumventing the DVD's copy protection... Tada.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
mp3.com... They got sued for transcoding user's CD's into MP3's for them, while making a little money off of it.
Increased DVD sales is the only thing I can think of here... $10/movie doesn't strike me as a major profit center - you've got the cost of the equipment to offset, the customer service rep's time, and then, as others have pointed out, either lawyers or the MPAA payoff. Doesn't seem to me there's much (if any) profit for Circuit City in this. As such, I feel a need to say "Way to go!", and plan a trip to support my local Circuit City.
This
So use Mplayer/Mencoder...it's still easy.
The average consumer can't afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to get one of those licenses, but Circuit City could...
Oh, and yay for DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink!!!
The DMCA is irrelevant in this case. Unless Circuit City has authorization from the copyright holders, they are engaging in good old fashioned copyright infringement. This is even worse than file sharing because they are profiting off of the service, thereby increasing the economic damages to the copyright holders who may want to pursue their own means of selling their product for different media formats.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Agreed. All the other posts thinking it's some kind of blow against the man, are just engaging in wishful thinking. They had their chance to strike a blow against the man by not buying or downloading, but gave that up, and now wish someone else (in this case, circuit city) would do what they had not the courage to do.
Now, what I've never understood is, if *IAA can sue a guy who rips one of their CD/DVDs for breaking their encryption, why people can't sue the NSA over breaking their encryptions on their emails without permission?
The DMCA is an unenforcible, ridiculous law that serves no purpose other than to make most honest Americans into lawbreakers.
Check out Circuit City's balance sheet. They have over $600 million in cash with only $50 million in long term debt. They have a lot of liquid assets available to finance the legal battle if that's what they choose to do.
Ahh well, that's fine then.
CSS encryption isn't remotely effective at controlling access to films.
"Not every joe sixpack is savvy enough to have backed up his DVD collection"
Time to retire the guy with the beer this time. In this example, it's Joe 50pack with a fresh spindle of Maxell DVD-R's he bought next door at Staples.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Agreed, but Average Joe is not going to want to bother keeping up in the DRM arms race for casual pir^H^H^HFair Use purposes, and will happily pay a smart techie to do this for him, saving himself from (A) having to learn to do it himself and (B) being directly liable for breaking the DMCA.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Street vendors in China have been doing this same thing for years at a much lower price.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Is it just me, or does it sound like CC is doing exactly that, double-dipping? If someone buys the DVD at CC and then pays *again* to rip the DVD...
There's 2 reasons that is wrong.
... As in 'only the DVDs we've paid for the rights to this'.
First, they aren't saying 'certain DVDs'
Second, the law doesn't allow circumvention exception for specific reasons. Even if the copyright holder says it's okay to copy the movie, you still cannot legally break the encryption. They'd have to be provided masters without encryption for this to be legal.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The article we are discussing is based on ONE photograph of ONE cheesily printed DVD Copy flyer. This could be nothing more than a prank; it could be one store or department manager trying to increase sales; it could be the real thing (but I doubt it).
Has anyone checked with Circuit City to see if the speculation is grounded in reality?
I thought not.
It'll soon be "When you do it, it's breaking the law. When a company does it, it's just making lawful money."
I'll bet you $20.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
CSS encryption isn't remotely effective at controlling access to films.
Spurious argument, legally. It's already been tried and defeated. See, e.g., Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 346 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
geek. lawyer.
They are ripping to mobile players, which requires encoding. It doesn't take the 10 mins DVD Decrypter does, it takes a few hours to encode down to a viable size...
Ahh but Best Buy isn't nearly as good as it used to be, higher prices, smaller selection, worse return policies. I gave up on Best Buy a few years ago anow now use Circuit City almost exclusively for my local (what I don't buy online) needs. Their order-online > store-pickup program is fantastic and their prices alsmost always match those of Best Buy exactly.
* Start DVD copy service
...
* Cash in on DVD copy service for all it's worth while waiting for the inevitable lawsuit
* Use lawyers already on retainer to string out the suit against DVD copy service as long as possible.
* Pay 10% of DVD copy earnings in settlement, promise never to do a DVD copy service ever again.
* Start unrelated DVD duplication service using equipment already conveniently at hand.()
() Remember to trademark "DVD Duplication service", "DVD Backup service", "Disc copy service", "Disc Duplication service", "Disk Kopy DudeZ", "Dupe It Man!"
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Since backups for play on another device are fair use and legal I don't see the issue.
It's generally held as legal for YOU, the consumer/taxpayer/citizen, to format-shift a copyrighted work you have purchased onto another medium for private use.
It's less clear whether you can pay a for-profit third party to perform the format shift on your behalf. I will be interested to see how the courts rule in the lawsuit that will inevitably come of this service.
Circumvent? The OED has defined as "to get around or escape from (a requirement) through means that are unusual but defensible", using the decryption keys and hardware that are readily sold to you and are perfectly legal is hardly "getting around", "avoiding", "escaping" or "unusual", if it were the act of merely watching the movie on a computer would also be in breach (where computer may also constitute a DVD player).
Your next whinge will be that the encryption is there to stop copying and hence violation of the copyright, copying something does not specifically breach copyright, not in my country anyway.
I could take a cheap shot at "effectively", I mean it doesn't appear to be particularly effective does it? What with all these people getting around it.
Regards, Phil
10 bucks per CD? Better option is to get the DVD Decrypter and donate a few bucks to the developers :)
Wow, you are more than 1 year behind the times with this post. DVD Decrypter has been dead since early 2005 when Macrovision gave a cease and desist letter to the creator of DVD Decrypter. The reason? DVD Decrypter can be used to remove Macrovision, which is a violation of the DCMA. The creator was forced to stop developing DVD Decrypter and give all source code to Macrovision. I don't know if he was forced to pay a fine to them or not, but he was threatened with legal action and facing the prospect of jail time and/or fines, he accepted their "offer" and gave them the code and removed the software from his website. In fact, the formerly official website now goes straight to Macromedia.
I have read that certain video forums are regularly monitored by Macromedia to see if the developer ever posts anything that in any way can be said to talk about decrypting DVDs or removing Macrovision and if they ever find him saying anything on those topics, they are going to take him to court and try to get him convicted for breaking the DCMA. Given the legal rulings on the subject to date, this is a very realistic possibility. I think he does still participate to a limited extent in video forums, but only on topics that have nothing to do with decrypting DVDs.
Oh, you can. It's just very likely to be thrown out "in the interest of national security."
I'm No Lawyer, but it seems to me there is a logical contridiction here.
If the circumvention exists, then the technology no longer "effectively" controls access.
It's linguistic nonsense of the same order as, "What happens when an irresitable force meets an unmovable object?"
But I'm sure the DRM lawyers aren't really interested in whether the law is logical...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
In fact, I am not sure I clearly understand the DMCA. If you play a DVD and shoot the tv with a camera, is that violating the DMCA ? If they legally have a CSS key to read dvds and just transfer them to another support, is that against the DMCA ? What does the DMCA precisely states ?
I see this as a sales tool. Buy a new DVD at full price, and get a backup copy for your portable player burnt for 10 bucks. Circuit city wins, and the MPAA wins through increased sales. Have I got this wrong?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
A CSS license is provided, normally to disc manufacturers, for producing the media, and has nothing to do with copyright. Furthermore, all litigatio to this day regarding copying of DVD's hasn't centered around copyright, but rather the DMCA's clasue against circumventing protection mechanisms. Probably because the plaintiff's legal team realizes it's a shaky position to litigate from based on all the precedent set in in the 80's with VHS that is beneficial for the end-user/consumer.
However, if Circuit city had a license to the CSS keys, (the very encrypting software itself), then they wouldn't be circumventing anything...and as other's said, they are not distributing anything either, merely performing a service.
The best thing we, as consumers, can do at this point is to take Circuit City up on their offer. Use the service they're providing. If the market gets lucrative enough, the other electronics giants (Best Buy, Fryes, etc.) will want a piece of the action. At that point, none of them will want to listen to the MPAA's whining and will do everything in their power to maintain their hold on this new market.
You want a bunch of bigwig companies to gang up on the MPAA? I think this is the best way to accomplish that.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
Now, will you also rip my DIVX disks?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
It wasn't bought out, and it wasn't shut down by the British version of the MPAA. Macrovision sent a C&D, and LUK went on to continue development of the burning engine from DVDDecrypter, as IMGBurn. DVDDecrypter is still the easiest way to exercise your fair use rights, but due to new corrupted formats like ArCoss, you sometimes need to include another party like DVDFabDecrypter or FixVTS and make an extra step.
Did you read the post you replied to? If so, did you understand it?
...well, I wouldnt.
Circuit city saying, 'Hey, backup is fair use, and we're gonna create ourselves a market where before there was only individuals engaging in illegal sharing,' is WAAAAY different than Walmart saying 'Hey, backup is fair use, but instead of just doing backup, we're gonna edit out all the violence, sex, profanity, and fun, because We're a bunch of puritanical fucks.'
dont compare the two, its bad argument.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
Because it's the government and the golden rule applies.
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A).
Legally, a corporation is a 'person,' and movies on DVD are almost all protected by copyright.
But in reality, corporations are rarely punished like a person would.
Sony's rootkit fiasco? If a person did it, they'd have gotten the book thrown at them, jailed, computer rights revoked for years after, life thrown in chaos. Sony? "Oh, you can just give out more CDs as punishment," despite the threats from government departments even. Barely even a wrist slap.
For a good laugh call (202) 456-1414
If the SS shows up I'm giving them your name.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Better yet, setup a few of these, record lots of names/evidence of those who use them, feed that list to the MPAA for a cut of the settlement costs. Brilliant.
to know what 'portable player' formats they support, and wether said formats were able to be re-transferred to PC and subsequently 'shared'. Not for me personally, since de-css works just fine here, but this makes the ability to do this a bot more available to the masses.
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A).
Well, if I can trivially circumvent the technological measure, wouldn't that mean it doesn't effectively control access?
paintball
By that logic every Kinko's would also by infringing copyrights by letting you copy pages out of books you own. DMCA has everything to do with it.
Clearly, CSS doesn't meet this criteria, so it's fine to circumvent. Really, with this wording, the DMCA can only be used to prevent circumvention of DRM technology that can't be circumvented.
Badass Resumes
Yep, and that was only a copyright violation. CC is adding on to that a DMCA violation. I can't imagine MPAA would sign a contract allowing them to do this unless they get a Real Big Cut. I think CC will come to regret this.
Which is why we now use dvd shrink
Estoppal would make breaking the encryption OK I suspect - if the copyright holder gave you permission to make a copy. As least if the copyright holder (or an agent thereof) brought the court action.
Thanks Circuit City. You saved me from having to replicate my "Star Wars holiday special" bootleg. The thought of Lumpy and Leia singing gives me a headache every time I put the master copy in my DVD-ROM drive ;-(
Has anyone figured out if this is a service being offered by circuit cities all over the country, or just by one particular local store? It looks to me from the article like it might be a single store. After all, the only real evidence we have is a single picture of a sign, no press release or anything is linked to. This would make a whole lot more sense. I'm not a lawyer, but it would seem to be a pretty clear cut case of breaking the law (stupidity of the law not withstanding.) Naively, then, it would seem to be terrible mistake to offer this service. Sure, there may be some angle that isn't obvious, but a simpler explanation would be that a single local store offered this service without understanding the risks involved.
They will probably work out a drm solution. That way anyone can offer a dvd ripping service, but the copy can only play on the player that it's ripped to play on. Stores offering the service would get more business because you would have to pay a ripping fee for each device, rather than one rip for a copy that can play on all devices. It would be perfect for the uneducated consumer that can't figure out how to do it on her own. Granted the MPAA will probably just make the huge mistake of just trying to prevent anyone from making copies and force illegal activity by consumers.
That is if they win.
the righteous and the angels all sing "hallelujah!"
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Remember DIVX? It's nice to see that they're having a change of heart when it comes to DRM. Kudos to them if this takes off with minimal noise in the legal department.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
As far as I am aware, DVD CCA owns CCS, the 'Content Scramble System' used on DVDs, not Macromedia.
--fatboy
Can anyone confirm that this is a company-wide service? Personally I think an employee at a single Circuit City convinced the store manager that this would be a good way to bring in some extra money.
My reasoning behind this is that the flier doesn't look professional and there is no way Circuit City's lawyers would allow for this service.
If I were that store manager, I'd be looking for a new job now.
Aside from the DMCA problem, this seems like a pretty clear copyright violation in and of itself (which would mean injunction, defeating more than one argument that they could pump money out of it until the suit is done) because Circuit City does not own rights to copy nor distribute the majority of movies the end-user would be bringing in. When they copy, then, they are fixating an existing work into a new medium, which requires rights to copy. By charging for the service, that would likely put them in the role of a distributor. If they were actually selling the movie on DVD in the store, that would be less iffy, but since it is still a copy, there would still be problems (as they only have the ability to distribute).
People keep talking about fair use as if it is some kind of magic bullet that will make everyone's paranoid copyright nightmares go away. It is not. It is a narrow exception that excludes copyright infringement when you, for your own enjoyment and by your own skill, are fixating something onto a new media or distributing in a very small scale. Circuit City is by no means small-scale. The company, not the consumer, is making the copies. While the copy is for the consumer's benefit, that is largely irrelevant, as they have no real relationship (usually a requirement for fair use duplication on behalf of someone else).
On a related note, people (especially in our industry- or rather my former industry, I should say) need to learn more about this law and how it works, rather than just trumpeting a half-baked idea that all copyright is inherently evil. What keeps MS from buying the load of a competitor's software at retail, rebranding it and selling it at a higher price to drive them out of a market? Antitrust law wouldn't help, the competitor is still making sales. Copyright is the only thing preventing that sort of thing. And allows small companies with a novel bit of program or code to stay in the market and not fear a large competitor simply ripping their code apart and inserting it into their own. And a multitude of other things.
Remember that what you think the law should be is hardly ever what the law actually is, and that laws are complex and intricate things. It takes a truly atrocious law to have no good effect. Aside from a very narrow application cherished by a loud minority, copyright law has been a great success and balanced the interests of consumers, creators and competitors remarkably well.
Technically, you don't have to circumvent CSS in order to rip a DVD. A bit for bit copy of the DVD can be done, and probably is what is being done. Think of it as copying an encrypted file from one place to another. You don't have to break the encryption to do a copy.
This is probably what is being done. I think the part where they will run into problems is that technically, they are selling copies.
So plain old copyright laws are what they are probably going to run afoul of, and not DMCA's circumvention prohibitions.
Bah, anyone can make a fair use backup without "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected..." my setup: dvdplayer---[connected to]---->Sony DV camera with pass thru----[connected to]---->firewireport on my computer There. now I have an avi of the movie I want on my computer and can change its format and even re-master it to DVD. Maybe that's what CC is doing.... Time intensive? Loss of menus? I know. Yeah, you're right. DCMA is retarded...
DVD Decrypter can be used to remove Macrovision, which is a violation of the DCMA.
Really? Macrovision does not control access to the DVD at all. Macrovision degrades the signal somewhat when recording a DVD to VHS video tape, or when recording VHS to VHS. Macrovision does this by playing with the gain control.
Incidentally, Macrovision doesn't work with 8mm & Betamax video tape. Are they illegal under thee DCMA? Of course not.
They are in no way shape or form circumventing the DMCA. Don't drink the coolaid. Making a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD, as long as they don't try to understand the content, involves no decryption. They are not providing electronic access to the content in that sense - at no point are they playing the movie. They're simply copying it. From a legal standpoint, this is a huge distinction. This is why DeCSS is required to play DVDs on Linux, not to copy them.
Most DVD "backup" utilities failed this test, because there are very few dual-layer DVD burners out there. So people were trying to create MPEGs of the movie (requires understanding/filtering the content), or change the resolution (likewise), or split it onto two discs while maintaining the menus, etc (likewise). All of those require understanding what's on the disk, which requires decrypting the content, which violates the DMCA.
Simple copying? Might violate copyright (taken care of with the fair-use clause, probably) but unrealted to DMCA.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
From Circuit City's policy on CD ripping (they offer ripping services for CDs):
Can copy-protected CDs be encoded?
Encoding copy-protected discs is a violation of the record company's copyright protection. Get Digital will not encode any copyrighted discs. Instead Get Digital will notify you of any discs with copyright protection. These discs will be set aside and returned to you with the rest of your collection--without charge.
Can a DVD-Audio or SACD disc be encoded?
Both SACD and DVD-Audio discs feature the same copy protection that regular DVDs do. Any SACD, DVD-Audio or standard DVDs will be set aside and returned to you with the rest of your collection without charge.
Sounds to me like they already know about the DMCA, and that this would violate it. I am now more than a little dubious that this is actually being done with corporate's knowledge.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
while audio CD's actually have to be 'ripped' since they don't have a true /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom' /mnt/cdrom' and see the files! /mnt/cdrom somedir'
file system, DVD's ARE file devices. Just try 'mount
with a movie dvd in the (dvd)drive and then try 'ls -l
To 'rip' the disk all you do is 'cp -r
You have to use a special utility create a dvd file system image with the files
to replicate the dvd to burn it though. I wonder if you could tell xine to
play the files you copied off the dvd onto your hard drive as above.
What is the difference between CleanFlicks making a "backup copy" of a DVD (with some content removed - just didn't back that part up) and Circuit City making a backup copy? Seems that case has already been lost.
While its not in production currently, and it doesn't have an official site; it still works!!! It can also still be found, if you look hard enough.
Thousands of users find that discs both old and new present no problem for the software, and DVD DeCrypter has seen much 'life after death'
1201(a)(3)(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Don't ever think the law means what it says!
The DVD CCA doesn't let you download the CSS license without submitting personal details, but I have my doubts that they would sell Circuit City a license if they knew they were doing this. Then again, the DVD CCA announced yesterday that they're licensing keys now for the reverse process (burning copyrighted movies to CSS-obfuscated discs, allowing JIT publishing of movies and such at store-placed kiosks), so I guess anything's possible.
First the consumer pay for a product (the physical DVD), then the consumer pays for a service (transfering the contents of the DVD to their portable player). It is exactly like paying for home installation service for the product (TV, stove, washer/dryer, etc...) that was just purchased.
In my opinion, all future movies should be shipped with multiple ripped versions. One HD version that takes whole HD-DVD, and one 700mb or 1.2GB for home media center, and one even smaller size for ipod or cellphone. Granted doing such is much easier for pirating, but one can't stop pirating anyway unless the movie is not so overpriced that worth pirating. Every time I buy a movie on dvd, my mind automatically be thinking that later I need spend a few hours to rip it (and doing all the math on how to optimize the rip), and thinking about how much my a few hours worth, then the conclusion is what an expensive option against hunting over bittorrent. Ripping DVDs is an unstoppable trend. Better embrace it than trying to stop it.
If they are doing a straight copy there is no issue.
A DVD is designed never to be copied. If they need to make a new DVD, they copy from a master. Never from a protected DVD.
The only way to copy a DVD is to circumvent the protection, key or no key. There has never been, and never will be, any software or hardware that is allowed to copy a protected DVD. If they allow even 1 instance of such software, all their lawsuits go from 'violating the DMCA' to 'software theft.' They can't have that.
As for distributing... They are providing a service, yes. But the customer walks in with 1 copy and walks out with 2. If nothing was distributed, then that's magic. That's completely another debate, though. I never mentioned distributing.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"Copyright" is the right of a person to copy something. The copyrighted content does not have the copyright, the person does (or does not).
The "Kinko's Rule" demonstrates how copyright is not transferable, even under fair use. Let's say I have a book I bought. My fair use includes the copyright to photocopy pages, an entire chapter, for my personal consumption. If I'm a teacher, that even includes giving copies of a chapter (though not the whole book) to, say, 30 people in a class I teach. I go to Kinko's; I walk up to a photocopier; I set it to 30 copies; I turn the pages through the chapter on the machine; I collect the 30 copies of the chapter; I pass them out to each person in my class. No problem - I have the copyright to use the book's content fairly that way.
But if I take that book to the Kinko's service desk, ask the Kinko's employee (or even just another customer with extra time on their hands) to copy the book for an otherwise identical usage scenario, I'm not allowed. Because the employee does not have the copyright to fairly use that book for anything (except maybe reading it as borrowed by a "friend"), because they did not obtain any copyrights by buying the book. The fair use copyrights I have on the book I bought are not transferable to another person - they are not contained in the book I physically pass to the employee, they are contained in the transaction of buying (and thereby owning) the book.
This rule is the same when I bring a CD or DVD to Kinko's. I could use their burner to copy them for myself. But not for distribution to other people, though fair use of audio and video recordings does allow me to lend a single copy to a "friend", though I'm not allowed to use my own copy while another copy is loaned out. The rule says I cannot leave my CD or DVD with someone else at Kinko's to copy for me. And of course that rule applies to Circuit City, too.
So how is Circuit City ripping these DVDs for users? In the last five years, several small companies started up to rip CDs for people, violating the Kinko's Rule. They were all told (I heard the warnings personally) by lawyers and copyright owners/"enthusiasts" that they were breaking the law, that their income would be siezed whenever a copyright owner wanted to sue them. That's the main reason why we haven't been able to have our media ripped from the physical media that traps so much value out of play: the small companies that always innovate fast ("entrepreneurs") have been stopped by legal intimidation.
Now Circuit City is doing it anyway. Will they be stopped by the Kinko's Rule, and kill the whole business for everyone, even those who have been getting away serving with the consumer demand "below the radar"? Or will they demonstrate (in court, perhaps) that the Kinko's Rule is out of business? Or will some kind of "big corporation" collusion between the RIAA/MPAA and Circuit City just leave them alone, while enforcing the Kinko's Rule on entrepreneurs, keeping them (us) from competing?
--
make install -not war
In this thread everyone's saying the MPAA should sue CC for copyright infringement, even though we're supposedly all for 'fair use'.
Instead if a civil lawsuit based on infringement, shouldn't we be hoping for prosecution for breaking the DMCA? If a law was broken, we don't need to wait for the MPAA to decide whether or not it's in their interest to sue, or settle, or whatever. A law has been broken. That's a fact. Evidence of that fact should be easy to round up. This should be treated like a real criminal offense.
If only there was a DA who would be willing to pick this up. I hear their have most of their time taken up by murderers and rapists and the like.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
After reading this, I too thought that Circuit City was doomed. Until I realized what they are up to!
By them promoting the transfer option they have not actually done anything illegal yet. But they have done a couple things. They have made their image better in the eyes of the public and they are going to provide a service that their competitors can not match. (Best Buy, Frys, Wal-mart, Target, etc.)
So how do we (the consumer) get the rest of their competition to join in? Simple, we go to each Circuit City competitor (Best Buy, Frys, Wal-mart, Target, etc.) and we ask about their "new ripping service". I am sure that the first 1000 people that do this across the country will cause some confusion since none of their competitors have this service. But the more people that do this, it will cause their management to question, "Why can Circuit City provide this but we can not?" Even before Circuit City actually starts ripping.
I plan on going down to the local BB and talking to the person in the iPod Video department.
The conversation with the clerk should go like this...
-----------
Clerk: Welcome to Best Buy, Can I help you find something today?
Me: Sure, I was looking at getting an iPod video that you have over here.
Clerk: Were you looking at the 20GB or the 40GB? (Blah blah blah)
Me: Well I was interested in the 40GB and I wanted to bring in my DVD movies for you to put on there. I have them in the car.
Clerk: Sir, we are unable to put your DVD movies on the iPod at this time. blah blah blah
Me: Oh, I was just over at Circuit City and they were willing to do it for $10 a movie. What would you charge?
Clerk: Sir, we don't offer that service
Me: Ok. Thanks for your help.
-------------
That's it! That is all we have to do. Remember two main things!
1. DO NOT insult them or their company.
2. Be polite and DO NOT act knowledgable.
By doing these two things they will put you into their "Clueless consumer" category. Which is exactly the market they would sell this service to. THE MORE CLUELESS THE BETTER! Good luck and I hope we have sucess.
-flipsoft
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
Is overridden by:
"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;"
So when the prior DMCA statement abridges the freedom of the press (like in preventing fair use), it is not valid.
Remember that "freedom of the press" was trying to avoid the publishing monopoly control such as the Stationers had in 1557.
But we have recreated such a monopoly with current infinite copyright, and DMCA restrictions. Both, which violate the spirit of the freedom of the press and violate the constitutional limits places on information monopolies.
Development has ceased on DVD Decryptor; however, the program in its last state can still be found and downloaded with a decent Google search. Nothing has changed in the nature of current DVDs to have necessitated much further development, anyway, so it still works just fine. Though it is a shame then that we can't donate any money to the dev; I love the program.
Just a little correction: parent poster meant Macrovision, not Macromedia. Macromedia (maker of Dreamweaver and Flash) was bought by Adobe - no connection between Macrovision and Macromedia.
Me: I just read an article saying Circuit City rips DVDs for customers... Is that true?
Clerk: Uh, no it's not.
Me: Thanks, bye.
I imagine this is just one store manager trying to make a little extra money on the side.
Title 17 Section 1201(e)
Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government Activities.-- This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State. For purposes of this subsection, the term "information security" means activities carried out in order to identify and address the vulnerabilities of a government computer, computer system, or computer network.
As an employee of the Dept. of Environmental Management I absolutely insist that it is crucial to my work of studying and protecting endangered species that I have a keen understanding of animal mating rituals of all species...including my own. Thankfully the local shop has some fantastic informational videos for rent and I just figured that I needed a copy for home for more intensive...study.
Eat that, DMCA!
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
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DVD Copy Software
I bet they cost less than $10
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
;)
17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A).
But as we all know, no technological measures effectively control access!
Note that all following examples assume that the end result is to be for your personal use and not seling on the streets of New York or something like that.
As far as I can tell, you ripping an unencrypted file to a different media player == fair use.
Circuit City ripping an unencrypted file to a different media player for you == Copyright infringement. Even if they do it for free (As you're likely to buy something else while you're there, thus they profit by the actvities anyway.)
You or Circuit City ripping an encrypted file to a different media player == violation of the DMCA, despite the fact that it WOULD be fair use for you to do it if the file wasn't encrypted.
While we're on the subject...
You copying a VHS tape of any sort to DVD == fair use.
Your friendly neighborhood photo lab copying a copyrighted VHS tape to DVD for you == Copyright violation.
I could be wrong here, but that's kind of how things look to me. I'll pull some numbers out of my ass and say that 9 out of 10 Americans have no idea about how copyright (Or IP Laws in general) work and will merrily ask a techie guy to do all sorts of illegal things. My numbers are probably pretty close to accurate. In this environment where IP is becoming increasingly important to our Economy we really should be educating our children about how copyright works from an early age. Maybe we need one of those 50's style educational films or something.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Which is why we now use dvd shrink
I have always used DVD shrink as I liked it the best. I don't think it is being updated anymore however and if so then it is basically in the same boat as DVD Decrypter.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
It most certainly does not. Despite the many protestations of people for many years, this is not and never has been allowed under copyright law. There is no education exemption. Publishers don't pursue this practice because it's virtually unstoppable and it looks bad to sue schools. But they certainly could.
It's not even clear that you have the right to photocopy a chapter for your own use. Fair use generally means you can quote a portion of a text without explicit permission. But one of the key tests of fair use is whether the copied section is minimal -- i.e., explicitly, that you not wholesale copy passages.
And also contrary to popular rumor, your intent to "profit" from it is entirely irrelevant as well. It doesn't matter if you intend to distribute the material free of charge to the needy. You, as purchaser of a text, do not get copyright to it.
I don't know where you heard of "the Kinko's rule", but it's nonsense. Oh, and by the way, the Kinko's employee has exactly the same fair use rights you do, and "reading the book" is not a "fair use", as it doesn't involve copying it. Under the principle of First Sale, you as purchaser of the book may do anything you like with it, except copy it. You can lend the physical book, you can sell it or give it away, you can even burn it. But you can't, nor can you authorize anyone else, to copy it.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
What if they play using a hardware DVD player, capture the output using component out, and encode using H.264 without every circumventing CSS?
GPL Deconstructed
Please, get your terminology right. Halfway through your post you switch from Macrovision, the company that provides DVD encryption, to Macromedia, the company that provides Flash. I doubt the latter has a care one way or the other in DVD protection.
It's the DMCA, not the DCMA. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Not "Copyright Millennium". And, young man, it doesn't fit the music as well. "It's fun to violate the D-M-C-A!"
Finally, he didn't "give all source code to Macrovision." Ignoring the grammatical ambiguity therein, he gave rights to the code, and unfortunately had not previously licensed it under a perpetual redistribution license. If he had simply GPL'd it (or CC-SA or anything), Macrovision would've had all the source code they wanted and couldn't've done a thing about it.
Who wants to place a bet on how long it'll be before the first enterprising teenage Circuit City employee adds a DVD burner to the computer they're using and "charges a dollar less, tax free!, to rip them to a DVD-R? If you bet never, I'll give you a thousand to one odds!
Lady: "Why's it cheaper young man?"
teenager: "Oh, it's a less costly process."
Lady: "...and it's legal?"
teenager: "Sure"
Lady: "But how do the movie studios make money off of this?"
teenager: "Oh, it saves them production and shipping costs, so they pass the savings on to you."
Lady: "Oh, ok, that makes sense. So it's cheaper if I buy five you say?"
teenager: "You bet. Just come see me when you've found the ones you want."
Lady wanders off to look through the movie collection.
Yes, but TFA didn't mention smart techies anywhere, just Circuit City employees.
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
I hope it does enrage the MPAA. I hope it does go to court.
It's an unexpected favor to the consuming public that some business interests out there see value in giving the customer what they want even at risk of legal battles from much more powerful and influencial rackets... err, I mean organizations. Here's where the backing of equipment makers should also come in handy. Since these mobile media player makers sell the targets of this activity, they ALSO have an interest in the success of this venture. The more of those people we have backing that activity, the better chance that some of those folks will get the ears of politicians who can do something about the DMCA.
I've been lurking for a few years on here, and I have finally decided to make an account and participate. I just wanted to respond to clarify what parties can and can not do under the DMCA. Here's the idea: any suit that can be brought by Macrovision is a civil suit, which means that, while it may result in damages or injunctive relief (the DMCA provides for both under section 1203, I believe), cannot land a person in jail. So, while Macrovision may sue the creator of the program for damages and get an injunction to make him stop, it cannot have him criminally prosecuted. Nor is it usually considered correct to say that a person is 'convicted' of a civil offense.
What Macromedia could have done is report him to the FBI for a violation of a federal statute (the DMCA is both a civil and a criminal statute), and then the federal government may bring a case to convict the person of a criminal violation. Or they may decide not to, especially since there probably wasn't a great case against him. In this case, unless he was selling the software, he could not have been successfully prosecuted criminally because the DMCA requires that the DMCA violation be willful (this probably was) and for commercial advantage or private financial gain. Since he probably did not get any private financial gain or a commercial advantage, he never faced jail time or fines, just money damages (and even then, probably only compensatory damages and attorneys' fees) and injunctions.
Tragic
Glad a US retailer has the balls to do this. It'd be nice if other stores did this as well. Strength in numbers.
I see dead pixels!
I may be wrong on this one, but perhaps Circuit City has purchased a license to the CSS keys, that would allow them to decrypt and re-encrypt DVD's without "circumventing" the copy protection
Possibly. I'm not familiar with the terms of the CSS licensing agreement, but I'd expect that this type of activity would be outside of it, however.
Too, there's still 17 USC 106(1) to contend with, which leaves the right of reproduction exclusively in the hands of the copyright owner. The main feature of a movie DVD isn't software, it's a "motion picture work fixed in a copy by a method that permits it to be perceived with the aid of a machine or device" (all copyright terms of art), so the 117 carve-out doesn't apply. You can argue fair use, but since there's a market for iPod-encoded movies, Circuit City is making a commercial use of the work, they're copying the work in its entirety, and we're talking about creative (insofar as copyright is concerned) works with strong copyright protection, I would not expect fair use to be a viable defense.
I would not want to be Circuit City.
geek. lawyer.
Yes. DVDs contain a single bit indicating to the player whether to enable analog copy-protection on the video output (in the same manner VHS tapes are protected, in both cases to prevent people from dubbing DVDs onto tapes). DVD Decrypter simply set the bit to off, which was technically a form of circumventing the copy-protection.
I hate to deflate people's expectations, but this looks *very* much like one store offering this service, not a rollout of a new service across the entire Circuit City corporation.
... now. ;-)
The sole evidence Ars Technica has for this service is a photograph of a flyer! There is nothing on the Circuit City Web site about the service, nor does it look like the company issued a press release touting the new service.
More probably, this "service" was devised by some store manager too ignorant of the ways of the DMCA to understand what he was offering. S/He was just looking to bring in a few more bucks (on the other side of the same display case is another advert on a free in-house PC clinic. I bet that's not a Circuit City wide service either, just a local store initiative). I'm sure DVD ripping service will be discontinued as the minute corporate headquarters gets wind of this. Which, thanks to Slashdot, should be right about
I wouldn't blame the ill-informed Circuit City Manager, nor even Consumerist, which first posted the photo (but wouldn't provide a location interestingly enough). Ars Technica should know better though. That's just sloppy journalism.
joab
If the only issue is that they're charging for the service, they should offer it for free with the purchase of a new DVD and blank media (if any) from them. They could even add it to their online ordering system, so they can rip and burn/recode for you in advance, and you can pick up the new DVD and your copies without having to wait. They'd certainly gain some business that way.
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
Don't forget that a company is not one person. One employee giving the tools to another could be a violation -- and the company could be sued for ever occurrence.
I'm not even sure if the movie studios will come after them. There's a clause in the DMCA that says "`(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
If you read that to be that your right of fair use is unaffected by the DMCA (which seems to be the only logical reading), then you should be able to bypass encryption to make a copy of a DVD you already own. Diamond Rio and Sony Betamax cases allows for time shifting and place shifting of your material--(I.e. allowing you to copy a movie YOU OWN onto your IPOD or hard drive). There are other issues (e.g. you could be violating the actual license included in a DVD, but that's an adhesion license and those often don't stand up in court).
It seems to me that the movie studios have more to gain by keeping the law here ambiguous, and sending out nasty letters to citizens who don't know the law and can't defend themselves. What if it goes to court and circuit city wins? Then it becomes illegal for the MPAA's lawers to send out those threatening letters at all......
Just a thought....
Sony has those "more expensive" UMDs and now Circuit City will be cutting into their action. And to top it off, those UMDs dont even do a good job as a drink coaster.
Odd that Circuit City, one of the main backers of DIVX- the "disposable" DVD alternative touted by studios like Disney (and, of course, Circuit City that lost like $500 million US), would offer this service.
1 99.htm that tells of the Divx demise....
Circuit City offered DIVX discs that users could "rent" for 24 hour periods for about $2.95 (yes, they had to buy it first for a higher price)in an attempt to thwart the dangers of users copying DVD's. Circuit City was VERY anti-DVD at the time.
Check out an interesting link here http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aa062
Boy how times change! And they said Divx wasn't all about profit, it was protecting the studios...just who is profiting/protecting now?
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
I call this a hoax. I haven't seen any proof other than some phone-cam pic from some guy's blog.
It says 'video transfer service', but what if in fact they are just selling them another copy of the same DVD in a new package for 10 bucks? What's illegal about selling DVDs?
Then again, maybe they really are making a copy and paying the RIAA 5 bucks every time they do it?
Heard any good sigs lately?
DVDs contain a single bit indicating to the player whether to enable analog copy-protection on the video output (in the same manner VHS tapes are protected, in both cases to prevent people from dubbing DVDs onto tapes). DVD Decrypter simply set the bit to off, which was technically a form of circumventing the copy-protection.
Yes, but is Macrovision copy-prevention in meaning of the DMCA? Macrovision doesn't *prevent* copying, it allows low-quality copies to be made.
Does your right to make a copy (if any) depend on the quality of the copy?
Circuit City wants to get into the the eContent Distibution food chain. Retailers already have the connection with the consumer. Heck you know how many DVDs are sold from Target.
I think CC wants to be seen as an innovative player in eContent management/distribution. So first they thought we'll do a little ripping ... look what it did for Apple.... hell it made Apple beyond famous, and they quickly became the largest eMusic Store. So all we need to do is.....first we rip.... stir up some controversy....then we will get our name splashed all over the place...become a player.... then we will be in a position as more folks are interested in eContent be a major retail distributor...so Lets be disruptive...
It sounds funny... but I have seen funnier..
A little known historical fact about Circuit City. The DIVX algorithm for video came from a company that was basically a joint venture between Circuit City and a Hollywood law firm, to produce an alternative to DVDs as they are today. The biggest pain in the ass about going to Blockbuster (or any other bricks-and-mortar video rental place) is returning it, right? Well, imagine if instead you went to a store, picked up a DVD for about four bucks, and took it home. It would come with a code, which would make it playable in your DVD player, for 4 days...after that, you pay to get a new code if you want to watch it again. (The player would dial out via included modem and retrieve the code...you get a monthly statement of all your charges.) The upshot of this is that you don't have to return the DVD, and stores don't have to maintain nearly the same kind of inventory to handle rentals.
So what's the point? Well, Circuit City isn't entirely foreign to the notions of law that come into play here, and I would be absolutely floored in amazement if they hadn't SERIOUSLY consulted with a reputable law firm before embarking on this. I doubt they're really as reckless as we may all be thinking right now.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Who says they're doing it digitally? Maybe they've just connected a DVD player to a video capture card. No circumvention, because the DVD player is licensed by the DVD-CCA. No infringement, because format-shifting is protected by fair use. A small loss in quality, but if you're watching it on an iPod will you really notice the difference?
It can... my All-In-Wonder refuses to capture video if the incoming signal looks like its been processed by Macrovision. I'm not exactly sure how it does it, but it's at the driver level, since there's a patch for the Windows capture drivers that disables it.
I have not seen a single CD copying program since 1998 which actually does respect these (and that one had a command-line argument to allow you to ignore them). The Disk Utility bundled with OS X (and dd, for that matter) can be used to 'circumvent' this protection, which works exactly as the Macrovision scheme you described.
As I remember from my reading of the DMCA, there is a key word; effective. You are prohibited from circumventing 'effective' copyright protection schemes. Setting a single bit, or putting a text file saying 'do not copy this' in the filesystem, is not effective and so is not protected under the DMCA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"And walk out.
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Circuit City Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I mean circuit city did try to make divx work for christ sakes! Let them settle the score with this little DMCA violation for awhile.. It's only fair
This is what I would think also. All you'd need is a capture card which ignores Macrovision.
No, copyright is a bundle of limited monopoly powers. A copyright holder also has control over distribution, public performance, etc. The owner of a copyrighted work has a limited right to copy, but no copyright.
First, I can't find any reference to a legal doctrine by that name, so as far as I can tell you just mean Kinko's company policy, which is merely indicative of the legal climate. Second, copyright is indeed transferable, but that isn't relevant, because sale of a copyrighted work doesn't involve transfer of copyright. Third, a determination of fair use is made on the balance of four factors; copying and distributing an entire book can be fair use, and copying a single page can be infringement. Specifically, I submit that in your first example, photocopying the entire book would be fair use under the space-shifting doctrine.
Again, your use of the terms "copyright" and "fair use" are inconsistent with their legal definitions. Do you have case law to support this theory?
Does the DMCA specifically disallow the sale or distribution of tools that provide for a circumvention, or does it disallow the circumvention itself?
The DMCA independantly criminalizes both.
Teh DMCA is a rotten destructive law. It needs to be eleiminated, or at a minimum neutered and ammended to state that noninfringing circumvention is not a DMCA violation and that noninfringing suppliers of legitimate noninfringing products are not a violation of the DMCA.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Has anyone considered, that Circuit City has a plan to "settle" this issue, by presenting their own technology that tracks each copy per device? Say Joe walks into CC with his copy of The Fifth Element, and wants to have it converted for his shiny new PMP/Video Ipod/Portable Video Gadget of the Week.... So Circuit City says "here's a list of devices that are compatible with our service, here's a list of operating systems a device must run to be compatible with our service," then requires the customer *brings in the device*, so they can record the devices unique ID/serial #, whatever... (basically fingerprint the device). Then they'll dupe/reencode a copy of Joe's DVD, while recording that fact that Joe did have a valid copy made for XYZ device. Maybe compatible devices will have have DRM, and the file CC creates will be encrypted/embedded with the devices "fingerprint" so Joe can only play the copy on that device. This scenario is where I think Circuit City is heading after the legal battle. They just needed to break the ice, get the word out, and get it in court. The end result being, every copy made will have a built in kickback to the MPAA/RIAA, and Circuit City will be the first and only source for a long while, to lawfully copy/convert DVD's. Your thoughts?
-iNToIT
Unless they can somehow speed up the process (fast-forward while still getting every frame and all the audio) I would find that unlikely. Not too many people are going to sit around Circuit City for 2 hours while their movie encodes.
2 minutes of Googling? I must be feeling lucky...p ter
http://www.google.com/search?q=download+DVD+Decry
The only issue I see is whether a third party can perform the circumvention on copyrighted works for which they don't hold a license.
What if this is discovered to be the next business model? Cripple things with DRM, and then for additional money they'll take them off?
That's what the cell phone companies do with the "free" phones that come with a service agreement. Want an unlocked phone that you already purchased? Pay your service provider about $30 to make it free from vendor lock-in.
This would have been legal as fair use under the 1988 Copyright Act. Screw the DMCA.
There is no blanket exception, but "nonprofit educational purposes" are mentioned specifically in 17 USC 107 as part of the "purpose and character" test for fair use.
Fair use is a balancing test. The doctrines of time-shifting and space-shifting, for example, explicitly allow copying the entire work for certain purposes. As I wrote in response to the grandparent, converting a bound book to loose-leaf for personal convenience has the character of space-shifting.
The part about not getting copyright is correct, but "commercial nature" is the also part of the "purpose and character" test.
If there is no authorized US version being distributed then it makes copying a show/dvd more safe (and perhaps even more moral) because there is no one entity that has a vested interest to come after you but I don't think that has any bearing on whether or not the ripping is legal.
But IANAL nor have I researched this issue. Does anyone know for sure whether or not the existence (or lack thereof) of a authorized version of a show/dvd affects the legality of ripping/copying?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
"circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access"
If it's circumvented, doesn't that mean that it no longer effectively controls access?
And with a loose enough definition of technology, would a man with a large axe standing in front of your movies count as using technology (the axe) to control access?
This falls under fair use people... it's format shifting, just like the companies that advertise bulk CD to mp3 conversion. Nothing to see here...just a big company getting involved in a new market. --nick
Wow, congrats on ripping apart someone for a few typos! God forbid someone makes a mistake on this forum! Good work! You even managed to get moderator support for your efforts!
Oh, by the way, "GPL'd" should be GPLed since you're referring to a past-tense verb. And couldn't've, well, isn't even a word.
Do I get +5 for pointing this out? Because that's all this asshat did. I understood what the GP meant perfectly well, as I'm sure everyone else with an IQ higher than 12 did too.
ME TOO!!!
Come on, DCMA even seems MORE appropriate (even if inaccurate): "Digital Copyright Millenium Act"... don't the RIAA/MPAA see this as the "Digital Copyright Millenium"?
How many people are going to pay $10 to rip a movie? That's half the price of a new DVD I believe or as much as a bargain bin DVD.
It sounds like Circuit city is in cahoots with the entertainment industry or even their puppet. They set the price rather high to either make this fail and or discourage people from buying non-dvd playing portable electronics. All so Hollywood can say to Congress "See, we gave permission to Circuit City for a 100% legal alternative but the pirates still used illegal software downloaded from the net to rip their own movies. That criminal activity leads to copying and uploading our films to the net tubes. We need harsher anti-DVD ripping laws and a mandate for stronger copyright protection implemented in all hardware, including personal computers. Make it a crime to use a hardware device we didn't authorize."
"Welcome to Circuit City, where service circumvents state of the art!"
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So if this case goes to court, the universe will explode?!
OH NOES!
if they ever find him saying anything on those topics, they are going to take him to court and try to get him convicted for breaking the DCMA.
I would suggest you check your facts on that. I bet they had him sign a contract as part of the agreement. I would guess that they would ignore the DMCA and go after him for contract violations. That's much easier to prove in court. It's the reason why all the settlements with the RIAA have such things signed between all parties.
Learn to love Alaska
So, my DVD drive without a region set cannot read CSS-encrypted DVDs bit for bit? What exactly am I playing/decrypting in software then?
Centralization breaks the internet.
my guess is that like other people, they will use the publicity from this to make loads of profit on goods that they sell
most likely, they haven't been selling too many portable media players, a lot of which because people dont realize that they can rip dvd's to them - how much you wanna bet thats because the MPAA is trying to keep that in the dark? once this goes to court and is on 5 different news channels all week long and comes into the light (as CC wants) people will be more aware of portable media players and CC hopes, go buy one from them = PROFIT!
This sounds progressive and innovative. I thought we had intellectual property laws to prevent that sort of thing from happening!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
No they didn't. mp3.com never touched a user's CD.
With Circuit City and the MPAA going at it, I just don't know who to root for. Both are evil and yet here is Circuit City performing Copyright Infringement on our behalf and yet the MPAA could sue them and eliminate the company that practically invented Mail-In rebates. But yet Circuit City is *Head Explodes*
Maybe I just do not understand the DCMA, but why is it illegal for me to take the DVD that I legally purchased and convert it to a format I can play on my iPod/PSP? How does this violate copyright? How does this hurt film companies? It seems to me that the Film industry wants me to pay for each and every use I have for my film. It would be like if Honda charged me for a car that I could only go to school in. If I wanted to drive to the store, I would have to buy an entirely new car (with a crappier paint job for more money) Since I bought my car, I should be able to use it in whatever way I want (although if I break the law in the process, then I am liable) I don't see how the DCMA can even be considered legal under protection of copyright by saying that moving my DVD to a different format is somehow hurting the copyright owner. Why is the music and film industry getting special treatment under the law that no other company sees?
If I buy a car, and want to change the engine in it, I can take it to any mechanic and get a new engine installed in it, WITHOUT having to pay the car company again. The record and movie execs are so greedy and malcontent with their ever increasing profits that they can get special treatment under LAW to pull shit like the DCMA.
I for one support Circuit City and what they are trying to do: Get a draconian law repealed that serves no purpose other than padding some execs wallet.
...with the exception of the DRM circumvention. I googled but couldn't find a lawsuit that challenged the CD ripping service offered by Slim Devices which has been around for quite some time. They will rip your CD collection and provide you with the data for use on your home network, presumably to stream audio to their players.
Of course, this brings DRM encrypted works into the mix, but it seems that nobody (i.e. the RIAA) cares about the service offered by Slim Devices for audio so the format-shift part hasn't been challenged. This could be a lucrative service, especially given the prices for format specific versions of the content. All of a sudden, it's not "pirates" doing the work, but good-ol' palm-greasing, profit making corporate America. I would, indeed, be more likely to support CC if they carry this through to SCOTUS and/or congressional action to gut the DMCA and restore balance to the system.
I'm not going to hold my breath or anything, but it's good for a smile this Friday afternoon.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Great first post. You've either been to law school or at least know something about the way the system works in the US.
Mod parent up!
That needs to be tested in court. Courts sometimes relax the meaning of "effective" to simply mean "in effect". A single bit indicating "do not copy" could be "effective" if argued properly. At least, that's the argument I would make if I were representing the Macrovision (or DVD-CCA) as a plaintiff. If I were representing an individual as a plaintiff (not sure if someone doing this could go after a declatory judgment) or as defendant, I'd probably try to argue just the opposite. Effective should mean what we all think it does. Of course I'm just a law student. I'm not taking a side here. Fair use is a good thing.
Therein lies the problem. If they were doing this for free, it *might* fall under fair use. They aren't. They are making a profit. This comes down to selling a copy in adifferent format without protections, and without any royalties. ....
If they did it for free, it would be a value-added service. No royalties to be paid. Instead, they've turned it into a money-making operation with no compensation to the copyright owners.
I hate to disagree, but you are simply wrong. First, the consumer must already ownd the DVD that is going to be ripped to the digital device that the consumer must also already own. As such, there is no need to pay royaltees as no ownership is being transferred. Also, what difference does it make if they are paid for this service or not as to whether it is considered to be a value-added service?
If I have a digital device that allows me to copy a dvd that I have purchased onto it for viewing and that isn't a violation of copyright (much like an mp3 player letting me put my CDs on it), then why is it a problem if I choose to pay somebody to do the copying for me? They are providing a legitimate service.
In short, if there is a copyright issue, it's not because Circuit City is involved, but the player is being used to view the DVD. Assuming it is legal to watch movies on my portable devices (if not, why have them in the first place), then Circuit City or anybody else I choose should be able to copy the the movies onto the device for me and allowed to charge me for it, too.
Now, whether the RIAA or MPAA will be upset by all of this, is a different story, but then again, that is really between them and the purchaser/owner of the DVD.
I may be wrong on this one, but perhaps Circuit City has purchased a license to the CSS keys, that would allow them to decrypt and re-encrypt DVD's without "circumventing" the copy protection...just a possibility.
0 21219&tid=123
Considering the fact that Kaleidescape did license CSS for their media server, and they still got sued by the DVD CCA for making and selling a product that allows users to make a copy of a DVD onto a very closed and locked-down server (from which you cannot copy a movie to another computer), I'd say you are wrong on this one.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/14/2
So the DMCA authors did think of this. They didn't necessarily mean to give the NSA free reign to read your emails (the authors were probably thinking of foreign communications), but they certainly created a big exception for the three letter agencies.
CSS encryption isn't remotely effective at controlling access to films.
Spurious argument, legally. It's already been tried and defeated. See, e.g., Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 346 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
In S.D.N.Y. circuit, in Texas the courts ruled differently when arguing about the same "secret" which was known by everyone who would care to know it, about 5 minutes after the first slashdot story. The Supremes haven't disambiguated this so you would need to go above the head of the S.D.N.Y. if you were in the Southern NY district, but I think it is pretty clear they had their heads up their asses that day. Remember, even conservative rags like the New York Times violated the S.D.N.Y. order as it applied to 2600 magazine, and they tried to influence the court with friend of the court briefs. That case also ended with only 2600 magazine, being prevented from reporting that you could play a DVD on your computer, everyone else is free to do so in the Southern New York district and the papers have repeatedly done that since the ruling came down in 2000. Universal has been to chicken shit to sue the NYT or any other New York publication under the DMCA since.
The Reimerdes case is special because the judges heard "hacker magazine" and didn't listen to anything after that. The judges don't know what a hacker is except for what the media defines it as so to them the case might as well have been "Mothers for Apple Pie vs. Child Rapist HowTo Magazine". Listening to the legal arguements would have been tantamount to finding a loophole for "the bad guys"(TM). These judges are almost all hoping for promotion to the Supremes and would see that as career wrecking move.
One could say CSS does not "effectively controls access". Heck, anything could become uneffective.
Haven't seen any quotes from Richmond so I wouldn't get to excited. Store personnel are encouraged to 'think out of the box' regarding alternative revenue streams - esp. those related to exploiting a workforce that is already in place. The signs in the picture were not sourced from corporate... not very flashy is it? For those hoping for a fight, you probably won't see one - they'll just ask the store director to pull the signs. Remember, CC is a major distributor of Hollywood movies, not because they make money on titles but because it brings in customers to buy other stuff. They will not upset their suppliers.
Isn't rooting Circuit City to take on the MPAA like summoning Orcus to fight off Demogorgon and hoping it turns out for the best?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
True story....
Back in 1998-2000, one of my larger clients was ABC News. If you were in the business in the late 90s, the question on everybody's mind was "where are you going to be at midnight, December 31, 1999?" ABC News ran a 24-hour broadcast following the date rollover around the world--I wrote the electronic script that the show ran on, and spent New Years Eve in the ABC control room.
ABC is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company--one of the main players in the MPAA. Disney has a unique strategy with their video content: they release a backlist title like "Cinderella" for three months, and then do not distribute it again for years. This is a perfect case for Fair Use copying--because if you damage that tape or DVD, you cannot replace it. Disney will not even send you a replacement if you return the original to them.
My youngest daughter, Annie, has Down Syndrome. She loved Disney movies. She would play a particular movie over and over and over--to the point that the videotape would wear out. (She also, I'll admit, conducted an intensive study of just what sorts of things could be stuffed into a videotape player.)
Can Annie be a test case?
Provoked by an article on SlashDot, I wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Would they be interested in having Annie act as the plaintiff to challenge the DMCA on Fair Use grounds? It would be a textbook Fair Use argument: and the case would have all the right "demographics:" a handicapped child, daughter of a vendor to Disney (who, obv., would be severing ties with the client as soon as they put two and two together), making backups of DVDs to enable the child to continue to see content after destroying the original disc--which cannot be replaced commercially.
The EFF was enthusiastic--they called, we talked, life was good. Except that I happened to mention in an email (because of a comment, I seem to recall, about EFF being characterized as a bunch of "radicals" or something like that) that I'm pretty much of a square. I'm a deacon in my church. I'm a registered Republican.
And I never heard another word from them--even after several attempts to contact them.
I am a PC technician at Circuit City. I know I am posting late, but I should probably bring this up. We don't do this at our store. Over the past year, Circuit City Stores have become very competetive with each other in driving the installation business. This is probably only isolated to a single store or district. The only DVD transfering we do in the store is HOME VHS to DVD. This is probably one areas way of making more money, and I can't really see it being that sucessful.
True, but Joe Average doesn't know the difference, and doesn't realize that he should care.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
But all the arguments the judge used appeared to apply to cases where a vendor would provide any sort of transcoding services for you (eg. you would give them your media, they would transcode it into a new format, they'd hand you both formats back, and you'd give them a little money for the service). MP3.com seemed to imply that the only legal way for commercial entties to help people transcode was to only provide the mechanism (the software, for instance) to transcode, but they couldnt' do the actual transcoding for you.
Very true; although I think the ubiquitousness of those "infringing" activities suffers from a generational gap right now. Most young people don't think twice about ripping a DVD to their iPod, and probably more than a few don't give a damn about the questionable legality of downloading music from a foreign country with lax laws (aka AllOfMP3) or straight peer-to-peer.
I'm not sure it's widespread enough for me to call it Prohibition-like, yet. There are still large segments of society that think DVDs are flat-out impossible to copy, because they've never had any reason to figure out whether or not it was possible. However, as portable video players become more common, and cease to become a young person's trendy accessory and get to the point where even older people have them, I think you'll see more surprise and disbelief that it's illegal to do with a DVD what everyone is used to doing with Audio CDs; ripping and compressing them for use on a portable device.
Anyway, I think we're agreeing with each other here, it's just semantics whether you think the "Digital Prohibition" is here today, or still to come; I think the outrage and flouting of the law hasn't reached nearly its peak yet (and won't, until the law is eventually corrected), so I'm holding off on awarding the title. But the situation today ought to provide strong evidence as to the direction we're headed as a society, and I can't imagine that it must make any lovers of the DMCA sleep soundly in their beds at night. A law in a democratic society can only be in direct opposition to a vast majority of the public's desires for so long (actually true even in an undemocratic society, it just takes longer); laws which run so obviously contrary to technology, progress, and the rights of consumers do not have much of a future. Unfortunately, the social cost of their abolition is often quite high, which is why their creation needs to be opposed at every turn; they're nothing to be cavalier about when we see them being made.
OT: Love your sig quote. It took me a while to figure out where it was from, though.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Your analogy is flawed. Nobody is preventing you from making your own movie, paying for the videotape, the equipment, and the labor. If you can produce a better product than Hollywood for less, good for you. By your logic, however, you could buy a master print from the first movie theater to release the cool movie of the moment and undersell the distributor. The creators of the movie get nothing, and you make pure profit for doing nothing. I'm sure you'd like that a lot, but honestly, how long do you think that would last before movies stopped getting made?
While I'm not necessarily agreeing with the GP, I think your straw man is also flawed. The business model which exists right now for the creation of music/movies/etc. would not be the one that a sane person would try to use in the absence of copyright laws.
Historically, it's not what artists used in the past, either, prior to the creation of copyright laws.
Right now, the movie studios basically make a movie on speculation. They attract investors, and pour money into a production, on the assumption that they'll be able to recoup costs over many months of theater ticket sales (and then make profits from the DVDs and merchandise). As you very astutely pointed out, this would not work if people could redistribute the movie once it hit the first screen.
However, this wouldn't mean the demise of motion pictures altogether, just of the current business model. The public demand for movies would still be there; that's not going to change. And frankly, even if every movie in the back catalog of every studio in the world was available on-demand, there is still going to be a market for new movies, simply because they're new. The market abhors a vacuum, and where there's a demand, people will rise to supply it.
Without copyright allowing a studio/producer to sell the same thing over and over and over to recoup costs, more emphasis would have to be placed on selling the very first copy. In effect, all art would have to work on a patronage basis: if you wanted a particular studio to make a particular film, you might have to sign up and send them some money. (For which you might get some sort of direct benefit: a first-pressing DVD, your name in the credits, etc. But the important thing to note is that the payment isn't for the copy of the movie -- that's valueless, since a day later, anyone would be able to get a copy -- but for actually having the movie made in the first place.)
Movies which people weren't willing to pay to have created, to essentially commission artists to make in advance, would simply not get made.
Frankly I see this as a plus; right now we have a lot of crappy, low-grade corporate kitsch turned out by studios and artists working on speculation, trying to gauge the public's interest in something and not doing a very good job of it. By forcing people to pay up front -- perhaps resulting in more fan-driven movies -- only works that a substantial number of people wanted would ever be made. The theaters would show the films they thought would sell the most tickets, which would probably be a mix of old standbys and new material (that is if the theaters remained in business at all, without the studios propping them up by giving them exclusivity during first runs).
Your perspective is a common one, namely that the current framework is the only one in which art can be created. That's not true; when you live in a world where anybody can have a copy of something that's been made yesterday, having something newly created, or commissioning the creation of something unique becomes much more valuable. If everyone can have a giant collection of movies, there's no longer any social impetus to do so; instead if you want to show how rich you are, it becomes a question of how many movies you can get yourself in the credits of as a result of your patronage.
Where there is a demand for content, society and a free market will always find a way to fill it; a system where there was not any copyr
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This was the statement you made:
"mp3.com... They got sued for transcoding user's CD's into MP3's for them, while making a little money off of it."
That is completely incorrect. mp3.com never touched a user's CD. Instead, they ripped their own and made them available to download with restrictions. That's entirely different and nothing like your claim.
Your reply is merely an opinion unrelated to your original claim and one I have no interest in commenting on.
I believe nothing will happen in the lawsuit sense. I looked on our signage database and found NOTHING that points to the dvd conversion. I really hope the MPAA tries to sue, because CCity has the leverage of the whole stock of dvd movies behind them (which they buy upfront, unlike other places) I think the MPAA will see that if we do get sued we could simply stop buying/selling their DVDs(extreme case only) I seriously believe if the movie industry is going to survive they are going to have cater to ipod and other media players in order to make any sort of comeback, meaning available access points for ipod movie/tv downloads. Sorry MPAA, but you can see the amount of downloads online, and the decrease of DVD sales, so whose fault is it that the industry is floundering? I hope someone creates an authorized DVD making kiosk, so we dont have to keep movies in stock, and it keeps me from having to re-alphabetize all those damn DVDs every few days ;-)