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."

Comments

Re:good to see..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm, it WOULD be interesting to see Circuit City say "ok, ok, we'll quit ripping your stupid DVDs" then replace their entire DVD/CD section with iPod-loading kiosks. Leftover floorspace would go to selling ipods and various accessories. (Ok, ok, they could even throw in a PlaysForSure store and a few players). You could even float this past the shareholders by talking about "embracing the future of electronic delivery of goods".

Re:violate the DMCA? In what way?

[Suzumushi]

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.

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!!!

Re:Why isn't CleanFlicks allowed to do this?

[jasonwc]

CleanFlicks lost not because they made a "backup copy" of the original copyrighted work but rather because they manipulated the copyrighted work to edit out "offensive content" without the permission of the copyright holder. This is legal in certain exceptional cases such as parodying a copyrighted work, but in this case, it was a clear violation of copyright law. Cleanflicks sold a modified version of a copyrighted work without the consent of the copyrighted holder, and their main purpose was commercial and not artistic, political etc.

The legal argument against CleanFlicks and the resulting decision in favor of the movie industry focused more on the right of a artistic creator to see his/her work presented in its intended form, without manipulation by 3rd parties, and NOT an attack on the illegal distribution of movies.

Here are some pertinent quotes from the Defendant:

  "Directors put their skill, craft and often years of hard work into the creation of a film," added Apted, whose own repertoire includes the 1999 James Bond adventure The World Is Not Enough and Gorillas in the Mist. "These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work...against unauthorized editing."

And from the case itself:

  ""[Moviemakers'] objective...is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection. Their business is illegitimate."

The service that Circuit City is providing is not analogous to that of Cleanflicks. They're not selling a modified version of the movie, nor are they selling ANYTHING. Instead, they're charging for the SERVICE of ripping a movie into a format that's capable of being played in a mobile player. Because they are circumventing CSS, they are breaking the DMCA. Therefore, Circuit City is breaking the law, but for different reasons than that of decision in the Cleanflicks case.