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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."
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
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".
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!!!
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.
The first thing that I thought of when I read the blurb on the main
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
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.
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.
The assumption keeps being made that Circuit City hasn't actually been authorized to do this.
I'd like to know where that assumption comes from.
The unauthorized circumventing of access controls isn't even just a mere civil offense, it's criminal. People can go to jail for that. Exactly why are people assuming that CC hasn't actually done their homework and at the very least got some kind of permission from the DVD-CCA to go ahead with this project. Given the prices they're charging, and the nature of the service, it looks to me like something the DVD-CCA would approve. All we have is an article from an increasingly dumber Ars Technica (they're not what they were.) which infers that they don't have permission only from the fact that the service exists.
The high expensive, and the intended use (which may even involve converting DVDs to another DRM'd format, we don't know at this stage) certainly suggests that the service wouldn't have been veto'd automatically on presentation to the DVD-CCA. And we're assuming at this stage that Circuit City aren't pointing a miniDV camera at a plasma TV.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
*If it's legal for me to do something, why would it be illegal for me to pay someone to do something for me?*
I have to chime in on this one, sorry. It's legal to masturbate (well, in most states), but it's illegal to pay someone else to masturbate you. I know, not the same thing at all, but I thought it was funny.
The fact that CC is charging for the reproduction is irrelevant. If I wish to make a fair use photocopy of a book or magazine article, Kinko's is going to charge me for it at 5 or 10 cents per page. Are they charging me for the content? No. They are charging simply for labor, materials. Circuit City is charging for their time and materials (the bank DVD, the storefront, etc). They are not profitting from the content itself, they did that when they sold you the original disk.