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Macrovision Wants Old DRM to Work Forever
Grv writes "Macrovision's best-known form of copy protection inserts noise into analog video signals to make it difficult to get a good copy of the DVD or VHS recording. A company named Sima has products that eliminate this noise when digitizing such video, as any good digitizer would do. Macrovision argues that this is a violation of the DMCA, and a court sided with them in June. Now the injunction is being reviewed, and several organizations are siding with Sima and Fair Use, including the American Library Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If it isn't overturned, this decision could make it illegal to develop products for making copies of commercial analog recordings."
This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.
If these are analog signals, does the DMCA apply here? Is cleaning noise out of a signal considered "hacking" now?
"Wanna watch Erik The Viking?"
"Can't. It would be a violation of the law."
"What Law?"
"The one that prevents us from taking the old video tape I bought of it, which I can no longer watch on newer video devices due to built in DRM and I am prevented from recording onto a computer and removing the old DRM and writing to digital storage which the new digital video devices read."
"Man, obeying the law sucks!"
"No, creating laws which paint people into a corner and then hand them the brush suck."
Ultimately, the way DRM and DMCA is going, you will not have owned DVDs, CDs, LPs, 45s, etc. You will merely have rented them until the march of technology locks you out of enjoying the content any further.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought that the DMCA did that already. These products are knowingly removing DRM from an original tape. Regardless of how you feel, the DMCA specifically outlaws this. According to TFA, the problem is that the means by which the program strips DRM is through converting it to digital and by outlawing the program the judge could outlaw AD conversions.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
I have nothing against the content producers making financial gain from their efforts. In fact, I work for a company that makes a considerable amount of money licensing code to third parties. I'm well aware of the situation that copyright creates, and I'm all for ownership of intellectual property.
That said, ownership is a two way street. I exchange my ownership of the code I produce for the salary my company pays me. I consider it a fair deal - I work a given number of hours in exchange for a one time payment. Once I've cashed the check (before, actually), I no longer own the code that I write. I have no problem with this arrangement. Whether my company sells one copy or a million makes no difference to me, because I've already been paid for the work I did. If the company can't sell my code, well, that's their loss, not mine. Or, if they are obscenely profitable, that's their gain. After all, they bought my code, and they own it. For them to make obscene profits does not impose any additional work burden on me.
However, the movie industry is actively opposed to intellectual property. When you buy a movie from them, they take your money, yet behave as if both the money and the movie are still theirs. You see, they don't believe in property. When you sell a piece of property, you give up any and all claim to the property. The movie industry's idea of a sale is more like an indefinite lease - you get to have a copy of the content for as long as it suits the studio. They feel that if they are not making enough money, they have the right to charge you time and again for the same material. (i.e. new movie on DVD instead of VHS, the "director's cut" version, etc...)
And you are supposed to like it. You pay for the DVD, but you don't own it:
Granted, I know there are ways around all of these, but they are not easy to come by, and require a technical aptitude beyond what the average user will possess. In effect, the studios are "Indian givers" - they aren't satisfied with either your money or the movie - they want them both.
Which, I think is one of the key reasons why I seldom buy movies anymore. It just doesn't seem right to give money to someone whose stated purpose is to explicitly rip off their customers, and goes to great length to defend the practice .
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I agree with the spirit of your post, but the one thing that people overlook in their "government+companies vs. the people" argument, is that companies are made up of people. I think the spirit of what companies do to protect their investments, is to help protect their money. Money which they use to pay their employees, who in turn, contribute to society.
I do, however, agree that these kinds of things suck, and feel that if I own a VHS tape or LP, I should be able to transfer them to whatever media I choose.... But by admitting that I have the ability to do so, also is an admission that I have the ability to still play the original media and am not locked out of it. Granted, I own an mp3 player, and think it would be cool to listen to those old unpublished B sides I have stored away on vinyl when I take the dog for a walk, or any media I own, that for whatever reason isn't considered profitable to some guy sitting in a tower. Artistry in any form needs to be preserved, regardless of popularity or profit. Admirers of "unprofitable" or "unpopular" art, in my opinion have a duty and right to preserve and protect art for future generations, when others won't do it.
To me, copy restrictions amount to nothing more than the censorship of art, and a slippery slope of allowing only a select few to choose what parts of our past carry on into the present. Remember this one thing: "History is written by the winners."
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No one here cares about rights. This is simply macrovision trying to survive. If:
1. Anyone can overcome macrovision protection,
2. It will be useless to even build it in anywhere.
4. No company will by the protection from macrovision.
5. Loss
Your company isn't paying you for just a single copy of your code - they are paying you to assign them the copyright, so they can make as many copies as they like.
It would certainly be possible for you to pay to media companies to assign the copyright to you, but it would cost a lot more then $15.
The fact that you got modded +5 insightful only illustrates how difficult it is to sort out intelectual property owernship issues. Almost all analogies made with cars or computers or whatever people tend to come up with don't work - this is a different beast and as a society we haven't figured out yet how to deal with the problem of something as essential as culture being a commercial product at the same time. Perhaps our culture isn't all it is drummed up to be?
I'm not disagreeing with you, but it's not really that different from a book, the one exception being fair use of excerpts.
You pay for the book, but you don't own it:
When a new version comes out (like the English version of "A Clockwork Orange", a paperback, or an ebook) you have to buy it if you want it in the new format or with the extra material. If your book wears out, or you spill coffee on it and it become illegible, you have to buy a new copy.
The biggest difference is a book never becomes unusable due to technological obsolescence.
TimeWarner AOL?
Cable companies?
Despite what the MPAA wants you to believe, there's more to "content providers" than than your local movie theater.
Have you completely ignored the astroturfing campaign, including TV ads, that attacked Net Neutrality in specious ways? Do you really believe the MPAA did not have anything to do with that?
... and then they built the supercollider.
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When Hollings (D-Disney) was proposing the SSSCA/CBDTPA, I wrote to Pres. Bush and asked him to work against it, and veto it. I spewed a lot of malarkey that I didn't believe, such as "Hollywood liberal elite", "Unnecessary regulation of business", etc...
Putting someone's own prejudices to work for you is sometimes all that you can do.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
They have a pretty ironic name for being so short-sighted.
You can kill someone with a hammer; are they gonna make those illegal too now?
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Use less media. See fewer movies and NONE at the theater. Buy no new music, just buy used CD's.
Golly, you might not be cool, but you won't be a sucker, either. Fuck the media companies that want to ruin our intellectual property system.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
This is another reason why I joined the US Pirate Party. The laws need to be reformed and the DMCA needs to be replaced with a more sensible, consumer friendly version. I'm simply sick of being told what I can and what I can't do with my legally purchased media, as long and I don't like that trying to make it into a rent style system.
We need to form together to help change these laws. I believe joining the Pirate Party may be a start to this. Boycotting also works effectively, but only if enough people do it. Raising awareness of these issues is also a very good thing to do as many people simply aren't aware that it happening until it is too late. Even just trying to talk to your representatives may help things as most of th time they aren't even aware of these types of issues or if they don't listen, then vote for someone else next time. If we can get enough people to realize what is really occuring, then change can happen.
Yes, companies are made up of relatively small groups of people (when compared with the total population of say the US), and when they screw the majority of the populace they must be reminded that they exist at the pleasure of the society in which they operate. The problem here is that companies are allowed to lobby and contribute to politicians, which is bullshit. The employees of the companies each have their vote in our political system, and that should be the limit of a company's political influence, full stop. But of course, it isn't, and they have disproportionate influence, so cry me a fucking river.
On top of that, the companies that must "pay their people" can't even seem to do that properly (i.e. retirees), which is why it's a damned shame Ken Lay and his family weren't dragged into the street and lynched live on television.
Dear Macrovision:
While you were busy making life hard for legitimate customers, I downloaded four movies that had been Macrovision-scrubbed for my convenience.
Sincerely,
Ha Ha Ha!
PS: Eat a dick.
>You pay for the book, but you don't own it:
Yes, you own the copy of the book.
The only restrictions on it is is use in various forms involving making it available for the public. Of course, you can't make NEW copies in several cases either. Ownership has nothing to do with copyright though. It applies equally regardless of if you would own the book or not. That is irellevant.
Illegal in the US, that is.
Trust me, I work for the government.
I don't see how Macrovision can even be considered copy protection. Videos with Macrovision are defective. If you 'own' a video with Macrovision on it, you probably have a good case for fraud. As other posters have explained, all Macrovision does is destroy the signal to the point at which it is barely playable. Ideally, a Macrovision video will look okay in playback, but it will be so badly degraded it can't be copied. Often though, depending on your equipment, it won't even display adequately for playback. There's nothing really fancy or high tech about it. Macrovision doesn't add noise and then remove it on playback, like some kind of sophisticated watermarking. They actually just destroy the signal of the original.
Selling videos with Macrovision is like selling books that are so poorly printed that a page can't be photocopied and many users won't be able to read all the text in the original. One key difference is with a book, you could see how badly printed it is and avoid buying it. In contrast, with Macrovision, you don't know until you try to play it - at which point many people mistakenly blamed their equipment.
All kinds of pro video equipment can repair some of the damage done by Macrovision. This is not equipment designed for removing Macrovision, It's designed for ensuring a high quality signal is maintained throughout the production process. This equipment is comparable to the equipment a print house might have to ensure books are printed with some measure of quality.
Simply putting your trademark on a common type of analog degradation does not get you a form of copy protection, it simply ensures products are (in)consistently defective.
Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the corporation that get the benefits?
Is it the "owners" or the "workers" part of the population that pay the price?
Take a look at wealth distribution and you get the answer: http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts
Bottom 50% ownling less that 3% of the wealth.
Top 1% owning more than 30% of the wealth.
We are seeing an absurd concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few at the cost of the many, and it is getting worse all the time. http://www.faireconomy.org/research/income_charts
Yes, corporations are manned by average people. However, a very small group of privileged people are reaping all the benefits. And the disparity has been snowballing the last decades.
http://www.cbpp.org/9-23-03tax.htm
So don't tell me it's OK for corporations to suck the marrow out of the rest of society because they are made up of people. It's a case of the few getting absurdly rich at the cost off the many, there's no way to get around that fact.