Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying

Ynefel writes in with a PC Magazine article reporting that the DVD Copy Control Association is considering an amendment to the agreement equipment vendors must abide by, which would completely ban all DVD backups, whether fair use or not, and prevent DVDs from playing without the DVD disk being present in the drive. The amendment is being voted on imminently and if approved would go into effect within 18 months. Quoting: "The proposed amendment was made public in a letter sent by Michael Malcolm, the chief executive of Kaleidescape, a DVD jukebox company which successfully defeated a suit by the DVD CCA this past March."

Comments

If I can read it,

[grasshoppa]

If I can read the disk, I can back it up. It's as simple as that.

There's just one thing I don't understand...

[Spy der Mann]

Actually 2.

1. How will that prevent the 99% of existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd's?

And 2. How will that prevent the 10% of existing computer users with Divx software from ripping their dvd's?

licenses are all set up wrong

[192939495969798999]

all of this stems from a broken business model. The only license sold to watch movies is a movie ticket. If you sell someone the content of the movie on a disc, how in the hell is that equivalent to only selling a license to watch the disc's content? It's their own fault for not realizing this. DVD's are not priced appropriately, and their content cannot be protected appropriately for what people want. Therefore, either abandon the media completely, or realize that you've been selling people the content for years, and that trying to enforce a 'one-viewer-per-purchase, no copying' type licensing scheme on DVD's is ridiculous when movie tickets exist for that very purpose.

Re:For those who don't RTFA

[AKAImBatman]

If you don't get to do it (DRM, DMCA etc.) you complain, they ignore you, you lose. There's nothing to sue the DVD CCA over in the fair use paragraph, it only says that some things that otherwise might be copyright infringement aren't.

Actually, there's a LOT to sue over here. According to the fair-use laws (including the DMCA), you can make a backup, but you can't break the encryption to do it. It needs to be an exact backup. Thus the only way to make a legal backup is to use a licensed device like Kaleidescape's. The device complies with both the DMCA and DVD license requirements by backing up the disc with its CSS protection intact. So copying the data out of the device won't gain you much. (At least according to TFA.)

By changing their licensing agreement, the DVD CCA would be demonstrating anti-trust behavior that is damaging to consumers and market competitors. Ergo, they could be brought up on a variety of contract disputes AND anti-trust charges.

Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once!

You think you're joking, but you're not

[dpbsmith]

Media companies have always worried about how many eyeballs will be watching that screen. That's why the videos you buy are "licensed for home use only."

Sometime before home video turned off (and turned out not to be the "strangler" of movies that Jack Valenti testified it was), RCA developed a system intended for video rental that they thought would overcome studios' objection to putting their content on home video. It was a cartridge with a mechanical design that would not rewind; the tape locked in place when viewing was complete, and required a special tool to release it. You could only watch it once, then you'd have to take it back to the video rental store where they would unlock it, rewind it, and charge another rental fee for another viewing.

RCA brought studio executives in for a demo, sure they had a winner. The executives said "We have no interest in this whatsover. You've given us absolutely no way to know how many people were watching it."

Now, in recent years there has been quite a lot of activity in biometrics and eyetracking. It is not at all inconceivable that someone could design a relatively low-cost device that could be built into a DVD player, PVR, whatever, that could tell how many eyes were watching. (And might even be able to discount cats' eyes, although dogs' eyes would be harder). And charge you accordingly. And maybe even charge extra if it detected that nobody had been watching the ads and coming attractions at the beginning.

Re:For those who don't RTFA

[GeckoX]

That is not true at all, not even close.

Contracts are merely written accounts of agreements between parties. As such, they can be changed. I have a contract right here that is a legal representation of an agreement between me and my former employer, which has been manually edited by both parties numerous times, and notarized thereafter.

Here's a hint the lawyers don't want you to know: Contracts aren't actually worth the paper they are written on. They can ALWAYS be contested. They can also always very easily be changed, in whole or in part. They can't be invalidated because they are never validated in the first place per se.

There is a reason that contract law is basically a profession in and of itself.