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Can You Be Sued For Helping Clients Rip DVDs?
DRMer writes "CE Pro has a series of stories that tries to untangle the legalities of DVD ripping in light of the recent RealDVD announcement from RealNetworks. In one of the stories, EFF Attorney Fred von Lohmann discusses the potential liability of those who resell or install DVD-ripping machines (the courts have yet to rule). Another article provides a rather amusing look at how manufacturers justify the legality of their products. Here's one example: 'We are just like Microsoft Vista that does not have a CSS [Content Scramble System] license.'"
You can be sued for anything, the question is can you be successfully sued
Cruise TT
You can be sued for anything. It doesn't mean you'll lose.
But in this case, you just might.
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I hand the client on my own time a un-labelled Cd with instructions to get anyDVD and the other software they need along with a basic guide. I tell them, you did not get this from me and will deny I have ever seen it or know about it.
I inform them that the MPAA thinks they are crooks and actually hates them and that is why you have to do this silly cloak and dagger crap to rip a DVD for their new expensive Media server system for the home so they can actually have 21st century entertainment.
they typically understand after the mess is explained to them. My sticker is they want to hire someone to do all the ripping for them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is not interesting if you can be sued (as mentioned by others, you always can be).
There are two questions that should be answerd:
1) is it right or wrong?
2) is it legal or illegal?
If 1 and 2 give different answers than the law should be updated.
Lawsuits often don't answer any of the questions (which is actually a very bad thing).
Of course answering question 1 is the tough one.
Maybe we should sue Craftsman for making hammers and chainsaws, since those might be used as murder weapons. Or perhaps Raid for making bug spray, since it could conceivably be used to poison someone. Or architects for designing tall buildings since a suicidal person might jump off of them. How about manufacturers of ropes or chains, since those might be used to hang somebody?
Why do we collectively accept this madness when it's copyright that we don't accept otherwise? There are legitimate reasons to rip a DVD, and there are also uses of a DVD ripper that violate copyright. A hammer can help to build a house to shelter a family, or it can be used by a criminal to bludgeon someone to death. In principle, I see no fundamental difference here.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I though assisting one in bypassing DRM to copy media was very direct and clear in the DCMA, which is why people are wary of including libdvdcss in Linux distros, even if it is used for playback and not copying.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Selling products that archive DVDs
The MPAA is likely to argue that (1) selling anything that makes copies of movies if you have reason to know that the customer is going to use it to infringe is, itself, an act of contributory infringement and (2) while the "archiving" may not violate the DMCA's [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] prohibition on unauthorized decryption, any device that includes any unlicensed "decrypter" or "player" is a circumvention device prohibited by the DMCA.
I think the gist of the story is broken down into those two questions and based on the response from von Lohmann, I would say is the profit worth the risk. I wont argue anything that allows you to backup the legally purchased DVD's you own (or is it lease...might have to re-read the license)is and should be 100% legal, however, if I am just an installer putting these devices in play, I would think long and hard when the customer who begins his "dvd-reselling" business points the finger back at you..
They keep telling us we're buying a license to listen/view the content they are selling to us.
But then they try to lock it down to the actual media.
If I pay for the content, let me rip it so I can use it on my own hardware, the way I see fit (MPAA/RIAA calm down, that doesn't include giving away nor selling copies to others). Also, why do I have to pay full price to get a replacement CD/DVD, my content license has already been paid.
1. Take note of the posted speed limit. On many major highways it is generally 55 or 65 MPH, but this varies from region to region. Better to check first.
2. Press down on the accelerator of your vehicle until your speedometer indicates that you are traveling at a speed higher than the posted speed limit.
3. Maintain a rate of travel above this speed by keeping the accelerator depressed and by not hitting your break pedal.
Now I guess I can be sued if you ever get a speeding ticket.
Absent a court ruling to back that up, it isn't anything. It's a hypothetical because there is no case law to establish anything.
Note that copyright infringement is a civil matter. So, aiding and abetting doesn't apply.
Maybe if you did it on a commercial scale, for profit, you could make that point. Helping people to install software to perform what is considered to be fair use ... that has yet to be determined.
Would I want to make a business out of selling this kind of stuff without legal precedent? Nope. But, neither does your summary decision that it's a aiding and abetting a crime have anything to support it.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I suggest you check exactly how many barratry cases have been prosecuted in the US in the last decade. Even Jack Tompson hasn't been charged with that yet. Although one lawyer did have to cough up for his opponent's legal fees recently.
And in both cases, a lot of this seems to depend on where you live.
In North America, Canada seems safer, but there's also a push to hit us with new laws that would be even more draconian than those in the US.
Personally, if person X wants to pay person Y $1.50 to copy his (bought and paid for) "Little Mermaid" DVD so that the kids don't ruin the original, why shouldn't he be able to?
There is an inherent stupidity to much of what goes on in the new frontier of digital media. Tivos don't allow 30 second skipping to mollify the networks, but I can install MythTV and skip as much or as little as I want. Ipods are built to be crippled with DRM and the inability to move files from one player to the other, but anyone can go out and legally purchase an MP3 player from a different manufacturer that allows you to move files onto it or off of it without restriction. Anyone with minimal savvy can use the publicly-available DeCSS code to rip as many DVDs as they want onto their home media server and have been able to do that for years, but now the Copyright Patrol has its panties in a bunch over boxes that are dedicated to this function. The discourse is fundamentally stupid.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
how is it illegal to take something you purchased, and rightfully own, and convert it to a format that better suits your purposes. if i want to rip all my DVDs and CDs onto my hard drive, that is my prerogative. as long as i'm not distributing them illegally, it falls completely within fair use.
just like, if i have a child who is blind, and i want to take all the books i've bought her and record myself reading them aloud so that she may listen to the books when i'm not around, that is not a crime--not yet, at least.
They could get a CSS licence from somebody else other than the DVD-CCA. The DVD-CCA has no special authority to license the use of a CSS descrambler than any content producer.
Since CSS isn't a trade secret anymore (it is PD knowledge now) nobody is prohibited from implementing it on trade secret grounds.
Since CSS was never patented, nobody is prohibited from implementing it on patent grounds.
Since each CSS implementation is an independent work rather than derived, nobody is prohibited from implementing it on copyright grounds.
I'll give them a licence for free. Here you go. I hereby license you all, each and every one.
Helping people to install software to perform what is considered to be fair use ... that has yet to be determined.
I'm fairly certain the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been tested in court, specifically in relation to backing up DVDs. Remember 321 Studios?
There is no such law that allows for one backup. I can make 100 copies of CDs that I bought and go skeet shooting. I am only breaking the law when I distribute those copies to others.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
No?
Unfair laws make criminals of everyone.
Om, nomnomnom...
Well, that was a combination of running out of money and losing a lower court ruling.
At present, there isn't definitive case law to identify if this is legal or not. Unfortunately, the pecker heads at the MPAA have deep enough pockets to buy whatever ruling they want until someone pushes this far enough through the courts. The whole point of TFA is that this is a gray area that hasn't been finally determined by the courts.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I retain right of first sale on DVDs, CDs, and books.
I own the disk, and while I'm limited in what I can do with its contents .... this "license to view what's one the disk" argument is fallacious. Don't buy into the unproven claims of the *AAs. This is more than just what they claim they've licensed you to do.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
For the purpose of interoperability it is legal to circumvent technical measures. Getting it to work with your backup program is an interoperability situation.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You are circumventing technical measures for the express purpose of interoperability (with your backup software). Perfectly legal.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
If they make criminals of EVERYONE, then they ARE fair.
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that is still illegal. skeet shooting is like bittorrent - distributing little chunks of files over a broad area, but never the whole file at once! =P
http://kered.org
on that advertising bit...
say you are taken to court and the decision is that in fact you ARE only licensed to view. At that point you file a motion charging the *AA with literally MILLIONS of cases of false advertising. NICE!
It hasn't been tested nationally, but lower courts have decided. Not everything needs to go to the Supreme Court to be decided, that just adds finality to the decision.
It's the circumvention that's prohibited, not the copying itself. So, if you can get at the data without circumvention, fair use provisions should still apply.
That's what they want you to believe, but I don't think there's actually any legal basis to it. I need a license if I want rights I don't already get from the act of purchase -- like distribution of copies, hence the meaningful-ness of the GPL -- but "view the content" isn't a right reserved to the copyright holder. I don't need or want a license, hence there is no leverage to impose constraints on my use.
This is the fundamental problem IMO with any EULA. The publisher wants the best of both worlds -- the no-effort boiler-plate transactions that take place at retail sale, along with the control of a contractually negotiated arrangement. Thing is, that's not supposed to be legal -- at best it's a contract of adhesion.
And don't kid yourself -- the publishers know full well they wouldn't get the sales volume they do if the purchaser didn't think of it just like any retail transaction. I'd argue they're using the form of a retail transaction to lead consumers into believing they're buying the disc, then later trying to claim "oh, that wasn't the arrangement at all; all you got was a license."
You have to keep in mind the very radical terms of DMCA. That law is unlike anything else that people have experience with, and you can't just apply common sense to it, or think about the issues in terms of what copyright is for. Anyone who talks about issues like "copyright infringement" in this context, is not in the right frame of mind. Copyright infringement is a totally unrelated concept to DMCA.
The key part of DMCA is that no one is allowed to access the content without authorization from the copyright holder. Do you have authorization? (Can you prove you do?)
We generally ass/u/me that we have authorization to play our DVDs, provided that we are using equipment for which the manufacturer got a DVDCSS license. But look at your DVD and the booklet and the case: the conditions under which you are authorized to play it, are not actually stated anywhere.
If you play a DVD and then for whatever reason, and in service of whatever agenda, the copyright holder decides to sue you for violating DMCA, then they just need to answer one question: Do you authorize what the defendant did?
If the copyright holder says Yes, then the judge should say, "I find in favor of the defendant."
If the copyright holder says No, then the judge should say, "I find in favor of the plaintiff."
The same goes for a manufacturer. If a copyright holder decides that people are not authorized to play their DVDs on your equipment, then the primary purpose of your equipment is to play DVDs without authorization.
There is no code of conduct you can follow, or rules spelled out, or anything you can do to make sure what you're doing is legal. There aren't even vague rules of thumb, parallel to the Fair Use criteria like you have in copyright-infringement related discussions. Every DVD user, every DVD player manufacturer, and every DVD-related toolmaker (which accesses the content of CSS-scrambled DVDs) is at their arbitrary mercy. All they have to do, is say you are not authorized, and then unless you have some sort of evidence that they did authorize you (do you (does anyone?) have this evidence, for any of the DVDs that you own?), then you have clearly violated DMCA.
This holds even if you get a DVDCSS license, and strictly adhere to its terms. But, if you do that, then they have no incentive to come after you (and they would undermine all the reasons that anyone bothers to get DVDCSS licenses), so you will get away with it. That's the safest way to go.
If this all seems unfair to you, then I advocate you vote against everyone in the 2008 elections who doesn't say they will sponsor or vote for legislation that repeals DMCA. Remember: a president, a third of the senate, and the whole house. This law could be gone in a few months, if only people would vote on it. Yes, some will say it's naive to think people would vote on actual issues, but we do have the ability, should we ever choose to exercise it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
http://www.kaleidescape.com/company/pr/PR-20070329-DVDCCA.php
Basically, if you're in compliance with the CCA requirements, there isn't anything they can do about it.
The CCA is now trying to change the license to prevent copying, but every storage system on the planet is going to file complaints and litigation if that happens.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
However, you're all not actually paying close enough attention to the question.
The question is, "Can you be sued for helping to perform action X?". The answer to that question is an unequivocal "Yes!". In America you can be sued for anything. Whether you can win in court is dependent largely on whether you can afford to stay in for enough rounds to have baseless claims thrown out. Occasionally, really badly executed lawsuits are thrown out in the beginning. But since any copyright infringement lawsuit is likely to come from deep pocket corporations, those lawsuits will be full of rational sounding legal FUD.
So, yes, you can be sued for helping someone rip DVDs, whether there is a legal standing to support that suit is another question.