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MPAA Says Teachers Should Camcord For Fair Use
unlametheweak recommends an Ars Technica piece detailing the convoluted lengths to which the MPAA will go in order to keep anybody from ripping a DVD, ever. The organization showed a film to the US Copyright Office, in the triennial hearing to spell out exemptions to the DMCA, giving instructions for how a teacher could use a camcorder to record a low-quality clip of a DVD for educational use — even though such a purpose is solidly established in law as fair use. "Never mind that this solution results in video of questionable quality and requires teachers to learn even more tech in order to get the job done. It also requires schools (or, given the way most schools are run, the teachers themselves) to incur additional costs to purchase camcorders and videotapes if they don't have them already. Add in the extra time involved, and this 'solution' is a laughably convoluted alternative to simply ripping a clip from a DVD."
to keep anybody from ripping a DVD
Strong naming could easily upset (EliteTorrents or PirateBay can confess).
DVD backup could have been less of a target.
to keep anybody from creating backup of a DVD
Pretty decent and disarming.
The problem I see here is that the Copyright Office may not see how absolutely stupid the MPAA's position on this actually is.
Why would I suppose that? Well consider, the MPAA is actually making this lame argument, and they're not doing it to intentionally lose the argument, so they must think they have a chance of winning their case.
This resolves to either:
The MPAA is incredibly stupid and is insulting the Copyright Office (not a good idea if you're the MPAA).
The Copyright Office really is this stupid.
Both the MPAA and the Copyright Office are incredibly stupid.
Heaven help us all!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thanks for providing the rant that I was just about to :)
[FUCK BETA]