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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."
Nah, can't do that, teacher might use the camcorder to videotape students in the locker room.
Now I know what that guy was doing behind me while I was watching Star Trek yesterday. He was just making a clip for fair use.
According to the MPAA, it is a-okay to use a camcorder to record a movie!
requiring you to defend yourself from a wild boar with a knife, even if you have a gun, just because it is not legal to have a gun where you live. (Even if you don't happen to have a knife.)
BTW, like the MPAA, wild boars are vicious.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It might help if we didn't call it "ripping."
Teachers may also make partial copies of a CD for education purposes by recording to a vinyl record and playing it back on a phonograph.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
ThePirateBay.org registers the domain TheTeacherBay.org
I was one of the few people that had the pleasure (or the displeasure) of being at the Library of Congress DMCA hearing room when the MPAA made this ridiculous argument. Suffice to say, I was completely shocked, flabbergasted, and just plain insulted that educators would truly be expected to do something like this in their bizarro world. Nevermind the fact that you would need an HDTV, HD Camcorder, Tripod, good lighting, and tons of time on your hands to manually create compilation clips with your camcorder (as if educators had any free time as it is).
I couldn't tell if the Copyright bigwigs that heard the argument were actually taking it seriously, but I sincerely hope that any appearance of sincerity was simply there for the sake of keeping respect for the hearings.
The one thing that I learned at the hearing was that you have to be fucking crazy in order to be a lawyer on their side. Even I (a soon to be unemployed law school graduate) didn't think that I could make this argument with a straight face even for tons of money.
Sorry about double-posting, but I just remembered something else: how would the teacher's union react to this? I'm not very fond of unions, but this time it would be a good thing to have on our side. The teachers union holds quite a bit of clout in government and they probably wouldn't put up with BS like this. Their argument would probably be something along the lines of that teachers are [rightfully] too busy to waste their time recording movies with a camcorder just to please the movie industry. The MPAA would probably back down even if they got their way and then had to take on the unions.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
until Star.Trek.(2009).Mr.BeRNaRD.3rdPeRIod.SoCiALSTudiES.avi hits the scene.
Actually, it's the DMCA that's the issue, not Fair Use.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Who is that, a French porn star? The phrase you are looking for is je ne sais quoi.
They're not going to say anything.
rewriting history since 2109