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Hollywood Escalates "DVD Ripping" Case To International Incident (torrentfreak.com)
A group of Hollywood studios and technology partners have asked the U.S. Government to assist in solving a long-running court battle against the Antique based software company SlySoft. Despite an earlier conviction SlySoft continues to offer its DVD and BluRay ripping tools. To progress the matter, rightsholders have asked the U.S. to place Antigua on the Priority Watch List. "Circumvention through programs such as SlySoft's AnyDVD HD is a source for widespread, large-scale and commercial copyright infringement by users located in the United States, as well as Antigua & Barbuda, and many other countries," AACS writes (pdf).
Slysoft is not in US jurisdiction, so it doesn't have to follow US law. Full stop.
They should tell Hollywood to get bent. Piracy is going to happen regardless of what they do; this is money wasted anyway.
against the Antique based software company SlySoft
How on earth did Antigua become Antique? Just bad use of spell check?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Who bothers with DVDs anymore? Unless your tastes are way off the beaten track, everything you might want is available for streaming anyway.
There are still many DVD's that I can buy used cheaper than the "own it on streaming" price, *and* the DVD is really mine, so I can rip it to multiple formats for playing on a TV of mobile device. It's not like a streaming move that I "own" where the streaming provider decides where I can watch it, and can lock me out of my owned movie for any reason, including bankruptcy.
Though as people move towards streaming, there are fewer deals to be had on used DVD's.
I am totally amazed how much new DVDs cost though. Saw one at the local drug store, the sort not frequented by posh purveyors, and a DVD for a low rated movie from last year was going for $20. I was completely surprised, it's so expensive and few people ever watch one more than once or twice, and it wasn't the sort of movie one would want to collect. It was also a price increase over buying it on Amazon too, but it was at the checkout line so presumably it was intended to be one of those impulse buys for people who don't shop around.
One excuse with some movies is that if you've got toddlers that the $20 DVD will be played at least once a week until it wears itself out (at which point the parents are ready to shoot themselves).
Now the armchair economic excuse to go out and see the movies at a cinema is that a ticket and drink and hotdog is less than the cost of a DVD...
For streaming, they never let you own a movie. It's $5 to "rent" which is more expensive than pay-per-view on some cable/satellite services. There often is a purchase option to "own" but in that case you are still not allowed to make a backup copy so that you can watch it after the streaming service goes bankrupt. DVDs have additional benefits that you can take them with you camping, onto an airplane. Annoying is that they're not that much cheaper than blu-ray; worse both physical forms on amazon are cheaper than the streaming copy, despite the extra costs to produce and distrubute, someone's getting ripped off in the transaction and it isn't Amazon.
Actually, the Hollywood studios don't even have the law on their side in this case.
What Slysoft is doing is actually legal under WTO rules because the US was found
to be in violation regarding offshore internet gambling. The WTO ruled that Antigua and
Barbuda are legally entitled to ignore US copyright (to the value of the judgement) as a
result. What the US government has been doing in regard to this is disgusting frankly.
They have threatened to retaliate against Antigua and Barbuda should they choose to
actively exercise this right, even though the ruling went against them. Funny how when
the ruling goes for the US the other country is obligated to follow it, but when it goes
against them it doesnt. Arrogant doesnt begin to describe this behaviour.
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds285_e.htm
@boggle. I use that software a lot simply to get rid of the forced previews and the like so I can sit down to watch a movie and watch the bloody movie, which ought to tell the MPAA and company something right there. The biggest advocate of piracy right now is the MPAA itself, as they constantly and vocally equate simply watching a movie you've purchased legally with piracy.
Folks that want higher quality? That want the extras? Folks with data caps? Folks that want stuff after the streaming service drops it? Folks don't want to be tracked or pay a monthly fee?
How long a list you need?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
It's not being ignored, nor is it being stolen. A company makes software that allows people to do format shifting. In the US, format shifting is legal under the DMCA. What's not legal is selling the software to do it.
Antigua does not have such an obvious contradiction in their legal system. The software is legal where it is produced, it is legal to use for it's intended purpose. Hollywood doesn't like that because they have to actually find and sue people who are actually infringing on their works rather than just banning a technology. They also don't like it because if there is software available to perform format shifting, you (as a consumer) aren't forced to buy a digital copy if you've already bought a DVD.
Just because the US entertainment industry would like the entire world to drop and suck, doesn't mean that the wold's legal system should comply.
The various recording studios just don't get it. If I'm going to shell out $$$ for a movie, I'm going to consume it in the format that suits me. I also don't want to be force fed adverts for other BS they'd like to sell me. Nor do I want to sit through the obligatory, "you'll go to hell if you copy this" FBI nuisance screens and other nonsense that you cannot skip on the disc before watching the content that I paid for. I don't feel the least bit guilty about ripping a disc solely to remove adverts/warnings and shift it to whatever medium I want to use to watch it.
All that said, I find myself increasingly reluctant to even bother. The content quality is trending down and I don't have the time I once did to jump through the hoops. Their loss.
"Who bothers with DVDs anymore? "
That's why Hollywood is asking the feds to reach back through time to mail an "antique based software company."
If the price were considerably lower to offset these disadvantages then it might be worth buying in this way. But digital movies are priced almost the same as their physical counterparts. I really don't understand why anybody buys media (books, music, movies, TV shows) through a streaming service - not from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony or anyone else's. And of course there's the whole free download thing where you can grab a high quality product which is not tied to any store.
Subscribing to a streaming service or renting is another matter entirely. There are no issues like transferability, or ownership. If Amazon Prime's streaming service sucks then you can just cancel and there is no expectation of retaining access to your collection.