Ohh naughty naughty, it is not the choice of law enforcement agencies to choose which crimes to prosecute
Law enforcement has broad discretion in how to best use its resources.
An example: I live in Boston. People jaywalk a lot here, and presumably there is a law against that on the books somewhere. But even though people will jaywalk right in front of policemen without even a moment's hesitation, the police seem to not bother enforcing this law at all.
It would not be difficult; there are plenty of witnesses, the jaywalker is right there, etc. But since it would be a waste of limited resources -- resources better spent on serious crimes -- jaywalking goes unpunished. This is not a sign of corruption. It is a sign of responsible policing.
When we have no murders, drug dealing, rapes, etc. then maybe they can get around to the little stuff. Until then, it's unwise.
This discretion is also legal. People simply don't have a right to force prosecution.
Well, then, the MPAA doesn't have a leg to stand on either, do they? That was my whole point: the only defense they appear to have is that they did not defeat CSS on the original, opening up the same defense for the likes of me. Which, as you correctly point out, might seam novel and clever, but no doubt anoying to a judge -- the intent was clearly to defeat CSS, by hook or by crook.
Who actually bothers to rip a DVD with CSS intact, and plays it on an authorized player that handles the decryption? Large-scale pirates, I suppose, but that's not you.
Anyway, leaving CSS intact and not decrypting CSS with an unauthorized program is not circumvention. Copyright infringement perhaps, but they're not the same thing.
But, even if it wasn't, the DVD was provided on condition that the content not be redistributed, in effect a use license, no? IANAL, but I would think that fair use rights *can* be surrendered by way of such a license.
If the MPAA has kept it in house, then they have not distributed it. They've copied it, but again, not the same thing. As for a license, eh, it's arguable.
I'm not sure that it clearly is: it enables parallel examination of the work in a commercial setting by many people, clearly depriving the author of revenue from selling additional copies for that purpose (the benefit to the MPAA is the efficiency obtained by way of parallel, instead of serial, examination).
So, the MPAA derives a financial gain from the copies. The author is deprived of revenue. The copies are not used in an educational setting. The copies are used in whole, and not in part. The copies *might* be used as a criticism of the work, but here, are complete copies necessary?
The appropriate comparison is with Texaco. However, there is little harm to authorial financial interests, as making copies for the purposes of strongly possible future litigation is not a business that the copyright holder is in. It's rather like parody -- people are assumed to not license scathing parodists. Incidentally, financial benefit of the fair user is not part of the analysis; only financial harm to the copyright holder. (In fact, not even financial benefit of the copyright holder is part of the analysis)
Given that it's basically in the realm of very early discovery, I think it would be fair. Maybe not ideal, but fair. Particularly so given that copies are not readily available and action to maintain privacy will need to be taken very soon; if the movie hits theaters, it could be too late to stop the disclosure.
How is computer software different than console video games? Console games are legally rented in the US all the time, afterall. They're just software for a different platform.
Here:
[T]he owner of a particular copy... lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy....
...
Notwithstanding [the paragraph above,] unless authorized by... the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program)... [no] person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that... computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending.
...
[The second paragraph above] does not apply to:... a computer program embodied in or used in conjunction with a limited purpose computer that is designed for playing video games and may be designed for other purposes.
Try making a corresponding venn diagram, if that helps. It's how copyright basically works after all: some stuff is included, but not other things, and some of the other things turn out to be included after all.
IA(so very)NAL, but the last time I got sued, I remember one statute granting basically a "get out of jail free" if you reasonably relied on an expert's advice before taking your action. (I don't recall the statute being restricted to just licensed experts, but who knows.)
Depends on the specifics. Without knowing more, I'd say that it sounds like a negligence suit, which among other things only works if you acted unreasonably. Relying on expert advice, even if it's wrong, is likely reasonable, so you would be okay.
This isn't the case in copyright, where even reasonable acts, if otherwise infringing, are just as bad as the most intentional acts of infringement. Amount of liability might vary, but the fact of liability would not.
However, and I am way out of my league here, how many situations of a person transcoding their own stuff becomes a civil issue?
Two reasons. First, plaintiffs have limited resources, so they prioritize. Let's say there is one P2P software developer. 100 people use their software and the network thereof. 10 of them distribute a lot of stuff, and 90 of them are leeches that download but never share files with others.
A plaintiff should first sue the software developer. They probably have the most money, and a rule of litigation is to go after the deep pocket. Also, if they're shut down (or at least enjoined) then that could cause the network to shut down. If that happens, while it's possible that the users might use a different network, maybe a few aren't skilled enough to right away, and that's something at least.
Then sue the 10 distributing users. If no one is left on the network (assuming it survived) but the 90 leeches, then no files will get shared.
Then sue the 90 downloaders. However, taking out one downloader only takes him out. It doesn't take out anyone downstream of him (as was the case with the 10 distributing users) or the overall network (as was the case with the developer) and he probably doesn't have much money (as was the case with the developer).
Thus, the most efficient thing to do is to go after the head of the snake, and work your way down. It might be that it's never really practical to go after downloaders (much) but that doesn't mean that you can't if you want to.
The second reason is visibility. It's easy to find the P2P software developer. If you go onto the P2P network and look up IP's, it's easy to find the distributing users. But it's a bit more of a pain to find the downloading users, depending on how the network functions.
In the case of people who space shift within their homes, and never share with anyone, how the hell will you ever find them or even be aware that they exist, save as a sort of generality? They need to put their heads up before you can chop them off.
Yes, copies are property, and copyrights are property, and works are not. But no, you there's nothing odd about the idea of intangible property. Copyrights are intangible, for example.
Basically, something is property if you can 1) use it, 2) lend to and recover from others, and 3) dispose of it by selling it, destroying it, etc. Just because something is intangible doesn't mean you can't do this. But a creative work can't be recovered, conveyed, destroyed (usually), etc. People can't lose knowledge like they can lose a sock; they can only share it or not.
First sale permits anyone to rent any DVD. If you go to Best Buy, and buy a DVD off the shelf, you can rent it as much as you like. Indeed, many independent video stores do just this sort of thing.
The reason that rental stores sometimes pay more than the ordinary retail price for a video is to get it early. That is, they want a period where customers can rent a video before they can (effectively) buy it.
This used to be common, back in VHS days. A video would come out and cost a hundred dollars. No one would buy this for home, but stores would buy it to rent. Eventually the price would come down. This is dying out since the industry has changed practices with DVDs. (Studios, retail outlets, and rental outlets don't always get along, you see)
There's no license, though, because copyright doesn't cover a right to rent videos. Check out 17 USC 109, which covers this, if you like.
There is an exception to this, however, for music and computer software other than console games. This came about in the 80's, and was the outcome of lobbying between RIAA, software developers, and rental stores. Libraries have an exception to this, but for-profit rental of CDs is illegal in the US. It's not in some other places, however; Japan has CD rental shops, for example.
Who cares? While many copyright infringements and circumventions are crimes, criminal prosecution is unusual. Civil actions, brought by plaintiffs such as RIAA, MPAA, etc. are much more common.
Since these are not criminal suits, the concept of reasonable doubt flies out the window. In fact, copyright is basically a strict liability statute. While your mental state might affect the amount of liability you face, so long as you did the deed, it doesn't matter what you were thinking. You could have reasonably thought that what you were doing was perfectly legal, or even not have realized that you did anything at all, and it won't matter.
you are allowed to make backup copies of media you own
No, there's no general exception for backups. Sometimes an exception can cover this sort of thing (e.g. 117 or 1008) but more often, that is not the case. Sometimes making a backup would be fair use, but there's no use that is invariably fair or unfair; it always depends on the circumstances.
Incidentally, the operative word in 1201 is 'circumvent.' That is, to get around something. Getting around encryption by decrypting the ciphertext yourself doesn't seem all that materially different from getting around it by letting someone else do that, and making a copy of the plaintext they ended up with, in light of the fact that their distribution of their copy and your downloading of a copy from them is shady at best.
First, there are no punitive damages for copyright infringement. Statutory damages are just a substitute for having to calculate harm and profits and so on. They're not meant to punish. The low ceilings on them make this fairly clear if the lack of magic words in the statute don't: if I were a billion dollar corporation, and found liable for the full amount of statutory damages, $150,000 would not be a punishment for me at all. I doubt I'd notice.
Second, there is no requirement that there be any harm whatsoever. Even if a defendant proved that a specific infringement caused no harm, and in fact caused a great benefit to the copyright holder, it wouldn't change a thing.
Who ever said that the 1008 exception was only for backups? It works just as well if you're copying from the radio, or copying borrowed materials. The main issue is that the work being copied qualifies, and that the medium or devices involved qualify as well.
Well, actually the law places public performances and displays within the realm of copyright (which necessarily means that private ones aren't, though it never outright says so) and defines what public means:
To perform or display a work "publicly" means-- (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.
There are a lot of definitions in the Copyright Act. Most are in 17 USC 101, but a few pop up elsewhere.
So friends would not be public, students would be. This doesn't end the analysis however -- educational performances and displays may fall within an exception to copyright under 17 USC 110. So even though it's public, it might not matter.
Sure, it looks like the MPAA has a legitimate fair use argument, but the DMCA trumps fair use, no?
Depends on whether the DVD was encrypted or not. There's a very real possibility that it wasn't.
That use of a secondary player to access the work would be a DMCA violation, no?
No, interestingly enough. CSS isn't a copy protection mechanism, only an access control. If the copyright holder has authorized the maker of the player to decrypt the movie in the scope of normal playback operations (there's actually some middlemen involved in this) then it's authorized whether the disc is pirated or not, as far as anyone can tell. The precise arrangements built around CSS are not exactly public.
If the latter case is NOT a DMCA violation, then surely my copying a DVD that I purchased to a hard disk, without defeating CSS, and then playing it back from that hard disk, defeating CSS on the copy wouldn't be either, no?
If you defeat CSS, then it is. If you use an authorized player, then it isn't. (though it is still copyright infringement) Remember, the copyright holder never gives you authorization to decrypt a movie, they give it to the company that makes the player.
The point is that if a straight rip is fair use, then what I do whith that rip as opposed to the original, including defeating CSS on it for personal viewing strikes me as fair use as well.
Yeah, good luck with that one.
The notion is that CSS applies to the medium and not the content: it protects the content on that medium.
And that's your fatal mistake. A CSS encrypted movie on a hard disk is no less protected by a TPM, and eligible for the protections of section 1201 than one on a DVD. The medium is irrelevant.
And please, don't try to make clever arguments. They will not only fail, but they will make you look bad. Courts are not machines that can be gamed. They involve human beings who don't like to put up with crap. Basically, if you think you're outsmarting a court, you are invariably only outsmarting yourself. This is a common problem with/. posters, I've noticed.
This is butressed by the fact that there are hidden areas on the DVD medium that support CSS that can not be copied by an ordinary DVDROM drive -- they are not part of the content ripped.
Of course, if that's so, then it means that you're flirting with making the argument against yourself that CSS is a copyright-protecting TPM as well, which only lands you in worse trouble.
That's about right. Hell, if someone tried to assert copyright et al in order to hinder discovery, I'd seek out sanctions against them. I know a lawyer who tried something like this once. I found it highly unethical and told them so.
Still, this doesn't mean that this is a sufficient argument for the DVD Jons of the world to rely upon. The due process argument only would come up where your due process is impaired, not just where it's purely hypothetical.
We've had statutory damages since the 1790 Copyright Act, and IIRC, it was in the Statute of Anne, which was even earlier. Over the years, the amount has increased (and MPAA has lobbied in favor of that), but the idea's always been there.
Presently statutory damages are within a range of $750 - 30,000. If the infringement was intentional, the ceiling can rise to $150,000. In rare cases, the floor can drop to $200. A few defendants -- never you -- in exceptional cases can get the floor dropped to $0. In some circumstances, statutory damages may not be available to the plaintiff; he'll have to sue for actual damages. Of course, injunctive relief, fees, costs, etc. are also available, and you needn't just pick one.
However, these are the numbers for works infringed, not the number of infringements. That is, if you make a million copies of Star Wars, the most you can possibly be liable for is $150,000. But if you make one copy of Star Wars and one copy of Empire, then you could be liable for $300,000, since there are two works infringed upon now, not just the one.
For what it's worth, if the film had been encrypted using CSS (like a normal CD), then the DMCA applies. If the DMCA applies, the act was criminal (copyright infringement is a tort, while a DMCA violation is a crime).
Your post is incorrect.
First, it's DVDs that are encrypted with CSS, not CDs, which normally are not encrypted at all. Second, while yes, the anti-circumvention statute would apply, it's unclear whether the MPAA would have violated it; it depends on whether or not they defeated CSS, or just copied the DVD with CSS intact. Third, not all violations of the DMCA are crimes -- the law does more than just set up anti-circumvention provisions. Fourth, copyright infringement can be criminal, under the right circumstances, and circumvention is civilly actionable, just as copyright is.
In this sense, the copyright owner need not complain at all. Anyone may report the crime to law enforcement (it being a federal law, that would probably be the FBI), and it is their duty to investigate and then prosecute if the evidence supports it.
Fifth, the FBI and Department of Justice have discretion in choosing what crimes to investigate and who to prosecute, as they have limited resources. Reporting this to them could easily result in no criminal case ever even beginning. While it might not hurt to report with them, a victim with a cause of action should pursue his own case, regardless of law enforcement.
Nothing in copyright law nor the DMCA implies that profit need be a motive or that the copyright holder was financially harmed by the act.
True, but these can have an impact. For example, the MPAA may have here a good claim to fair use, since their interest in the film is in looking into the privacy of their employees, rather than making copies as a substitute for getting them from the Best Buy. If they're looking in to their legal remedies against the filmmaker, if they have any, this too strengthens their defense.
No matter how big, or bad the boss is, there's invariably some weakness you can exploit, and some way you can defeat them and move on. Maybe you should talk with other people in the area, to see if they can give you any helpful advice. Maybe your strategy for dealing with the boss is suboptimal: If a boss tends to concentrate on what's right in front of him, maybe you should go behind his back, and generally avoid him, or at least keep your head down and don't get noticed. Or you could watch for patterns in what he does, and take advantage of that. Don't confront a boss unprepared; make sure you've got the things you'll need when dealing with him, and if possible, some extra lives. And if there's just absolutely no other option, you can check a walkthrough.
Remember that you're smarter than he is, and that only by persevering can you defeat all the bosses and rescue the princess, or whatever. But if you quit playing, then he's won.
Part of the value of the game is its expected resale value. For example, if I can reasonably expect to sell a game used for $20, which I bought new for $50, then its actual value to me is $30. If the game is priced higher than that and I cannot resell it, then it is overpriced.
It's no different than being unwilling to pay a high price for a car or a house if you couldn't resell those, either.
Basically, game developers are getting unacceptably greedy. This idea of theirs is unreasonable, and frankly I would support having a law that prohibited them from selling games that could not be resold, no matter how they wanted to spin it.
If this means that some high-budget games will not be produced because they would not be profitable for the developer, then so be it. I would rather have a sane marketplace than a fancy game. The same holds for other kinds of works. Effectively banning DRM would be worth it to me, even if it meant that movies couldn't be as big-budget, etc. The shiny products are not worth the cost.
Because if you had a SCSI drive in a bridged enclosure, you would effectively have an extra interface. For Macs w/o SCSI, you'd use the bridge, and for Macs that can't boot over those interfaces, you'd still be able to use the drive directly. Instead of needing multiple drives, you just need multiple cables.
As for DEC and DG, the sticks maybe, but Yahoo maps sez that beautiful downtown Maynard is all of 23.2 miles from I'm-sure-equally-beautiful downtown Boston -- a 45 minute drive, close enough that I'm sure many DEC employees lived in Boston.
Boston is a pretty small place, for a large city. Go a couple miles north, west, or east of the heart of the city and you're basically in triple-deckers. A couple miles more, and it's thoroughly suburban, with a few higher-density pockets here and there, in the centers of the outlying towns. There's a Landsat photo of Boston here that shows how even within 128, it isn't always very built up. (n.b. other photos on the site are not to scale)
A 10 mile commute is not unusual, but it would still probably be seen as annoying. A 20 mile commute is a pain in the ass. Especially if you had to go to Maynard, since 2 is a very small road (for some bizarre reason) between 495 and 128.
It's really unlike, say, New York, which is much denser and larger (the dense part of Boston would reach no further than Soho in Manhattan), or larger, sprawlier cities like LA, Seattle, or Chicago.
My understanding is that a lot of DataGen employees lived in the western suburbs, and I'd be surprised if any were inside 128.
But again, my point was that the arrogance of blingToad's post wasn't justifiable -- tech companies have prospered away from high-profile universities.
I suppose so, but I wouldn't want to live away from a large city, regardless of whether my effective income would be higher. The lack of culture and diversity isn't worth it, especially when you have to put up with so much damn nature in the vicinity.
Well, first Microsoft started out in Albuquerque. This was because that's where MITS was, and Gates and Allen worked for MITS for a while, then formed Microsoft, which had a close connection with MITS. Anyplace would've been better.
Second, Gates and Allen grew up in Seattle. Other than having Boeing, it wasn't really a technology center like Silicon Valley or Route 128. I suspect that they chose it because they wanted to go back home, and because MITS didn't really last long.
As for DEC and DataGen, they were a decent way into the sticks. DEC was in Maynard, and DataGen was out in the 'Boroughs someplace. These were not high rent parts of the area. Hell, DataGen was known for stinginess. N.b. also that the reason DataGen was there was because it was started by ex-DEC employees that wanted to stay in the area. It's a common practice, and has helped make the Valley what it is.
Well, that's more a matter of enclosures. I would imagine there's a bridge out there somewhere that could put a SCSI drive on USB or Firewire, and that drive, if hooked up directly, would work for older machines.
Presently, due to mutually incompatable partition formats, it might not be possible to set up a single hard disk that can boot up traditional Macs (whether 68k or PPC) and the new Intel-based Macs. Unless this is resolved, it's going to be a bit of a pain in the ass for the next couple of years.
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Ohh naughty naughty, it is not the choice of law enforcement agencies to choose which crimes to prosecute
Law enforcement has broad discretion in how to best use its resources.
An example: I live in Boston. People jaywalk a lot here, and presumably there is a law against that on the books somewhere. But even though people will jaywalk right in front of policemen without even a moment's hesitation, the police seem to not bother enforcing this law at all.
It would not be difficult; there are plenty of witnesses, the jaywalker is right there, etc. But since it would be a waste of limited resources -- resources better spent on serious crimes -- jaywalking goes unpunished. This is not a sign of corruption. It is a sign of responsible policing.
When we have no murders, drug dealing, rapes, etc. then maybe they can get around to the little stuff. Until then, it's unwise.
This discretion is also legal. People simply don't have a right to force prosecution.
The copyright holder, typically through middlemen such as DVDCCA.
Well, then, the MPAA doesn't have a leg to stand on either, do they? That was my whole point: the only defense they appear to have is that they did not defeat CSS on the original, opening up the same defense for the likes of me. Which, as you correctly point out, might seam novel and clever, but no doubt anoying to a judge -- the intent was clearly to defeat CSS, by hook or by crook.
Who actually bothers to rip a DVD with CSS intact, and plays it on an authorized player that handles the decryption? Large-scale pirates, I suppose, but that's not you.
Anyway, leaving CSS intact and not decrypting CSS with an unauthorized program is not circumvention. Copyright infringement perhaps, but they're not the same thing.
But, even if it wasn't, the DVD was provided on condition that the content not be redistributed, in effect a use license, no? IANAL, but I would think that fair use rights *can* be surrendered by way of such a license.
If the MPAA has kept it in house, then they have not distributed it. They've copied it, but again, not the same thing. As for a license, eh, it's arguable.
I'm not sure that it clearly is: it enables parallel examination of the work in a commercial setting by many people, clearly depriving the author of revenue from selling additional copies for that purpose (the benefit to the MPAA is the efficiency obtained by way of parallel, instead of serial, examination).
So, the MPAA derives a financial gain from the copies. The author is deprived of revenue. The copies are not used in an educational setting. The copies are used in whole, and not in part. The copies *might* be used as a criticism of the work, but here, are complete copies necessary?
The appropriate comparison is with Texaco. However, there is little harm to authorial financial interests, as making copies for the purposes of strongly possible future litigation is not a business that the copyright holder is in. It's rather like parody -- people are assumed to not license scathing parodists. Incidentally, financial benefit of the fair user is not part of the analysis; only financial harm to the copyright holder. (In fact, not even financial benefit of the copyright holder is part of the analysis)
Given that it's basically in the realm of very early discovery, I think it would be fair. Maybe not ideal, but fair. Particularly so given that copies are not readily available and action to maintain privacy will need to be taken very soon; if the movie hits theaters, it could be too late to stop the disclosure.
Here:
Try making a corresponding venn diagram, if that helps. It's how copyright basically works after all: some stuff is included, but not other things, and some of the other things turn out to be included after all.
IA(so very)NAL, but the last time I got sued, I remember one statute granting basically a "get out of jail free" if you reasonably relied on an expert's advice before taking your action. (I don't recall the statute being restricted to just licensed experts, but who knows.)
Depends on the specifics. Without knowing more, I'd say that it sounds like a negligence suit, which among other things only works if you acted unreasonably. Relying on expert advice, even if it's wrong, is likely reasonable, so you would be okay.
This isn't the case in copyright, where even reasonable acts, if otherwise infringing, are just as bad as the most intentional acts of infringement. Amount of liability might vary, but the fact of liability would not.
However, and I am way out of my league here, how many situations of a person transcoding their own stuff becomes a civil issue?
Two reasons. First, plaintiffs have limited resources, so they prioritize. Let's say there is one P2P software developer. 100 people use their software and the network thereof. 10 of them distribute a lot of stuff, and 90 of them are leeches that download but never share files with others.
A plaintiff should first sue the software developer. They probably have the most money, and a rule of litigation is to go after the deep pocket. Also, if they're shut down (or at least enjoined) then that could cause the network to shut down. If that happens, while it's possible that the users might use a different network, maybe a few aren't skilled enough to right away, and that's something at least.
Then sue the 10 distributing users. If no one is left on the network (assuming it survived) but the 90 leeches, then no files will get shared.
Then sue the 90 downloaders. However, taking out one downloader only takes him out. It doesn't take out anyone downstream of him (as was the case with the 10 distributing users) or the overall network (as was the case with the developer) and he probably doesn't have much money (as was the case with the developer).
Thus, the most efficient thing to do is to go after the head of the snake, and work your way down. It might be that it's never really practical to go after downloaders (much) but that doesn't mean that you can't if you want to.
The second reason is visibility. It's easy to find the P2P software developer. If you go onto the P2P network and look up IP's, it's easy to find the distributing users. But it's a bit more of a pain to find the downloading users, depending on how the network functions.
In the case of people who space shift within their homes, and never share with anyone, how the hell will you ever find them or even be aware that they exist, save as a sort of generality? They need to put their heads up before you can chop them off.
Ah, so close.
Yes, copies are property, and copyrights are property, and works are not. But no, you there's nothing odd about the idea of intangible property. Copyrights are intangible, for example.
Basically, something is property if you can 1) use it, 2) lend to and recover from others, and 3) dispose of it by selling it, destroying it, etc. Just because something is intangible doesn't mean you can't do this. But a creative work can't be recovered, conveyed, destroyed (usually), etc. People can't lose knowledge like they can lose a sock; they can only share it or not.
That is totally untrue.
First sale permits anyone to rent any DVD. If you go to Best Buy, and buy a DVD off the shelf, you can rent it as much as you like. Indeed, many independent video stores do just this sort of thing.
The reason that rental stores sometimes pay more than the ordinary retail price for a video is to get it early. That is, they want a period where customers can rent a video before they can (effectively) buy it.
This used to be common, back in VHS days. A video would come out and cost a hundred dollars. No one would buy this for home, but stores would buy it to rent. Eventually the price would come down. This is dying out since the industry has changed practices with DVDs. (Studios, retail outlets, and rental outlets don't always get along, you see)
There's no license, though, because copyright doesn't cover a right to rent videos. Check out 17 USC 109, which covers this, if you like.
There is an exception to this, however, for music and computer software other than console games. This came about in the 80's, and was the outcome of lobbying between RIAA, software developers, and rental stores. Libraries have an exception to this, but for-profit rental of CDs is illegal in the US. It's not in some other places, however; Japan has CD rental shops, for example.
Can you show criminal intent?
Who cares? While many copyright infringements and circumventions are crimes, criminal prosecution is unusual. Civil actions, brought by plaintiffs such as RIAA, MPAA, etc. are much more common.
Since these are not criminal suits, the concept of reasonable doubt flies out the window. In fact, copyright is basically a strict liability statute. While your mental state might affect the amount of liability you face, so long as you did the deed, it doesn't matter what you were thinking. You could have reasonably thought that what you were doing was perfectly legal, or even not have realized that you did anything at all, and it won't matter.
you are allowed to make backup copies of media you own
No, there's no general exception for backups. Sometimes an exception can cover this sort of thing (e.g. 117 or 1008) but more often, that is not the case. Sometimes making a backup would be fair use, but there's no use that is invariably fair or unfair; it always depends on the circumstances.
Incidentally, the operative word in 1201 is 'circumvent.' That is, to get around something. Getting around encryption by decrypting the ciphertext yourself doesn't seem all that materially different from getting around it by letting someone else do that, and making a copy of the plaintext they ended up with, in light of the fact that their distribution of their copy and your downloading of a copy from them is shady at best.
Both.
Not quite.
First, there are no punitive damages for copyright infringement. Statutory damages are just a substitute for having to calculate harm and profits and so on. They're not meant to punish. The low ceilings on them make this fairly clear if the lack of magic words in the statute don't: if I were a billion dollar corporation, and found liable for the full amount of statutory damages, $150,000 would not be a punishment for me at all. I doubt I'd notice.
Second, there is no requirement that there be any harm whatsoever. Even if a defendant proved that a specific infringement caused no harm, and in fact caused a great benefit to the copyright holder, it wouldn't change a thing.
Who ever said that the 1008 exception was only for backups? It works just as well if you're copying from the radio, or copying borrowed materials. The main issue is that the work being copied qualifies, and that the medium or devices involved qualify as well.
Maybe you were thinking of 117(a)(2)?
There are a lot of definitions in the Copyright Act. Most are in 17 USC 101, but a few pop up elsewhere.
So friends would not be public, students would be. This doesn't end the analysis however -- educational performances and displays may fall within an exception to copyright under 17 USC 110. So even though it's public, it might not matter.
Sure, it looks like the MPAA has a legitimate fair use argument, but the DMCA trumps fair use, no?
/. posters, I've noticed.
Depends on whether the DVD was encrypted or not. There's a very real possibility that it wasn't.
That use of a secondary player to access the work would be a DMCA violation, no?
No, interestingly enough. CSS isn't a copy protection mechanism, only an access control. If the copyright holder has authorized the maker of the player to decrypt the movie in the scope of normal playback operations (there's actually some middlemen involved in this) then it's authorized whether the disc is pirated or not, as far as anyone can tell. The precise arrangements built around CSS are not exactly public.
If the latter case is NOT a DMCA violation, then surely my copying a DVD that I purchased to a hard disk, without defeating CSS, and then playing it back from that hard disk, defeating CSS on the copy wouldn't be either, no?
If you defeat CSS, then it is. If you use an authorized player, then it isn't. (though it is still copyright infringement) Remember, the copyright holder never gives you authorization to decrypt a movie, they give it to the company that makes the player.
The point is that if a straight rip is fair use, then what I do whith that rip as opposed to the original, including defeating CSS on it for personal viewing strikes me as fair use as well.
Yeah, good luck with that one.
The notion is that CSS applies to the medium and not the content: it protects the content on that medium.
And that's your fatal mistake. A CSS encrypted movie on a hard disk is no less protected by a TPM, and eligible for the protections of section 1201 than one on a DVD. The medium is irrelevant.
And please, don't try to make clever arguments. They will not only fail, but they will make you look bad. Courts are not machines that can be gamed. They involve human beings who don't like to put up with crap. Basically, if you think you're outsmarting a court, you are invariably only outsmarting yourself. This is a common problem with
This is butressed by the fact that there are hidden areas on the DVD medium that support CSS that can not be copied by an ordinary DVDROM drive -- they are not part of the content ripped.
Of course, if that's so, then it means that you're flirting with making the argument against yourself that CSS is a copyright-protecting TPM as well, which only lands you in worse trouble.
That's about right. Hell, if someone tried to assert copyright et al in order to hinder discovery, I'd seek out sanctions against them. I know a lawyer who tried something like this once. I found it highly unethical and told them so.
Still, this doesn't mean that this is a sufficient argument for the DVD Jons of the world to rely upon. The due process argument only would come up where your due process is impaired, not just where it's purely hypothetical.
Wrong.
We've had statutory damages since the 1790 Copyright Act, and IIRC, it was in the Statute of Anne, which was even earlier. Over the years, the amount has increased (and MPAA has lobbied in favor of that), but the idea's always been there.
Presently statutory damages are within a range of $750 - 30,000. If the infringement was intentional, the ceiling can rise to $150,000. In rare cases, the floor can drop to $200. A few defendants -- never you -- in exceptional cases can get the floor dropped to $0. In some circumstances, statutory damages may not be available to the plaintiff; he'll have to sue for actual damages. Of course, injunctive relief, fees, costs, etc. are also available, and you needn't just pick one.
However, these are the numbers for works infringed, not the number of infringements. That is, if you make a million copies of Star Wars, the most you can possibly be liable for is $150,000. But if you make one copy of Star Wars and one copy of Empire, then you could be liable for $300,000, since there are two works infringed upon now, not just the one.
The relevant statute is 17 USC 504.
For what it's worth, if the film had been encrypted using CSS (like a normal CD), then the DMCA applies. If the DMCA applies, the act was criminal (copyright infringement is a tort, while a DMCA violation is a crime).
Your post is incorrect.
First, it's DVDs that are encrypted with CSS, not CDs, which normally are not encrypted at all. Second, while yes, the anti-circumvention statute would apply, it's unclear whether the MPAA would have violated it; it depends on whether or not they defeated CSS, or just copied the DVD with CSS intact. Third, not all violations of the DMCA are crimes -- the law does more than just set up anti-circumvention provisions. Fourth, copyright infringement can be criminal, under the right circumstances, and circumvention is civilly actionable, just as copyright is.
In this sense, the copyright owner need not complain at all. Anyone may report the crime to law enforcement (it being a federal law, that would probably be the FBI), and it is their duty to investigate and then prosecute if the evidence supports it.
Fifth, the FBI and Department of Justice have discretion in choosing what crimes to investigate and who to prosecute, as they have limited resources. Reporting this to them could easily result in no criminal case ever even beginning. While it might not hurt to report with them, a victim with a cause of action should pursue his own case, regardless of law enforcement.
Nothing in copyright law nor the DMCA implies that profit need be a motive or that the copyright holder was financially harmed by the act.
True, but these can have an impact. For example, the MPAA may have here a good claim to fair use, since their interest in the film is in looking into the privacy of their employees, rather than making copies as a substitute for getting them from the Best Buy. If they're looking in to their legal remedies against the filmmaker, if they have any, this too strengthens their defense.
No matter how big, or bad the boss is, there's invariably some weakness you can exploit, and some way you can defeat them and move on. Maybe you should talk with other people in the area, to see if they can give you any helpful advice. Maybe your strategy for dealing with the boss is suboptimal: If a boss tends to concentrate on what's right in front of him, maybe you should go behind his back, and generally avoid him, or at least keep your head down and don't get noticed. Or you could watch for patterns in what he does, and take advantage of that. Don't confront a boss unprepared; make sure you've got the things you'll need when dealing with him, and if possible, some extra lives. And if there's just absolutely no other option, you can check a walkthrough.
Remember that you're smarter than he is, and that only by persevering can you defeat all the bosses and rescue the princess, or whatever. But if you quit playing, then he's won.
That's a short-sighted analysis, however.
Part of the value of the game is its expected resale value. For example, if I can reasonably expect to sell a game used for $20, which I bought new for $50, then its actual value to me is $30. If the game is priced higher than that and I cannot resell it, then it is overpriced.
It's no different than being unwilling to pay a high price for a car or a house if you couldn't resell those, either.
Basically, game developers are getting unacceptably greedy. This idea of theirs is unreasonable, and frankly I would support having a law that prohibited them from selling games that could not be resold, no matter how they wanted to spin it.
If this means that some high-budget games will not be produced because they would not be profitable for the developer, then so be it. I would rather have a sane marketplace than a fancy game. The same holds for other kinds of works. Effectively banning DRM would be worth it to me, even if it meant that movies couldn't be as big-budget, etc. The shiny products are not worth the cost.
Sounds good to me.
Because if you had a SCSI drive in a bridged enclosure, you would effectively have an extra interface. For Macs w/o SCSI, you'd use the bridge, and for Macs that can't boot over those interfaces, you'd still be able to use the drive directly. Instead of needing multiple drives, you just need multiple cables.
As for DEC and DG, the sticks maybe, but Yahoo maps sez that beautiful downtown Maynard is all of 23.2 miles from I'm-sure-equally-beautiful downtown Boston -- a 45 minute drive, close enough that I'm sure many DEC employees lived in Boston.
Boston is a pretty small place, for a large city. Go a couple miles north, west, or east of the heart of the city and you're basically in triple-deckers. A couple miles more, and it's thoroughly suburban, with a few higher-density pockets here and there, in the centers of the outlying towns. There's a Landsat photo of Boston here that shows how even within 128, it isn't always very built up. (n.b. other photos on the site are not to scale)
A 10 mile commute is not unusual, but it would still probably be seen as annoying. A 20 mile commute is a pain in the ass. Especially if you had to go to Maynard, since 2 is a very small road (for some bizarre reason) between 495 and 128.
It's really unlike, say, New York, which is much denser and larger (the dense part of Boston would reach no further than Soho in Manhattan), or larger, sprawlier cities like LA, Seattle, or Chicago.
My understanding is that a lot of DataGen employees lived in the western suburbs, and I'd be surprised if any were inside 128.
But again, my point was that the arrogance of blingToad's post wasn't justifiable -- tech companies have prospered away from high-profile universities.
I suppose so, but I wouldn't want to live away from a large city, regardless of whether my effective income would be higher. The lack of culture and diversity isn't worth it, especially when you have to put up with so much damn nature in the vicinity.
Well, first Microsoft started out in Albuquerque. This was because that's where MITS was, and Gates and Allen worked for MITS for a while, then formed Microsoft, which had a close connection with MITS. Anyplace would've been better.
Second, Gates and Allen grew up in Seattle. Other than having Boeing, it wasn't really a technology center like Silicon Valley or Route 128. I suspect that they chose it because they wanted to go back home, and because MITS didn't really last long.
As for DEC and DataGen, they were a decent way into the sticks. DEC was in Maynard, and DataGen was out in the 'Boroughs someplace. These were not high rent parts of the area. Hell, DataGen was known for stinginess. N.b. also that the reason DataGen was there was because it was started by ex-DEC employees that wanted to stay in the area. It's a common practice, and has helped make the Valley what it is.
Well, that's more a matter of enclosures. I would imagine there's a bridge out there somewhere that could put a SCSI drive on USB or Firewire, and that drive, if hooked up directly, would work for older machines.
Presently, due to mutually incompatable partition formats, it might not be possible to set up a single hard disk that can boot up traditional Macs (whether 68k or PPC) and the new Intel-based Macs. Unless this is resolved, it's going to be a bit of a pain in the ass for the next couple of years.