Macrovision plugs the "digital hole" (1 Viewer)

[RobertDigilio]

Aaron,

You are dead on!

In response to some of the recent posts, I have my own take on this...

Hit the Pirates and no one but the Pirates. Never deviate from the DVD standard and always provide any deviation in BOLD PRINT : "This DVD has been modified from the published standard and may behave differently or not at all on your equipment. Use at your own risk." They'll warn us about Pan & Scan but not compatibility? This is why BMG was not successful with the CD protection they tried on limited CD releases overseas. Punish the offenders, not the POTENTIAL offenders. The above argument does not even consider Fair Use considerations. That would be a whole other argument. Put out good, solid product at a reasonable price and the sales will come. CDs have historically always been overpriced even when the music industry wasn't price fixing (ala Virgin Records) and have shown significant declines in sales over the last decade. DVDs, which in my opinion are priced much more reasonably given the quality of the content, have shown record sales and is making the industry huge money. Those examples prove the point. I actually want the industry to make their money...I want more product and am always hungry for it. This product,however, must be solid, uncompromised, unaltered releases for a reasonable price.

Explain the business and economic logic to punishing consumers. The industry would be better served pursuing the REAL pirates. They'll give Macrovision their money instead of more vigorously and more aggressively pursuing the bootleg "shops" worldwide. Current message : "I don't trust you you devious consumers, you!" The message should be : "Buy our product and you will be rewarded with solid content for a reasonable price; Pirate our content for sale and suffer the fires of Hell."

Works for me, I believe it works for Joe Six Pack, and if the entertainment industry were sane, it would work for them as well. Save the bucks on protecting consumers from themselves (Macrovision) and spend it on hunting the REAL pirates worthy of attention. Fair Use to be addressed separately.

 

[Will_B]

Robert, you're spot on. I was just about to come back and say that we'll all find out in a few months whether Macrovision's attempt to bend the DVD file structure will cause problems in our own DVD players during regular playback. That's the real rub here - that the efforts at antipiracy are about to impact regular users. Or not. We don't yet know.

In my house I've got two, wait three DVD players. Sometimes, rarely, I've had to switch rooms when a DVD's structure just doesn't work properly - but this has only been with very elaborate DVDs with lots of multi-angle or seamless branching.

I am not looking forward to finding out that even regular DVDs may not play back in the room of my choice.


Earlier in this discussion I was going to cite the fact that DVDA (the audio format) hadn't been cracked as evidence that there are indeed secure protection systems which DO NOT necessitate that proper file structures be bent out of shape and likely cause problems in people's players. But it didn't occur to me that it may have been broken but simply not published.

 

[Dave H]

Let's see if I am following you.

While the studio is making money from people who burn DVDS, (since they are renting them) they are making quite a bit less money than if the person just bought the movie. After all, the person I am talking about only rented it to have it. While I agree this doesn't equate to a full 100% loss, it still has to still be significant.

 

[John Whittle]

In a word, NO.

You can make a back up of a computer program for your own use IF it isn't copy protected.

When you get into the combined murky area of digital and entertainment, it gets much worse.

Many people think that the old Universal/Disney v Sony case made recording legal. It didn't, it made the Betamax legal and then only by 5 to 4 and the Supremes almost didn't hear it. The full case can be found on the internet and there is a lobby group that represents people trying to use their VCRs etc.

But making a copy isn't cut and dried whether for your own use, as a back up or for a teacher in a classroom, etc.

People also confuse "fair use" which specified in the act as quoting of short pieces in a review or other literary work and also as parody. The broader "fair use" is a legal defense which is after you're caught and go to court you plead fair use and pay all the lawyers and hope you get back out on the street.

Copyright isn't for the user it's for the producer. BTW in the future there won't be any physical media and then you won't have to worry about Macrovision because you'll only have a license to view something and it'll be provided when you want to watch it. (Most of the meta tags are already specified in the digital video international standards for this.)

John

 

[Mark Oates]

The more you treat customers like criminals, the more likely they are to behave like criminals. The Studios have every right to protect their property - not "intellectual property" mind you, that should be a right explicitly for authors of works not corporations exploiting said authors' work - but not at the expense of what few rights consumers have. By all means go after the organised pirates in Indonesia (and good luck catching them), but don't call me a criminal if I want to do something in the privacy of my own home and restricted to that home that happens to infringe the conditions of sale.

 

[Damin J Toell]

There aren't two types of fair use; there is only one: a set of factors to be weighed by courts as an affirmative defense in particular circumstances. This comes out of common law and § 107. There are no "broad" and "narrow" types of fair use; the same 4 categories are considered in every case.

DJ

 

[Will_B]

I just did some reading and I wonder if this announcement is truly something novel, or if it is simply their brand of Sony's ARccOS protection? Could it be that we're simply seeing that Macrovision has better PR? Macrovision vs Sony, let the best stock win.

 

[Scott Kimball]

All this talk of fair use is irrelevant when it comes to 99.99% of commercial DVD movies - which is what we're all talking about.

Fair use does not exempt the language of the DMCA with regard to circumventing copy protection. If a disc has any digital copy guarding (CSS or otherwise), and you succeed in making a copy of it, you violate the DMCA. There is no fair use exemption in the DMCA. You break the encryption: you break the law.

Technically, it doesn't matter if you're making a copy for personal backup.

Is this right or fair? If you don't think so then you need to let your Congressmen know.

Realistically, it is unlikely anybody is going to come after you for making a personal backup copy or transferring your DVD to your hard disc for personal use, if the use is legitimately personal (though there are shocking exceptions). Similarly, nobody will come after me for including a screenshot in a review - even though I have to circumvent copy protection to do it. The sad part, like others have said, is that all this copy protection does is keep honest people from enjoying digital content in new and positive ways, as we see fit. It does NOT prevent dishonest people from engaging in illegal activities.

I've recommended the book "Free Culture" before at HTF. It is available free in digital form under a Creative Commons license. I use the book as a recommended text in a class I teach on digital imaging, in the week I spend on copyright issues.

http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/

-Scott

 

[Damin J Toell]

You don't have to circumvent acess or copy protection to take a screenshot (access protection circumvention is made illegal by the DMCA; copy protection circumvention is not). If you're watching the disc using any standard commercial DVD software (PowerDVD, etc.), you have already legally applied a CSS decoder key to the disc. The screenshot, having been taken after you've already applied an authorized decryption key, doesn't unlawfully circumvent any access protection scheme: there's nothing left to circumvent.

DJ

 

[Scott Kimball]

I'm using Apple DVD Player on a Mac, which doesn't provide an option for screen captures, and doesn't pass the DVD video through the computer's video subsystem. This also renders OS X's standard screen capture useless for DVDs. So I use a third party application to get around the problem.

This is, however, a technicality that is beside the point of my post... and I'm treading carefully here, not wanting to move this thread into forbidden territory.

-Scott

 

[JeremyErwin]

Screenshots? Bah! A film is not made up of static shots-- it should be possible to imagine a situation in which effective commentary and criticism requires the excerpting of a moving image. Besides, certain DVD programs have been known to preempt the normal screenshot function-- though this impediment may have been for technical rather than legal reasons.

In its broadest sense, fair use delineates the proper boundaries of copyright. See Folsom v. Marsh 9 F. Cas. 342 (D. Massachussets, 1841).

 

[Scott Kimball]

But, again - fair use is obsolete under DMCA, where it isn't the copying that is illegal, but the circumvention of copy protection.

-Scott

 

[Damin J Toell]

But a DMCA violation isn't copyright infringement, it is a violation unto itself. Fair use doesn't apply to the DMCA any more than it applies to jaywalking.

DJ

 

[Thomas Newton]

I've seen little "cp"-in-a-triangle (copy protection) and Macrovision "quality protection" (more copy protection) logos on several DVDs now.

These are generally good for a boycott of the title.

 

[Thomas Newton]

This is Congressional sophistry along the lines of saying that free speech isn't illegal, but that it's illegal to remove a clamp that somebody forcibly installs over your mouth because they don't like what you have to say.

 

[RobertDigilio]

Well said Thomas! Leave it to lawyers and politicians to muddy the already brown waters. Fritz Hollings is a political whore who sold out consumers' best interests for political payback to the special interests (read Entertainment Industry). Explain to me how this fosters innovation and creativity (other than the clever hacks and workarounds the hackers come up with). Since this was the original intent of Copyright law, clearly the DMCA IS sophistry and directly conflicts with fair use considerations read from Copyright laws by justices over the years. Please, will someone sue and some court declare this law (or at least the disputed portion) unconstitutional!

 

[JeremyErwin]

Although the 1976 Copyright Law did legislate a four factor test for fair use, the "fair use" doctrine is itself a judicially created theory, and courts are under no particular obligation to follow it. A usage may meet all four criteria, yet ultimately be judged unfair. Conversely, the courts may find a particular usage to be fair, even if none of the four criteria are met.

David Nimmer. 2003. Fairest of them all, and other fairy tales of fair use. :66 Law & Contemp. Probs. 263 (Winter/Spring 2003)

 

[Pat Frank]

Not that I'm advocating overthrow of the government just to protect our right to copying DVDs (grin), but just to point out that it's ridiculous how easily we forget that it's our responsibility to stand up for our rights, and we have not done so.

http://www.eff.org

 

[RobertDigilio]

Well said Pat Frank!!

Keep fighting the good fight, brother.

 

[Damin J Toell]

JeremyErwin:

That argument has been raised and summarily dismissed by various Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal. First, and perhaps most importantly, it is not even clear that fair use is a constitutional requirement. This would be a necessary element in finding that the DMCA improperly abrogates fair use; congressional power is limited by the Constitution, not their own statutory law or non-constitutional judicial common law. The 2d Circuit put it out succinctly:

"Preliminarily, we note that the Supreme Court has never held that fair use is constitutionally required, although some isolated statements in its opinions might arguably be enlisted for such a requirement." Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001) (citations omitted).

Furthermore, all the DMCA does is prohibit the unauthorized making of an exact digital duplicate when access controls are present. Fair use, however, has never been held to allow for the wholesale making of full and exact duplicates using the preferred methodology of the copier. Congress can't be abrogating a precept that doesn't exist in the first place. Again, as the 2d Circuit put it forth:

"[T]he Appellants have provided no support for their premise that fair use of DVD movies is constitutionally required to be made by copying the original work in its original format. Their examples of the fair uses that they believe others will be prevented from making all involve copying in a digital format those portions of a DVD movie amenable to fair use, a copying that would enable the fair user to manipulate the digitally copied portions. One example is that of a school child who wishes to copy images from a DVD movie to insert into the student's documentary film. We know of no authority for the proposition that fair use, as protected by the Copyright Act, much less the Constitution, guarantees copying by the optimum method or in the identical format of the original. Although the Appellants insisted at oral argument that they should not be relegated to a "horse and buggy" technique in making fair use of DVD movies, the DMCA does not impose even an arguable limitation on the opportunity to make a variety of traditional fair uses of DVD movies, such as commenting on their content, quoting excerpts from their screenplays, and even recording portions of the video images and sounds on film or tape by pointing a camera, a camcorder, or a microphone at a monitor as it displays the DVD movie. The fact that the resulting copy will not be as perfect or as manipulable as a digital copy obtained by having direct access to the DVD movie in its digital form, provides no basis for a claim of unconstitutional limitation of fair use. A film critic making fair use of a movie by quoting selected lines of dialogue has no constitutionally valid claim that the review (in print or on television) would be technologically superior if the reviewer had not been prevented from using a movie camera in the theater, nor has an art student a valid constitutional claim to fair use of a painting by photographing it in a museum. Fair use has never been held to be a guarantee of access to copyrighted material in order to copy it by the fair user's preferred technique or in the format of the original." Id. (footnotes omitted, emphasis added).

DJ