Buying credits to download DVD covers- what's wrong with this picture? (1 Viewer)

[Rob T]

Bottom line: None of this would have been necessary if the studios would just make available to the general public the keepcase covers they make for video stores (and make reversible covers featuring original non-noggin artwork)

You got that right.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Dave, I agree, the site is probably not maknig much money, not with as much as bandwidth costs and as big as those scans are.

I would say though that DVD burners don't pose the threat to movies that CD burners do to music sales. When you burn a CD you are making a bit for bit 100% accurate copy of the original. If hte burn goes right, the computer can see no difference whatsoever between the original CD and the burned one. DVD burners cannot do this. For starters, current consumer DVD burners are single layer only, they can't burn a dual-layer disc. While obviously a temporary limitation that will eventually be overcome, that's going to keep things on the low down for a few more years, and by then we'll have HD-DVD, and duping DVDs is going to be like duping tapes today, sure you can do it but who'd want to? Second, DVDs have several blocks that are encoded at the beginning of the disc that are unburnable by consumer-level burners. While I am not positive, I believe they're related to the CSS encryption, but that could be wrong. there si dfinitely unburnable information on a pro DVD though. Finally, consumer burners don't burn with the same wavelength laser as authoring burners, so the player reads them differently as well, adding yet another wrinkle to the mix. So, at this point, burning your own DVDs is not possible with current consumer-grade equipment, and if you can afford professional-level authoring burners, you can afford to buy your movies anyway.

 

[MarcinL]

First I would like to point that DVDCOVERART.com has over 1500 Covers on the website Right now, and as a Admin I know that there are over 700 uploads pending sitting for me to approve along with the team, so now you got over 2500 covers X average of 3MB per cover, some are less, some are more that is roughly 7.5GB of covers, at least.

1) 100 credits for $10, is not a whole lot, its 10 cents per cover, to replace Snappers, Bilingual Covers or Blockbuster PVT which sometimes does not have covers its pretty cheap and worthwhile to support the site.

2) you don't have to pay at all, Just create a custom cover or scan something of your own and submit it. We have over 1000 Requests for covers, mainly R1 Original or Snapper Conversions, you get 6 credits for One Request. I personally have over 175 Credits, and never paid a dime.

3) Whole Legal Issue, we can beat to death and still get nowhere, I'm not making an official statement here, because the site is not mine, but as A owner of A DVD title(Which I purchased) I also Own the Cover, I own it the same way I own the DVD Movie, I cant reproduce or sell the movie, and I cannot reproduce or sell the cover. But I can make a 1000 copies of my Original Movie onto DVD-R and keep them in case something happens to my movie, as well as I can make 1000 copies of covers in case My cover gets damaged, And in the way dvdcoverart.com provides the access to download the cover, Is there a way we know who has the title or not, NO. We provide the service for free!!! You do not pay for the covers, You pay for the download if you choose not to contribute and earn credits.

4) Dvdcoverart.com does not approve of bootlegging, I have personally declined DIE ANOTHER DAY, THE TWO TOWERS, CHICAGO and other covers due to bootlegging. Now you may ask why do we Have STAR WARS or INDIANA JONES covers. Simple, I have both Movies on LD, which I backed up, or copied if you prefer onto DVD-R, it it legal??? YES, I don't sell it, I don't profit, I just copied My movies to DVD, since Thats one of the right I have as a owner of the LD, DVD, or any Media, I can do whatever I want as long as I don't profit, pirate, rent or anykind of thing, I use it for my Home personal use, So Since I have STAR WARS on DVD-R I want to have the Cover for the Box. But with DIE ANOTHER DAY or CHICAGO, there is no release on any media yet besides movie theaters, thus it has to be bootleg, thus we do not approve the cover till the actual release date.

5) DVDcoverart.com has been moving 3 or 4 times due to bandwidth, so the Credits are there so the site can pay for itself, But as we have over 2850 users, Majority og them has only 10 credits or less, so I don't know if they are going to purchase or submit something of their own, Some people do have over 100 credits, But most of them Have submitted the covers, Remember if everyone bought credits we would not have any covers at all, except few that MATT had all these months. Please fell free to check out DVDCOVERART.COM to see the requests we have, there is now 1103 to be exact, if you have a scanner and can make quality cover, please submit it, If you fullfill 10 requests than you get 60 credits which by the way you can not spend that easily.

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE COVER, BUT NOT SURE HOW, OR IF YOU NOT PREFFICIENT IN SCANNING please read the FAQ on the bottom of the page there is all links on HOW TO... make covers. We only Approve TOP QUALITY covers. for every 1 cover there is 5 rejection, WE are not covers.cc or any website outthere we only want TOP QUALITY FULL COVERS.

Marcin Leszczynski
DVDCOVERART UPLOAD ADMINISTRATOR
[email protected]

 

[Damin J Toell]

Jeff Ulmer:

It's not theft to download MP3s of songs you own off Napster, nor is it theft to download cover art for movies you own off DVD CoverArt either.

Whether or not those actions are "theft," I have no idea, since I don't know what definition of "theft" you're using. Those actions are, however, copyright infringement. Again, you can't "transfer" your fair use "rights" to third parties and have them break the law for you and suddenly have everything be legal. Sorry to break it to you.

DJ

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Chris, If I were inclined burning a bit for bit copy of most DVD's (Sans Extras) is quite possible right now. Believe me it's pretty easy. But for the Price of what most new releases are going for around $14.99 to $15.99 what's the point.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Thanks for your message Marcin. Good to see someone from the site wading into this thread.

 

[Rob T]

I signed up last night and I plan on buying releases that I've been holding out on due to the bilingual cover issue up here. I just got to figure out how I can get more credits since I have no credit card and am not really a maniper. :frowning:

 

[Matt DeVillier]

As the offical figurehead of dvdcoverart.com I thought I might chime in here (I would have sooner but I've been out of town on business and hadn't seen the thread). I'll try to address all of the issues that have been raised

Charging for downloads: no one is making any money off it, and most likely never will. The pricing sturcture has been set to try and help recoup the massive cost of the bandwidth the site consumes. When the site was half the size it was before the most recent relaunch, we were consuming over 75gb per month.

Legality issues: it may or may not be illegal, but it would silly for the studios to come after dvdcoverart. It's basically free publicity, and they probably gain a few extra sales because of it.

Availabilty of scans of existing covers: there are many legitimate uses for these, including replacing bi-lingual Canadian releases, blockbuster ex-rentals, etc. Besides, (as it was noted already) it wouldn't be cost effective to use these for dvd-r copies.

Bootlegs: as Marcin mentioned, we don't allow covers for movies which do not have a legitimate "home video" release.

I welcome all questions/comments either via email or on the dvdcoverart forums

thanks,
Matt

 

[Chris Farmer]

Hmm, I just don't see the infringement here. Unless it's copyright infringement to create your own cover art (which seems to be what you're saying here Damin, unless I mis-read what you said), then downloading cover art is also just fine.

Let's take a recent example where people in general were disappointed with the cover art, Signs. Let's say I want to restore the original art (just the crop circle and farm house). So I scan in the cover, then use PhotoShop to remove the heads, then expand the crop circle and house to fill in the gap. Everything else is left alone. I print out the new cover sheet, put it in my DVD case, and go abotu my business. I don't think anyone would argue that what I have done infringes on anyone's copyrights, it would all fall completely under fair use. I took a sheet of paper I owned, then manipulated it to what I wanted it to look like.

Now, knowing that many others were disappointed with Signs as well, I go to my web page and put in detailed instructions on how to recreate the original poster art. Then, other people can do exactly what I've done, and create a preferred artwork for their case. Again, no infringement has occurred.

Next, a random person, we'll call her Jessica, e-mails me. She doesn't own a scanner or PhotoShop, but she does have the Signs DVD. She wants my redone artwork, but doesn't have the stuff she needs to manipulate what she has to create it. She does, however, have a printer nice enough to print the art out if she could create it. So, I e-mail her the image file of the revised artwork. End result, she ends up with a copy of the art, which she has a legal right too. It's no different in end result then if she'd created it herself. There was no infringement in creating the art, because I was manipulating a work I already owned.

After Jessica, other people ask me for the art. Eventually, I get so overloaded, I send it to DVD Cover Art. They have no way to check if people downloading the art have a legal right to the material, but most of the people downloading it are the legal owners. So again, the end result is people obtain what they have a legal fair use right too, the only difference is they downloaded it from someone who created it using their fair use rights instead of using those rights to create it themselves.

Unless it's copyright infringement to create your own cover art from material you own, then downloading art can't be. the only time there might be a case is if the person who created the art committed infringement in creating it, but even then if what you're downloading is something you have a fair use right too, I'd say it's probably ok.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

I think it gets sticky when a site starts collecting revenue either through advertising or member payments. Basically, someone is making money (regardless of whether the site is generating income) off of another artist's work.

I don't think the companies care if you or I manipulate stuff or even put a link to it on our websites. Its when you start making money that people notice.

 

[Damin J Toell]

the only time there might be a case is if the person who created the art committed infringement in creating it, but even then if what you're downloading is something you have a fair use right too, I'd say it's probably ok.

Upon what basis in copyright law do you base this opinion that it's "probably ok"? Yesterday, you were claiming that the "HRA" covers the creation of cover art, so you'll excuse me if I don't quite trust your interpretation of the law without seeing a little more legal authority for it. My opinion is based on research and familiarity with statutory and case law, but I don't see much persuasive legal authority to convice me of your position. Like The Ghostbusters and Fox Mulder, I'm ready and I want to believe you, but you're not helping me to do so.

DJ

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

In the end, I believe the existence of some potential harm, combined with the 3 others factors going strongly in favor of the studios, make it almost certainly not fair use

Add that the "personal, non-commercial use" aspect was also argued in the Napster case and decided that sharing did constitute a commercial use, and in the case of the site in question is beyond argument of a commercial nature: those uploading art receive a tangible benefit, and those downloading also have a material gain, neither of which fall into a noncommercial nature. Also, charging any fee for the service regardless of why, is also commercializing it.

Damin is entirely correct in all his arguments about the legality of sharing artwork, as any fair use rights are NOT transferable. Also, it should be made clear that fair use does not make something legal, it simply removes the ability to prosecute as a result of an action deemed fair use. Fair use also is weighed on how much of an original work is copied, and regardless of the nature of images on a replacement cover, use of any tradmarks is certainly in violation of the rights of the trademark holder.

I would be also be interested in seeing any actual case law examples that uphold the legality of creating derivitive works from copyrighten images, and their subsequent public dissemination. I think most studios and licensors would have a hard time explaining all the rights they have to buy to distribute those same images on their products if they were free to jst use whatever they felt like.

 

[JohnRice]

I didn't realize you own Zardoz. I don't mean the DVD, but the film itself. Otherwise you better take down your Zardoz site. You are using images you don't have the rights to.

As a pretty heavy contributor to DVDCoverart, I realize there is a potential for actual harm, but as was pointed out already, at this time it doesn't really make sense financially to bootleg available DVDs. I think it is a bit silly to say it is a haven for bootleggers. Saying it is no better (or something to that effect) than Napster is nothing short of absurd. Napster was a callous and blatant attempt to profit and to steal. DVDCoverart is not.

I am replacing my snapper cases. Some I get from DVDCoverart, others I send in to them. I create custom covers for the tins and other oddly packaged DVDs and sometimes replace the original covers that I don't like. I got Twilight Zone covers for the 40th anniversary set, so they would go in with my other DVDs nicely. I think it is safe to say, this also is the case for 99.9% of the other users.

 

[Damin J Toell]

I am replacing my snapper cases. Some I get from DVDCoverart, others I send in to them. I create custom covers for the tins and other oddly packaged DVDs and sometimes replace the original covers that I don't like. I got Twilight Zone covers for the 40th anniversary set, so they would go in with my other DVDs nicely. I think it is safe to say, this also is the case for 99.9% of the other users.

The question of the efficacy of your powers of prediction with regard to the usage of the site by others aside, you're merely saying it's safe to say that 99.9% of users are engaged in copyright infringement. That's not a particularly pleasing statistic.

DJ

 

[Damin J Toell]

I would be also be interested in seeing any actual case law examples that uphold the legality of creating derivitive works from copyrighten images, and their subsequent public dissemination. I think most studios and licensors would have a hard time explaining all the rights they have to buy to distribute those same images on their products if they were free to jst use whatever they felt like.

You probably already know the most famous one (although it's a song, not an image): 2 Live Crew's "Pretty Woman," which used elements (in a parodic fashion, so it was argued) of Roy Orbinson's "Oh, Pretty Woman." The case was Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), and it is one of three or four fair use cases that the Supreme Court has considered since the 1976 Copyright Act was adopted. It was also their first and only opinion issued on parody as fair use (they considered a parody case under the 1909 Act in 1956, but no opinion was issued due to an even split of justices). The Court found that parody, when the target of the parody is the work itself that is being copied (and here I use "copy" as a catch-all for any of the exclusive rights conferred by copyright), is fair use. The core of the Court's reasoning was that no harm for a potential market exists: since parodies would presumably be considered to be distasteful to the copyright holder anyway, there's little chance that there might've been a license given for the parody. It's important to remember that it must be the underlying work that is being copied that is being parodied, otherwise the analysis of the effect on the market is drastically changed. Compare Campbell to Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, 109 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1997), where a book that parodied O.J. Simpson by using "The Cat in the Hat" (for a book called "The Cat Not in the Hat!") was found to not be fair use, since the target of the parody was not the work being copied.

DJ

 

[Matt DeVillier]

Are you claiming that DVDCoverArt only features covers for legally-available DVDs? Try doing a search for "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones". Are you telling me that people other than those who buy bootlegs are downloading covers for Episode IV? What are they doing with them? Printing them out and tacking them onto a wall? Or does it just make a little more sense that people who buy/make/sell bootlegs the ones downloading those covers?

I think it makes perfect sense for someone who has backed up his/her Star Wars or Indy laserdiscs to dvd-r to want to have a cover for that disc, and that is what is offered on the site. If I buy a bootleg of those somewhere, it's going to come with a cover - so more likely the demand for these covers comes from people backing up their personally owned LDs (which don't have covers) than bootlegs

 

[David Rogers]

Are you claiming that DVDCoverArt only features covers for legally-available DVDs? Try doing a search for "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones". Are you telling me that people other than those who buy bootlegs are downloading covers for Episode IV?

Specific point. One cannot obtain Star Wars dvds, not for love or money, from any official souce. This despite open and public begging from the Star Wars fanbase of Lucasfilm.

The only video playback devices in my house are my computers and my DVD player. I have no use for VHS or LD. I have VCD copies of Star Wars. Why do I have these? Because I own both the original and SE VHS Star Wars trilogies (still). I would buy official Star Wars discs in a heartbeat if they were released, and toss my bootlegged VCDs happily.

I can't, because I occasionally wish to watch the movies I own rights to watch. I would rebuy those rights AGAIN to receive official optical medium, but I am not offered that option as a consumer.

So I don't much care, to be perfectly blunt. When it's been made impossible to obey, why care anymore? I grew up on Star Wars, and now I watch movies on DVD. If Lucas and other corporations aren't going to release to the most rapidly successful consumer home electronics product in history, that's their problem not mine. I'd buy if they released.

Having nice covers for my VCDs just makes them look better on my shelf. I download Star Wars wallpapers for my computers sometimes, and I've also downloaded and printed fan-art. Is any of that fair use? Probably not, no check was written. It was just something I liked to do since looking at Star Wars images reminded me of things I enjoy from the movies.

The future will be a place where one can say "oh I loved the new movie", but will be unable to discuss it with anyone else due to the ridiculous level of information law being imposed by Di$ney and other mega-entertainment-corporations. One will be unable to discuss the plot, characters, opening credits, title music, or anything else except the mere existence thanks to lawyers and corporations.

Surely this is what the Founders intended. A world where no one can speak without writing a check. Land of the free indeed.

 

[Tony Whalen]

Try doing a search for "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones". Are you telling me that people other than those who buy bootlegs are downloading covers for Episode IV?

*Tony raises a hand*

I've downloaded several Star Wars DVD covers. I don't have bootlegs, and have no intention of getting any. Nor do I have VCD's, despite the fact that I own three different sets of Star Wars on tape. (Old set, Box set of widescreen original movies, and box set of widescreen Special Edition)

I downloaded the covers because they are really nice, and being the anal-dvd-collector that I am, I may just print them out as "placeholders" in my collection, in the vain hope that they will be released SOMEDAY on DVD.




Now, on the whole, I just gotta say....I'm impressed.


That this is STILL being debated.

If you don't use or agree with dvdcoverart, that's fine for you. But there are a great deal of us that use it for legitimate DVDs.

Matt stated he was consuming over 75GB a MONTH before the last shut-down. HOLY *$&#!! I'm sorry... but gray area or not, I can't expect Matt and the rest of the folks at that site to eat the massive costs that kind of bandwidth would incur.

I think all the energy that has been invested in this thread would be better directed to something that is BLATANTLY and unquestionably illegal... like all those wonderful DVD's of Scarface/StarWars/Etc available on EBay.

We can all sit here and argue about the legalities of downloading cover art until we're blue in the face.

Fact of the matter is if the studios have a problem with it, I'm pretty sure they'll let the site owners know. Until then, I see little point in debating this.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

A website is only in violation if the copyright holders wish to put an end to their service. I'm sure if the big film companies wanted to shut down DVDCoverArt, they could. I've run a Kubrick site for 9 years and have had only one encounter with copyright. The Kubrick estate and Warner Bros are more than aware of my site. WB even asked me to participate in the launch of the "Official" Kubrick site (and compensated me with a free Kubrick Collecton set ) What was my one encounter? I had posted the long lost script to Kubrick's Napoleon. The only reason they cracked down on me is because they wanted to release a Napoleon book commercially.

The moral: if a company desires to profit on something they own (in this case, DVD covers) they will stop other sites from distributing them.

My guess is that the companies probably don't care. They probably see no harm. (The artists who created the original design may have a problem but ownership is probably not with the artist, so they have no legal grounds.)

 

[Tony Whalen]

The moral: if a company desires to profit on something they own (in this case, DVD covers) they will stop other sites from distributing them.

Pretty much what I was tryin' ta say Patrick.

I'm pretty sure the studios are aware of downloadable coverart in general, and DVDCOVERART.com in particular. And I'm pretty sure they probably don't really give a hoot.

... but that's just me ...