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Video Information From Disinformation
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jul 23, 2000 06:30 PM
from the what-a-mans's-gotta-do dept.
from the what-a-mans's-gotta-do dept.
The movie industry, at least as embodied by the eight big studios that make up the MPAA, has an attitude about home movie viewing of "fair use, schmair use." Just because you bought a movie on DVD, and the hardware to play it back, the MPAA doesn't want you to watch it except with playback mechanisms they've approved. And despite the relative fame (or is it notoriety?) of software to allow viewing DVDs under Linux, or to convert the data-hungry DVD format to leaner alternatives, using it is beyond the ken of most computer users -- Yes, even Linux users. Not to worry.
Nick Hodulik, Director of Technology for disinfo.com writes:
The brief history and explanation of DeCSS and DivX is geared to readers unfamiliar with them, and probably contains little new information to regular slashdot readers. On the other hand, the collection of links -- leading to information about setting up video playback on your system, about the DeCSS saga in more detail, and about next-generation DivX codecs -- is well-chosen and worth exploring top to bottom." [...] Anyway, I thought that Slashdot might be interested in a dossier that we are featuring this week. The dossier covers the basics/history of the DivX codec, Video Compression, and DVD piracy. In addition the dossier features numerous links to tutorials and further information. I'm excited about this piece because I feel that it not only is a good introduction to this genre, but it also provides the reader with access to just about everything needed make and play DivX encoded files. The dossier is currently being featured on the front-page of disinfo.com, and is also accessible at
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DVD? why? (Score:2)
Sure, I miss out on some content. I miss out on setting up a digital theatre. But in exchange, I get to tell the MPAA that I don't support their practices, and never will, and I get to tell them in the way that bothers them most -- by not giving them money.
So for all the people that complain about how restrictive DVDs are, and how wrong it is for the MPAA to behave as they are, how do you justify buying DVDs to yourself?
(And how does
I may have problems in the future if games start shipping exclusively on DVD. I don't yet know what I'll do if that happens, but you can bet I won't be buying video DVDs.
--
goldfish
Re:why it matters (to me) (Score:2)
See my point?
Re:so? (Score:2)
That sounds like an ex post facto law.
Hmm, US Constitution, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3:
An "ex post facto" law is one which affects events before the law went into effect.Example - I cross the street, in the crosswalk, with the signal, but I am wearing a t-shirt which says "I want my DeCSS!" This is legal, I'm crossing the street in accordance with local ordinances, and my t-shirt is legally protected free speech.
But someone *cough* MPAA *cough* doesn't like that, so they get a law passed which says that crossing the street in protest-wear is illegal, and that it always has been illegal. But I'm a nice boy, so I don't cross the street in my DeCSS shirt anymore.
However, the MPAA really wants me, so they use the video tape of my original crossing to haul me into court. I crossed the street before the law was passed, but that doesn't matter, because the law affects acts commited before it was passed. In this way, politicians and companies can make today's lawful act into tomorrow's crime, but still arrest those who committed the act when it was legal.
I can be arrested for acts which weren't crimes when I acted!
The fragment of the Constitution listed above prevents this sort of thing from happening, when it is enforced. It isn't being enforced very well, in my estimation. Copyright being extended on works written before the law which affects them? Sounds ex-post-facto to me. The 1993 tax changes affected income from January 1993 onward, but the law wasn't enacted until several months later. Sounds ex-post-facto to me.
Anything which is retroactive is ex post facto. And un-Constitutional.
Louis Wu
"Where do you want to go ...
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
News flash: DeCSS was written as a windows program to crack CSS on dvd's, and it was done _because they could_. These guys didn't have dreams of a DVD player for linux in their heads or anything.
Welcome to the REAL world
Re:ROFL - Read... (Score:2)
I can't think of too many things worse than a manager who is a fan of Machiavelli.
Except once I worked for a guy who absolutely loved the Godfather series of movies. He would quote from them constantly, and he'd use examples from the movies to illustrate his points in meetings. I still remember the day when the guy in the cubicle across from me came to work and there was a horse's head in his chair.
MPAA FAQ: What is DeCSS and how does it work? (Score:2)
Q: What is DeCSS, and how does it work?
A: DeCSS is akin to a tool that breaks the lock on your house.
Exactly. Some are trying to get into their own house, but MPAA sold them locks with no keys.
Mark this as off topic please.
Re:DivX (Score:2)
deCss allows you to rip movies off of DVD's, but the resulting movie file is way too large to be useful to anyone for transportation. And they get sued for making a utility that allows for piracy.
I'd say that DivX's ability to make the movie size small enough for transfer (at least more reasonable than before) makes me curious why MPAA isn't going for them. I mean, RIAA is going after mp3 and all.
Let me guess... Because microsoft is too big? Gah.
Not a real standard... (Score:5)
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
We are losing a right by not being able to watch a movie.
No you are losing a privelege(sp).
Did you not read anything he wrote? The basic system of copyright is a privilege granted to people who create things so that they may restrict what the public does with it. There are exceptions to exactly what they may restrict, which falls under fair use. If copyright did not give the creators the privilege, then you would be free to do whatever you wanted with it. You have the two concepts mixed up - it's the copyright holders that have the privilege, not the public.
The DeCSS case=Dredd Scott Decision (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
How? It's not like this is Sony saying that only Sony products can use a memory stick while their competitors stand by watching. There are no competitors standing by watching helplessly. They are all in on it. The hardware producers make sales, the movie format producers make sales. You don't want to buy DVD? Buy a VCR and video cassette tapes... it doesn't matter the money goes to the exact same place.
Devil Ducky
I don't know.... (Score:2)
Re:Tempest in a teapot (Score:2)
It has been in the courts many times, and the good guys usually won. But with the DVD situation, they didn't start in the courts, they bought some legislation first: DMCA. With the legislation there to back their court cases, the threat these assholes pose should be taken very seriously. This strategy successfully worked to suppress DAT.
---
Lessons from double-nickles (Score:2)
A bit more details: I grew up in Orlando, and Florida was experimenting with metric speed limit signs due to the large number of international tourists. (They've since gone back to stone-age units alone.) So we had plenty of street signs like "30 (50)", but one always stood out as being very odd: "55 (88)". The problem was that the obvious sign, "55 (90)" couldn't be used because it would legally permit a speed of 56.1 mph (or thereabouts) and That Was Not Permitted. I guess we were expected to believe that a cop would pull us over if we were going 56 MPH and ticket us if we had a domestic driver's license, but let us go if we had an int'l license.
But this teaching us that some laws are optional - nah. People, teenagers especially, have considered speed limits optional since the first speed limit signs were posted. Hell, I'm almost 40 and I still think that today (albeit for other reasons - I now focus my wrath on the yuppie neighborhood that got a major street's speed limit dropped from 40 to 25, not the wide open rural street where the speed limit is "only" 75).
Nope, teenagers have always learned that laws are optional from their parents. It's disgusting that people walk into the front door of the porn shop - they should use the back door like all self-respecting citizens! They should crack down on drunkards/druggies/whatever, not social drinkers/potheads like us!
Hell, consider one of the canonical teen movies - "Porky's." A key point is catching the moralizing preacher and mayor watching a porn flick. That was pulled out of real life, and it's why (imho) most people are somewhat cynical about the law and law enforcement.
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
Sorry man, but you're just wrong.
Re:Tempest in a teapot (Score:2)
Not true. 'The law' is a frequent tool to stifle new technology. For example, one law in the early days of the automobile required that a driver, when coming to an intersection, dismount, look for traffic, shout a warning in each direction, fire a pistol in the air, and only then proceed. This was obviously an attempt to make the use of 'horseless carriages' such a pain to use that no one would want to. Another example was the early suits again Sony for the Betamax, claiming that it was going to be used as a piracy tool. Even more recently was the suit again the Diamond Rio (the MP3 player) for the same reason. The establishment has a long history of whacking threats with the law, and they're frequently helped by our political 'leaders'. As Machiavelli said in The Prince: We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things while those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.
Woops. (Score:2)
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
-----------------
Kevin Mitchell
Here we go again... (Score:3)
For a site speciallizing in "disinformation", I was rather surprised/disappointed that disinfo.com has done just what the MPAA has done and equated decryption (and the accessibility it gains) to piracy. Wrong! As has been discussed here (many many times) bypassing CSS does not automatically lead to piracy.
Unfortuantely, the DivX part of the article seemed to be a "Ha! You can't stop us pirating movies any more than you can stop us pirating music!"-type rant. This is not helping...
There's a more concerning point... (Score:2)
I guess the idea is really who cares?
I'm not altogether concerned about it being movies, so much as information that's being restricted. What happens when some publisher decides to start distributing e-books in DVD-like format? According to the logic of (and precedent pursued by) the MPAA, even if the information on that disc is in the public domain, by accessing the data thereon in either an unanticipated or unintended manner, the reader would be committing a federal offense. (This in spite of the legality of the purchase said reader made in the first place.) Again, who cares, so long as the information is available in other, less restrictive formats? There's always the potential that those formats could cease to be available, for whatever reason; although the likelihood of that happening in some cases isn't all that high, it's still concerning.
All that aside, it's a ridiculous restriction on published information and private property; would you buy a book for which the publisher demanded that you read with their special reading lamp? And if, for whatever reason, you bought the book (perhaps because it was the only format in which it was available, or the best, cheapest, most easily available, etc.), would you really restrict yourself to buying and using their lamp? I bet I'd be out under a shade tree on a nice day, reading by natural light, or using some awful department-store bedside lamp - and I think most people would, too.
Re:Amazing (Score:2)
It's called "Lease Contract." (Score:2)
With minor differences, this is a standard lease agreement. It turned the car industry upside-down, for a period of a couple years. Now, it's about equal to the purchase-outright agreement. The benefits and problems are a personal decision to the buyor/lessor.
If offered a choice, some people WILL choose the option that YOU wouldn't.
Re:How can DVD be consumer friendly if... (Score:2)
As they say, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."
Re:so? (Score:2)
I do vote, but the candidates generally suck. As for getting into politics, not likely. I don't go to church or follow any particular religion. That alone is probably sufficient to keep me from winning any elections in this country.
Re:I don't know.... (Score:3)
The reason it was written as a windows executable was because linux didn't have UDF support at the time.
If you want proof, read the court transcripts (and depositions) from the MPAAv2600.. Jon Johanson has testified himself.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_ca ses/ [eff.org]
Re:so? (Score:2)
The thing is, they won't be prosecuting anyone for breaking an ex post facto law. Since they extended the term before the original term ran out, the copyrighted works will always be covered by current law. That's not the reason this is so disgusting. The reason is that it doesn't follow the intentions of copyright, which are:
"To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
If the works are already created, then extending their copyright term cannot provide anymore incentive to create them. The authors created the works under the copyright laws at the time, which obviously provided sufficient incentive. To extend the copyright term on them does not serve any useful purpose to the public, and therefore should not have been done. Additionally, Congress provided no evidence or justification for extending the copyright term. Why was it needed? Do they have evidence that the current laws weren't providing enough incentive? The US has long been the leading creator of copyrighted works. I think Congress would have had a very difficult time justifying their law with the intent of copyright as written in the Constitution. So they just decided to claim that it was done in order to harmonize US copyright law with the international community. This doesn't fly either. They aren't allowed to do whatever they want just because other countries are doing it. I'd love to see the justifications for ANY of the copyright extensions that have become law.
If anyone is interested, here's a couple links:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/ [harvard.edu]
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/ eldredvreno/ [harvard.edu]
Re:DivX (Score:2)
The Bleak Truth (Score:2)
The entertainment industry defines our entire culture
I groped around for a witty response and then decided that there was really nothing more to say.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Re:Tempest in a teapot (Score:2)
How long can the hardware manufacturers keep this up?? The R&D is considerable, and then the RIAA comes through and makes these devices unattractive to consumers. Yes, people want to record music, and most of them for non-illegal reasons. I have ripped my CD collection to MP3 so I can keep a copy at work without having to lug around the CD's and damage them. I never have the song playing more than once at a time, etc...
Also, record and movie sales are boosted by the availability of new technology. Just thinking of all of the old vinyl that I have replaced with CD's over the last 5 years makes me cringe. With DVD as a new "standard", many VHS movie buffs will have to have "Army of Darkness" on DVD now.
What the RIAA is looking for is not a preservation of their time-worn business model, but revamping of their buisness model. Not only the control of the medium, but the use of the medium.
The belief that we as consumers will pay $300 for a machine, $10 for a disk, and $4 per view is insane. However, people do it all the time. The DVD's will still be laden with commercials and product placement, and the companies will make money each time you play a movie or DVD.
The only benefit over the above scenario is that the companies are trying to do away with the physical medium, i.e. the $10 disk. In their world, the disk would be replaced by your net connection, but the price per view is $8 per. They defend this pricing by saying that more than one person could be watching at a time, hence it's still a bargain...
Our entertainment industries are clearly out of hand, and the forecast is grimmer for the future.
Wow, did I stray off topic or what??
~The Ham Man
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
uhhh, if the Filmmakers did not release things giving you the privilege of watching their films you would have nothing to fairly use, and no argument, which is my point.
That's not a privilege, that's business. We give them money, they give us DVDs. Copyright allows them to restrict us from doing some things with those DVDs once they belong to us. The things that they aren't allowed to restrict us from doing is covered by fair use (and other things, IIRC). They don't have to grant any privilege in order for people to play the movies.
Congratulations (Score:2)
Congratulations! Clap, Clap, Clap, encore!
You now comprise the
Congratulations for not prostituting your ideals, but I hate to break it to you: the MPAA does not care about you one bit. Your boycott does not make a difference.
Perhaps you boycott simply because you coulnd't live with yourself seeing a DVD player proudly displayed atop your television. In that case, more power to you. But I hope you're not deluded into thinking that boycotts of you and people like you will bring the MPAA to its knees anytime soon. Boycotts must be MASSIVE before business even blinks an eye.
Re:MPAA FAQ: What is DeCSS and how does it work? (Score:2)
A: CSS is equivalent to a lock on your house that allows the use of one of 100 different keys, none of which you own.
Q: How do I get into my house?
A: You can ask any of those 100 people to let you in.
Q: What if I copied one of their keys or made my own? Its my house, right?
A: We'll sue you for going into your house without one of our reps present to unlock it for you.
Re:I don't know.... (Score:4)
Not so clear cut, actually. Even accepting that the organization is non-profit, if the film festival charged money, then it's a commercial use, and every commercial use is presumptively ...unfair"(Sony v Univeral, 464 U.S. 417 [findlaw.com], which is the case on this subject, includes that little gem as part of the overall analysis that made VTR's legal.
Further, the MPAA and their associates regard DVDs not as movies, but as software, and assert that under the DMCA that any use other than the use which the producer intended is illegal. (See, for example, Valenti's deposition [2600.com] and the related slashdot discussion [slashdot.org].)
If Valenti and the MPAA are correct, then there is perhaps no legal way for you to use that image without permission. The implications of DMCA in this regard are still to be litigated.
It's always important to remember that the law doesn't mean what you want it to mean, even when you want something reasonable. It means whatever five Justices agree that it means. Of course, since the 55mph speed limit created a whole generation of Americans who believe that laws are optional, I guess we'll have to expect more "technical" piracy.
tc>
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
Nope. That was pretty simple. Please, _please_ look through history and tell me, when have authors ever had that right? Oh, they can refuse to sell it to you unless you bind yourself to a contract that governs use. I don't dispute that. (although contracts can't go too far in certain respects or they're considered void) But that is not one bit the same as selling you a DVD in a store, for cash money, and THEN claiming that you can only use it in the way that they permit.
Copyrights are loosely about copying. NOT use. Never use. Just as long as the use doesn't involve copying - with exceptions for fair uses (e.g. educational copying, space shifting) - anything goes. There's a weird set of rules for public performance, but that has nothing to do with DVD players per se.
Remember always, that copyrights do not and have never existed for the convenience of the people who create works. The fundemental principles of copyright do not anywhere claim that it's a right for creators to make money. It's not. The point is for works to promote the arts and sciences, chiefly by there being very many works which are in the public domain and are totally free for anyone to copy and use at will. In order to achieve this, Congress may permit authors and inventors short-lived and limited monopolies on their works and inventions.
With regards to copyright, this consists of a monopoly on SOME instances of copying, for a while, sometimes. If it were a use-related right, it'd be called useright. Funny how it's not.
Copyright holders have no constitutional right to dictate use after selling a copy of a work. None. And barring an amendment, they never will. And there are no copyrights in nature - so it's not even as though they're losing anything. They've never had those rights. It's virtually impossible to conceive of a way that they could without blantantly defying nature, and the way that humans interact with information.
So summing up, if they don't like the possibility that I might watch a DVD with a homemade player, their only option is not to sell it to me. If they sell it to me, they can't claim anything unless I start copying it.
Re:I don't know.... (Score:3)
A real world example. I was involved with a film festival. We wanted to honor a director. The studio didn't get us a photograph in time. They called me needing an image. I had a vDVD that had an interview with the director. I grabbed still frames from the DVD, made TIFFs and gave them to the art director and they wound up in the festival program.
Clear-cut case of fair use, right? Non-profit organization. But in order to do this, I had to use a hack to turn off the stupid DVD "feature" that prevented my computer DVD player from grabbing a frame. I had to technically violate a law.
Re:Okay, I'll nitpick... (Score:2)
and btw, the nova story is an urban legend.
Re:Not that friendly if it takes 10 minutes to loa (Score:2)
Yeah, I guess I haven't run into this, but it certainly does suck. My Apex seems to be able to skip through ads that don't allow going to the title screen (it has other issues, but that works). I've also never played the regular version of Tarzan, which seems to be the most notorious offender. But unskippable ads are a disc-by disc issue, just like bad encoding and lame menus.
I mean, it's a reasonable thing for the format to provide hard-to-skip "this film has been formatted to fit your TV" blurbs, the infamous FBI/public performance warnings, licensing screens, and the like. Creating a hard-to-use disc by abusing that feature is the studio's decision. I think per-disc quality issues are likely to take care of itself.
The region coding thing, as goldfish mentioned in another reply, is probably the most egregious feature of the DVD format itself. Myself, I guess I've been living with this in video games for years and made my peace with the fact (and it's certainly easier to get a region-free DVD player than a region-free PlayStation), plus I'm in Region 1. But that's what I'd call DVD's most inconvenient feature. So I bought a region-free player last year and have yet to watch any out-of-region movies on it. :)
Re:Shooting yourself in the foot (Score:2)
I forgot to add one more thing, I think the strongest way possible to say you DO mind them trying things like region lockouts is to give money to the EFF - I have donated a fair amount of money to the EFF and will donate more this year. Supporting the legal fight is the most direct way to attack them.
Re:DVDs are a consumer friendly product (Score:2)
Yes, a DVD is a wonderful thing, but you cannot call it consumer friendly with the restrictions it has. Region locking is not for the consumer; see the recent Princess Mononoke article, for example -- the region locking prevented fans importing the DVD, and the only region 1 edition was dubbed. That's not consumer friendly. Why don't you try and get the original version of Run Lola, Run, or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? Seen Asterix and Obelix on DVD yet?
The simple fact that there are workarounds to the restrictions put in place show that those restrictions are not good for the consumer. So the product, no matter how shiny and exciting, also has features that hinder the consumer.
--
goldfish
DeCSS is SO hard to use (Score:4)
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxvideo.org:/cv
cd css-auth && make
umount
mount
mv title-key title1-key
dvdinfo
cat
mpeg2player -vob -f 01_1.vob
Just replace 01_1.vob with - in the last two lines to watch it realtime.
Let's just say this is one CLI program that doesn't warrant a GUI interface.
DVD is plenty consumer-friendly... (Score:2)
Re:I don't know.... (Score:2)
I can tell its obvious flamebait, but, it contains a small nugget worth responding to.
Okay. So. Next up. You use Linux, or say, MacOS, or even better, Amiga, and a new fabulous and cheap networking solution comes along. But, an organization comes along, and says, you can only run this on windows, not on MacOS, Linux, or Amiga.
Furthermore, they state unequivically, that, they will sue and prosecute anyone who attempts to write a driver for their hardware on another OS, without their permission. And without paying them huge fees.
So. Now. What do we have here:
1) a standard which is becoming the norm
2) if everyone uses it, and price fixing is then involved, along with control of every aspect of delivery, that equals monopoly.
3) a predatory system which stifles free trade.
4) a small number and minority telling the majority that they will do what the minority wants, even though the majority has shelled out its money for something that will surely become the next standard, and, ergo, a must have.
5) bad bad bad business.
Im sorry to say sir, it is about losing rights. The minute a company tells me I cant do something with a piece of personal property which I purchased, in my own private home, that is the moment they have control over me.
Well, with all due respect, thats BS. And, I, nor the people (i.e. 2600) who are going to court like it. I purchase something, I can do with it what I want.
If I want to write a driver to play DVD's on my Atari 2600, and then release that to the public, thats my right. And, nobody, no matter how much money they have, has a right to steal, cheat or otherwise rob me of that right. Nobody has a right to form a scheme with intent to defraud anyone of their rights to personal property, or what they can do with said property.
And, that, my little troll, is something you need to come to terms with...
Re:I don't know.... (Score:3)
CSS is more dead than that ! (Score:3)
Earlier this year however, two European hackers discovered that Xing inadvertently exposed the elusive CSS encryption key in their latest DVD player. Within weeks the anonymous team released a small software program named (appropriately) DeCSS, which allowed anyone to access the contents of a DVD
They don't have a clue, do they ?
This whole thing is not about DeCSS , CSS has be cryptanalyzed to the death, but MPAA is going after DeCSS because if they can use the DMCA to ban distribution of curcumvention devices, then they have a better change of bannig this stuff [195.115.63.44]
Basicly, with the link above, you can download sourcecode for programs that will retrieve ALL the 408 playerkeys on your DVD disk!!!
That's playerkeys. Keys that will work on all DVD disks. And you can do this even if you don't know a single key in advance. All this takes just about 15 minutes on a Celeron 550 MHz
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
How can DVD be consumer friendly if... (Score:3)
<O
( \
X Adopt a bird today!
Re:DivX (Score:3)
I disagree with what the MPAA is trying to accomplish, but some DVD's are just worth the money.
Without even going into the piracy issue, it's simply a plain fact that a DVD can be marvellous. When you really are a movie fanatic, DivX doesn't cut it:
Sorry, but I won't settle for DivX.
Tempest in a teapot (Score:5)
When records were introduced, musicians decried the invention as the end of live music. They fought to prevent music form being sold on the 'dictating machine' that had just been invented. Records won.
The movie & television studios went after VCRs when they first arrived. "How dare people record television?" they asked. VCRs won.
The RIAA went after Diamond when the Rio was released. Guess what? The MP3 players won.
So who will win the Napster/DeCSS wars? The new technologies will. The genie is out of the bottle and it can't go back in.
Big business will always rather use 'the law' to fight changes to business modles rather than reinvent themselves. They will eventually have to accept the idea of people copying movies just as making cassette mix tapes is accepted.
We, the consumers, will win out in the end. We have the dollars/pounds/rubles they desperately want. Eventually they will give us what we want. record companies WILL sell MP3s of live performances and movie studios will sell enhanced DVDlike movie on the net.
Look at what happened to a bad technology, the Divx DVD system. Consumers saw it for what it was, an attempt to wring every last dollar of out of the consumer with no benefit. Divx is out of business.
The most important thing we can do as individuals is write our government reps and tell them our views. The MPAA & RIAA have lobbiest in their offices all the time. Make sure they see more than one side of the arguement.
so? (Score:3)
Doesn't matter to me why DeCSS was created. As long as I have full access to the DVDs I purchase. Just as I have access to VHS tapes and CDs, etc. I don't plan on having the MPAA or anyone else tell me when, where, or how I can view the material on those DVDs. If I want to rip them to my hard drive, then I will. If I want to watch them using Linux, then I'll do that too. It doesn't really matter what they want me to do with the DVD anymore than it matters what a book publisher wants me to do with the book. I will do what I want (within the bounds of fair use rules) because I bought it and it's mine. As long as I'm not distributing copies or holding public screenings of movies, then I haven't broken the law (except the DMCA perhaps, but hopefully that bit of idiotic legislation will get dumped by the courts). Of course I'm rather tempted to throw all copyright laws out the window seeing as how we've all been screwed over by the government as they keep extending, even retroactively, the copyright term. They're ripping us off, we should be able to rip them off too.
why it matters (to me) (Score:3)
a) reverse engineering. The DMCA has some bad provisions in it. I've got nothing against the MPAA's members getting together and making it so annoying and inconvenient to view movies with other than approved hardware that doing so isn't worth the bother. Well, actually, I do have *something* against it, but I say that's within their rights. To make this into a point of law ("You're not even allowed to *try* to watch that movie on other than our approved hardware, mister!") I think is a terrible precedent. Not that it's alone
b) I've bought quite a few movies, but have no DVD player, having returned the two crummy Apex 600s which at least allowed me to briefly watch Casablanca and Annie Hall before dying. I'd like to watch movies on my monitor, or in the living room, without spending a few or several hundred more dollars on a player which does nothing an 80-dollar internal drive ought to be able to do.
c) Big studio releases -- is there really a 15th Anniv. edition of "Teen Wolf"?! Horrible! -- are one thing, but if the DivX format is widespread, we could see more independent, small-time filmmakers able to cheaply distribute their work on cheap CD-Rs. HOw many do you know who could mass-produce DVDs? With the right coupons, you can usually find blank CD-Rs for what, 30 cents apiece? Same goes for computers-as-VCRs; if I could put a few hours worth of shows onto a CD-R instead of a VHS tape for my personal timeshifted viewing, I'd prefer it. I could watch it on my desktop, on a laptop (when I get one -- anyone have a G3/400 PowerBook for sale, cheap?;) ), and I bet soon on DVD players which also playback the DivX format. Yes, I know it's not the same as the CircuitCity P.O.S. -- but how long did it take for DVD players to also play V-CDs and (finally) MP3s? Why not (the new) DivX?
So it's not the movies per se that are all that important (to me), it's the availability of readable formats and of high-quality compression for all the various uses it could be put to.
There could be a DivX-Plus (again, why not?) which mimicked features of DVD like greater interactivity / scene selection, etc -- would make a good format for instructional videos, say.
Them's my thoughts, which may have large holes in them.
timothy
Amazing (Score:4)
The record, movie, and software companies must be stopped by legistlation before it's too late.