Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying 354
Ynefel writes in with a PC Magazine article reporting that the DVD Copy Control Association is considering an amendment to the agreement equipment vendors must abide by, which would completely ban all DVD backups, whether fair use or not, and prevent DVDs from playing without the DVD disk being present in the drive. The amendment is being voted on imminently and if approved would go into effect within 18 months. Quoting: "The proposed amendment was made public in a letter sent by Michael Malcolm, the chief executive of Kaleidescape, a DVD jukebox company which successfully defeated a suit by the DVD CCA this past March."
For those who don't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Kaleidescape is right to worry in this situation. The change to the license agreement appears to be a direct attack on their business. Which, if successful, would represent irreparable harm to the market at large. The convenience aspect of digitally ripping the media cannot be understated. With such devices on the market, consumers are able to place their physical copies in storage while still having easy access to their media. Most of us do it with our CDs without giving it a second thought. Why should our movies be any different? (I know that I can't be the only one who has shelf-space problems with CDs, DVDs, and Video Games.)
As a party being directly harmed by an artifcial monopoly, I certainly hope that Kaleidescape takes this to court should it be approved. Consumers have a right to use their bought and paid-for media as they like. The DVD standard shouldn't be used as a bludgeon to take that away. If Kaleidescape is unsuccessful in their suit, I would hope that a class-action suit could be initiated for the harm caused to consumers.
dear execs (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether I buy a movie or not is not dictated by whether I can pirate it. It's by whether I can a) play it, and b) want to watch it. Stop making shitty movies and I'll buy/rent more (speaking of renting my last 6 or so rentals were all shitty despite being "highly rated" so I'm a bit pissed off).
Tom
the real reason for a drop in sales? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At last! (Score:2, Insightful)
Well if that's the case... (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll be just as effective, no? (or did these yahoos forget about those little A/V out ports on the back of each player?)
The real problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And just how they plan to actually enforce it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they've looked at the Kaliedescape product and the video iPod and reckon that within a few years, such items could be as commonplace as the DVD player is today. And as soon as the movie can be seamlessly, easily copied from the medium it's distributed on by even the least technical person, the studios start to lose control of what happens to it - something which the MPAA appear to be absolutely terrified of.
The idea of this is to prevent such products ever hitting the marketplace, and thus maintain control.
Not enforceable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also how will this relate to products like the PSP and iPod? Where people can convert there DVD to a mpeg stream for viewing on the go?
Time (Score:3, Insightful)
We could make this discussion about the lack of quality movies nowadays, but if you have 11 unlocked doors and 1 locked door, just where do you think we (humans) will want to get into most?
Laws as public contract. (Score:2, Insightful)
Stupid Rules Degrade All Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Related Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
From one perspective, I *do* understand where DVD producers are coming from on this. I positively know of at least one person who uses Netflix by backing up the DVDs when they come in, then immediately shipping them out for new ones. While it's a nice trick for improving one's own convenience, it's not really in the spirit of the service. So there are some legitimate arguments against DVD Backup devices.
However, the solution is NOT to ban good devices in an attempt to nail the edge cases. All you're going to do is piss off your customer base. But what should happen if a report stating that backup-piracy is NOT an edge case crosses an important desk? Should that executive then decide to make the problem go away?
NO!
What that exec is looking at is what I like to call a "Crisitunity". (Shamelessly stolen from other sources.) It's a crisis that presents new opportunities. All that's needed is an analysis of the problem to see where a workable solution might be introduced.
The first question to ask is: "Is this piracy about the money?" I think in most cases you'll find the money to be a secondary concern. Consumers like value (thus why they won't pay for an electronic copy of Pirates of the Carribean when they can get a physical copy for the same price), but they are willing to pay for the media under most circumstances. Ok, then why are they performing backup-piracy?
The obvious answer is: Convenience. Consumers are getting used to having things on their own schedule. Tivos allow them to shift television to a more convenient time. DVDs shift blockbuster movies out of the movie theater and into the convenience of the home. MP3s make jogging or travelling with your music a no-brainer. Gameboys/PSPs let consumers take their interactive entertainment on the go. Laptops let internet surfers work while they sip a latte at Starbucks.
Let's face it. We're an economy that's addicted to convenience. So much so that we will spend unnecessary money just to make something more convenient. Which should raise the flag of new opportunities. If consumers are so addicted to convenience, then why not find ways of providing it? Online movie distribution seems like the most promsing answer. Yet if you log into iTunes (analogous to DVDs in the store), Vongo (analogous to Netflix), or MovieLink (analogous to Blockbuster) you'll have a duece of a time trying to find a movie worth watching. And if you *do* find a movie worth watching, you may feel that the price is too high without a physical backup to protect your investment.
Thus the truth is that the movie industry is killing themselves through risk-adversion. The music industry already made that mistake once. One would think that the movie industry could try paying attention.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dear execs (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
What's their perceived problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
Different take on what the amendment means (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, this will stop me! (Score:3, Insightful)
My current DVD player, a 4 year old Samsung is shortly to be retired, replaced by a Phillips all region PAL/NTSC player.
I've a 3mbps DSL line and a few BitTorrent clients. When FiOS makes its way to my neighborhhod, I'll exchange the DSL for Verizon's fiber 20mbps broadband.
The only reason I now burn copies of my DVDs is that I have yet to buy a used XBOX and install XBMC on it, along with 25 feet or so of CAT5 to run between the PowerMac and the XBOX.
Once the XBOX is in place, all the copies get copied to the XBOX hard drive and they get stored with the old Samsung.
At some point, I'll have a TiVo, and the ancient RCA VCR goes to live in the closet as well.
So, the question I have to ask is:
How on Earth is this silly amendment to the manufacturers license going to affect me in any way whatsoever?
One way or another, I will have backups of my DVDs. Those that I own now, and those that I will purchase in the future.
Seriously, do they actually expect this to do anything at all to stop DVD copying or piracy?
Re:Not enforceable. NOT TRUE AT ALL (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is not true. It's not what you drive can read, but what it can write afterwards. For example, your drive can read the media descriptor block on your DVD, but it can't write the block of your choice onto your writable disc. To demand that a DVD must be in a drive, enforced by the drive hardware itself, with a media descriptor that you can't buy on blank discs, or write with any consumer writer, would require the original physical disc to be present for playback. The way around this is to rip the content with an unauthorized player, for which the will then try and sue you. Lawyers will make lots of money over this, notoriously insecure movie studio execs will sleep soundly over this, and the average person's life will become incrementally more difficult than before in a constantly ratcheting spiral.
DRM needs to be banned at the federal level, as an impediment to Fair Use and other consumer rights. Until the public at large is willing to make this a top priority, this garbage will continue.
Re:the real reason for a drop in sales? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And just how they plan to actually enforce it? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Emphasis mine) No! It's not their money, it's your money. Unless, of course, you never buy or rent movies, or go see a movie in the theater. But rest assured, the MPAA and friends subsidize their DRM efforts (tech and lobbying) with increased prices. That's what I find particularly irksome: if you buy a DVD (or HD-DVD or BluRay), part of the cost goes to cover the expense of its DRM. We're paying for stuff we don't want. Nobody requested DRM!
I hate to repeat the standard mantra, but... no DRM, lower prices and better content and all this "piracy" would just go away. I mean, we all know it can never be totally squelched, but can easily be made unprofitable enough to be marginalized.
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
A restriction that prohibits a vendor from providing the customer the best possible product makes that vendor less competitive.
This could be the step that pushes consumers too far and backfires on them. If it isn't, well, they'll just keep tightening their grip until they do push the public too far
What makes you think there is a "too far". As far as I can tell if the public was going to revolt over IP issues they would have done so a long, long time ago. They just don't care and will accept anything *ANYTHING* the media cartels can push through congress.
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you pay any attention to what was said above? Kaleidescape's device does NOT allow unrestricted piracy. As I just said, it copies the CSS protection intact. Since it's licensed as a DVD/CSS decoder, it can play back those backups in a 100% legal manner. It does not, however, provide an easy way to "allow unrestricted piracy".
Hmm... posting as Anonymous Coward... ignoring the prior posts as well as all sense of logic... some sort of vendetta against Kaleidescape... you wouldn't happen to work for one of the involved parties (aka MPAA member companies), would you?
Not everyone, just Companies (Score:4, Insightful)
The proposal is an amendment to the agreement that all DVD hardware manufacturers must agree to to get access to the DVD standard's specifications. The proposed text FTA:
This, as the article notes, is at essence designed to put Kaleidescape out of business. This is bad; however, the real idiocy might be with the latter half about "persistent copy" making. It is trivial (although not trivially cheap) for a consumer to assemble a dedicated computer with a DVD drive, massive storage, TV video output, and free open-source software to duplicate the functioning of a Kaleidescape Jukebox. The DVD-CCA might use this to try and retroactively remove this capability from the market... despite that I don't see how it might be possible to do so without removing either DVD drives or TV-out computer components.
Of course, I'm not sure that this amendment can prevent someone from making a Kaleidescape-like jukebox; while less elegant, it wouldn't be hard to redesign the Jukebox to use a standard 1-bay 5.25" DVD drive -- at which point, a manufacturer need not be a signatory to the DVD-CCA agreement, but merely buys (bulk, OEM) DVD drives as a component. Therefore, the only impact of this amendment (unless they try to ban the DVD drive — which I don't rule out) is a slight delay (until someone does this) and to try and put Kaleidescape out of business... which, as the company president notes, is likely to be held unlawful.
I suspect it boils down to someone stupidly and criminally trying to be vindictive against Kaleidescape for having previously beaten the DVD-CCA in court. This should go well....
what they really expect (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Not at all. They expect the public, and more importantly, the politicians they own, to buy the story (that it stops copying and piracy). They expect these kinds of restrictions to force the purchase of redundant copies of DVDs to drive up more revenue ... at least among those people who are not downloading from the internet.
Re:Figures (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where would we be without fair use? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
Can you invite you friends over to watch a DVD?
Yes
Can you donate your unwanted books to a library?
Yes
Can you even play a music CD with others in the room?
Yes
Without Fair Use, the answer to all of these would be NO.
No it wouldn't. None of these uses count as public performances, broadcasts or copies.
Fair use means that you retain the right to make copies for a number of reasons. It is not a right in itself. It's a limitation of rights of the copyright holder. i.e. if they sue you, fair use is a defence.
More laws just means more broken laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
So you do work for the MPAA or member company. Thought so.
No offsense, but how about dropping the charade and logging in? Or at the very least, make an argument of your exact problem with Kaleidescape rather than taking sideswipes at their supposed use as a piracy tool. If you have a good point, then I might agree with you. But as it stands right now, you're not doing anything to reverse the generally poor impression of the MPAA and its members.
(And for what it's worth, I've often defended the MPAA as "not quite as evil as the RIAA". This move is not helping that case any.)
I won't lie to you. This is environment is generally hostile to large organizations. But if you're going to argue your case (which I would actually be interested in seeing) then do us all a favor and go all the way with it.
What's my guarantee that the company owning "It's a Wonderful Life" will even publish a backup copy? I used to have tapes of a really great show called "Captain Power" that I very much enjoyed. Now they cannot be purchased. Someone has the rights to them, but I can't get a new tape or DVD unless I can find a used copy in good condition or resort to illegal copies.
This situation is the exact situation that fair-use backups are intended to cover. I may have lost my Captain Power tapes, but thanks to such backups I still have original Commodore 64 floppies. The original owners were smart enough to make a backup, then store the original. When the backup wore out, they'd pull the original and make another backup. That way the media lived on for far longer than it would have if the original media had been used.
I wish I had been as dilligent about backups when I was young. If I had been, I might still have a lot of my old tapes as well as nearly irreplaceable software such as Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. (You may notice that the republished versions are very different games.)
So what is the MPAA member supposed to do to stay in business? Generate new content worth purchasing. Reselling the exact same content with no added value is not a business model. That's merely trying to cheat people out of their hard earned money.
Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Because some idiots think that contracts are written documents, are easily mutable, or always contestable. These are idiot clients that end up paying contracts lawyers to pull their arse out of the fire.
The essence of a contract is an agreement between two parties where both sides give something of value. Sometimes, the contract must be written, but the don't always have to be.
As for contestable, not really. This is a question of economics. One of my law professors explained a neat trick he puts into employment contracts where there is a non-compete agreement. Without getting into details, part of the employee's salary is the value given for agreeing not to challenge the non-compete. The non-compete is extreme such that it would not be enforceable. However, the contract also says that if the non-compete is invalidated by the court, then the value given to the employee must be returned. That return of value is easily enforceable.
There was one employee (an executive) who decided to challenge the non-compete agreement. The lawyer for the employee sent a letter informing my professor (a practicing attorney) that he was going to file a suit. The professor responded that if suit were filed, his client (the company) would stipulate (i.e., admit) that the non-compete was invalid. He also told the lawyer to re-read the contract. Upon re-reading the contract, the lawyer discovered that his client would have to repay 2 years of salary upon invalidation. The non-compete was for a year, meaning that it cost more to win than lose. The result was the executive had to quit working for a year---the new company would not buy out his contract. In contract law, there are many pyrrhic victories.
Contract law it a career field because it is extremely intricate, in part because language itself is ambiguous and people tend to argue about the gray areas. Contracts are about enforcing trust. As long as people are untrustworthy, contracts will remain.
backups (Score:3, Insightful)
The original owners were smart enough to make a backup, then store the original. When the backup wore out, they'd pull the original and make another backup. That way the media lived on for far longer than it would have if the original media had been used.
Years ago that's what I used to do. The first tyme I played a brand new vinyl LP, record, on my turntable I'd record it on my reel-to-reel tape deck. I'd then put the record away for safe keeping and play the tape. When the tape eventually wore down I still had the record to make another tape of.
FalconRe:Where would we be without fair use? (Score:2, Insightful)
Copyright law restricts the owner of a copy from doing a number of things with a work. Anything that isn't explicitely restricted by copyright law is permitted. This is not fair use. This is a natural right. You can read the book you just bought. You can resell it.
Under copyright law, you may not copy it, at all. You can't even copy a small part of it under a strict interpretation. This is where fair use comes in. Fair use says that for a lot of purposes you are permitted to make copies. For example, I may wish to show people how voilent a film is. I can take a scene from it and broadcast it, and add my own commentary about how awful it is and how this scene demonstrates this (or how cool I think the gore is). They could threaten to sue. I would point out that my use was for criticism, and is a tiny part of the whole that will not displace sales and therefore my broadcast is Fair Use. If they wanted to press the point they would take it to court, and try to demonstrate that my use is a breach of copyright and that my fair use defence is invalid (and probably lose in this case). It may turn out that I'm unable to get hold of a legal copy, and if I can't, they have no obligation to assist.
Re:Related Thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
As a consumer, I'm more interested in the convenience of storing and accessing the work, rather than the media. I want to be able to place-shift, time-shift, media-shift, format-shift, device-shift, backup, restore, etc, whatever I buy, whether it be a movie, music, e-book, tv-show, or whatever. (Not that I'm not concerned about protecting the media. I'm just more concerned with the content.) I also want to be able to access the desired content without being subjected to undesired content (ie, no embedded ads, no non-skippable content, etc), extra costs, or whatever.