MPAA Says Teachers Should Camcord For Fair Use 286
unlametheweak recommends an Ars Technica piece detailing the convoluted lengths to which the MPAA will go in order to keep anybody from ripping a DVD, ever. The organization showed a film to the US Copyright Office, in the triennial hearing to spell out exemptions to the DMCA, giving instructions for how a teacher could use a camcorder to record a low-quality clip of a DVD for educational use — even though such a purpose is solidly established in law as fair use. "Never mind that this solution results in video of questionable quality and requires teachers to learn even more tech in order to get the job done. It also requires schools (or, given the way most schools are run, the teachers themselves) to incur additional costs to purchase camcorders and videotapes if they don't have them already. Add in the extra time involved, and this 'solution' is a laughably convoluted alternative to simply ripping a clip from a DVD."
Re:well that explains it... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish I had an awesome teacher like that. Going into the movie theater in the name of education to capture a clip in the discussion about:
"the use of special effects in modern star trek movie VS the original movies."
That and a > 9000 word essay.
For starters (Score:5, Interesting)
How much longer? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much longer before the MPAA becomes irrelevant and we can just ignore their antics?
Re:For starters (Score:3, Interesting)
why? mafiaa was fighting it when it was called "time-shifting", etc.
you should recognize what you see -- this is mafiaa fighting against fair use, because to them there is no such thing.
Actually that would be an awesome consequence (Score:5, Interesting)
If only someone would propose a bill that would allow camcording in theaters for editorial use, pointing to the example the media companies gave as evidence for the necessity of the inclusion...
Not any time soon (Score:3, Interesting)
Haven't we been saying this for, like, ten years. The fact that an increasing number of consumers are becoming aware of said tactics doesn't seem to have:
a) impacted on those tactics [google.com]
b) changed legislative backing [cnet.com] for the MPAA
c) reduced political complicity in the whole sorry affair [arstechnica.com]
Sure it will change eventually, but soon?
Re:Good! (Score:2, Interesting)
The more intelligent and motivated university graduates tend to be the least likely to enter K-12 education.
The more intelligent and motivated school teachers tend to be the least likely to seek positions with decision making authority.
The teachers I know rarely acknowledge any of this as their own failures or shortcomings. They also tend to portray themselves as victims of an unfair system.
If you've been reading me on slashdot, you know I'm fairly consistent in my view that a person in a position with limited authority who complains about the authority he is under, should accept some responsibility for being in that position.
Don't tell me about what an idiot your boss is. Explain why he's up there and you're down here, in terms of what you're doing to resolve that problem.
I've worked in education, and I've worked in IT, so don't try to tell me I don't know what it's like.
Re:Or, better yet (Score:2, Interesting)
>Teachers could carve each frame into a clay tablet and let it dry in the sun. Then mount the
>clay tablets on big wooden wheel and spin it real fast.
Smart, resourceful teachers could persuade their educational institutions to produce their own, original education materials and create a profit center instead of incurring a cost.
Explain to me how any product represented by the MPAA is in any way essential to K-12 education, aside from perhaps some course that covers entertainment film?
Schools and school districts tend to be quite conspicuous and diligent when it comes to copyright law, as any band nerd should know. You didn't just photocopy music sheets. You probably leased them. Why would the same school treat motion picture media any differently?
I hate to be the devil's advocate in this area, but I do need to separate concerns, the technical issues related to the storage media, versus compliance with the license granted by the content creator. The MPAA and the DMCA conflate these concerns, and I see that as the central issue.
Uh-oh (Score:4, Interesting)
I just finished ripping my somewhat meager DVD collection (~ 100 titles) to disk. Guess I should start over and use a camcorder this time around...
On a more serious note - this really is getting absurd. Even with good care DVDs get scratched. I had to run a couple of mine through a Skip Doctor before they'd play without errors (as an aside: that's a pretty nifty device). But frankly the "backing up" aspect of all this is secondary - I'm ripping my DVDs because it's a heck of a lot more convenient to manage my library of purchased DVDs this way. Now I can take advantage of some great free software (pyTivo, streambaby) and watch whichever one I want using my Tivo remote - no more digging through the DVD rack looking for one particular movie.
There's just no way I'm going to let these dinosaurs tell me what I can and can't do with my own stuff.