Copying HD DVD, Blu-ray Discs May Become Legal

Consumers could soon be able to make several legal copies of movies bought on HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc under a new licensing agreement now being negotiated. Rights holders might charge more for discs that can be copied for backup or for use on a media server, however.

Until...

[Tuoqui]

its possible to legally play on Linux I'm not interested.

Re:Until...

[neomunk]

Use your fair use legally defensible position to rip that content and encode it into a more friendly format, like vorbis or theora, plop it all in a nice ogg container and enjoy your media on your favorite (nice choice BTW) OS.

Just because they tell you it's illegal, it's not. Fair Use is a LEGALLY DEFENSIBLE reason to break the law. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure it's like an asterisk on all laws relating to copyright that says that of course people can protect their copyrights, but copyright doesn't apply at all in -these- certain situations. Preserving an archival copy of your media is one of those situations.

Again, I Am Not A Lawyer, and I didn't stay at any damn Holiday Inn's last night (express or original) but this is pretty simple stuff. Well, simple until armies of law school trained sharks start trying to convince you otherwise.

Re:What about DVDs?

[rikkards]

Since I live in Canada, there's no DMCA, and I'm already paying taxes on blank DVDs, so this is not yet a problem. Still, I figure Stephen Harper and his cronies will bless us with a DMCA-like law soon.

I believe the levy is not on DVDs but on CDs and media playing devices as it DVDs are not considered Audio recording media (see table in link [neil.eton.ca]). And don't blame Harper, well at least not for the copyright law that the govt is trying get through as this was introduced by the previous residents of parliament.

That was supposed to be the deal in Germany

[jeti]

Over in Germany, we're paying an extra fee on blank media
as a compensation for fair use rights. Also, we were told
that CDs cost a lot, but that the extra charge covers the
private copies we have an explicit right to create.

Then came the copy protection.

Then came a law that makes it illegal to copy 'protected'
media.

We're still paying the fees.

we've got that in germany

[AlgorithMan]

in germany we pay "GEMA" charges for the content - that's 9% of the price
we also pay extra for CD-R, DVD+-R, Harddiscs, mp3 players, flashdiscs, CD Recorders, DVD Recorders, VCRs...
still the MAFIAA keeps telling us we were criminals

they even pay for TV spots that say "copy piracy is a crime"
just to scare people (that don't know about their fair use right, which is a right here), away from making LEGAL copies... so that they don't legally give copies to their friends, so that their friends have to pay the full price...

they even went so far to build prison-cell immitations in cinemas, the games convention and such - where you can test how it feels where you're going if you copy stuff.... (but they don't tell people about their fair use right of course)
AND THEY'RE EVEN PROUD OF THIS GESTAPO MARKETING
they glorify this on their homepage http://www.hartabergerecht.de/ [hartabergerecht.de]

Re:The obvious problem...

[DivineHawk]

You can for the 'nominal' fee is $6.95:
http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/dvdsupport/faq.h tml#common0 [go.com]

If you accidentally damage or break one of your Disney DVDs, you can get a replacement disc for a nominal charge of $6.95.

Please mail in your damaged DVD (along with DVD case and full packaging), a Check or Money order for $6.95 (made payable to WDHE), along with your Contact Information (Name, Address, and Phone Number) to:

Replacement Program
PO Box 3100
Neenah, WI 54957-3100.

Re:The obvious problem...

[dunstan]

No, you're not buying a right to view the content, you're buying the physical disc. However, to view the film, you have to copy the film from that disc into your computer/DVD player, and it is this act of copying which is subject to the EULA. That's the difference between a book and a DVD - you don't have to photocopy the book in order to read it.

RMS's essay The Right to Read [gnu.org] is based around reading an eBook for this reason.

Re:strikes me as unnecessary

[delt0r]

Well I know a few people that are average consumers. When there CD's got scratched they discorved that ripping back to a plain CD fixed the problem. Just googled CD copy or something. With DVD's theres DVD copy, its rips and compresses it so that it will fit on a SL DVD-R. They have know idea that they are "cracking" anything.