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.

How much of a need is there

[Brad1138]

How much of a need is there to make copies if you aren't going to give it to your friend? At about 30-50 gig per movie even the new terabyte drives would only hold 20+ movies. I take care of my DVDs and they stay in good shape, don't really need back up copies.

Re:Heh

[garcia]

Or more like, "Since we can't do anything about you hacking it because Fair Use still trumps our payoffs to legislators, we're going to 'let' you do something that's already allowed by law."

I hate those fuckers.

What about DVDs?

[javacowboy]

It's kind of disigenuous that they didn't mention allowing people to legally copy their DVDs. People (especially parents with young children) have been screaming about this for years.

Also, since CSS was cracked years ago, there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't have allowed DVD copying already, other than to use as a means of sending otherwise law-abiding citizens to jail. With the advent of Apple TV (along with similar products) and the possibility of ripping one's entire DVD collection and making it available in an easily browsable interface (like an MP3 collection), the outcry is probably getting louder.

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.

And, yeah, the timing of this announcement is just a little too coincidental, what with the latest AACS crack.

Central Server?

[doormat]

I do like managed copy (even though I think its useless because AACS is busted anyways), but the idea of a central server that would register and track these copies is a bad idea for consumers. It assumes you have internet access at the same place you want to watch the managed copy, as well as providing a mechanism for the movie industry to come in and see the volume of managed copies being used and say, "Well, we need to monitize this activity," and then now you have your pay-per-view system that the industry longs for. $2.99 for every time you create or possibly even watch a managed copy sounds good to them I'm sure.

Re:The obvious problem...

[networkBoy]

I tried this with Disney.
I have all my kid's disney flicks on a home media server. I called disney to report that my disk for beauty and the beast was scratched, and that I would like a replacement. I was denied.
Summary:
me: hi, my disk is scratched
them: buy a new one
me: no, I would normally make a backup copy but your TOU forbids this
them: so?
me: well disney has taken the stance that I as a consumer have not bought any rights to the movie, only a license to the content
them: so
me: well that means under normal IP license schemas I can reasonably expect a refreshed copy of the IP for the cost of media
them: no
me: so I can copy the disks I buy?
them: no
me: will you sell me a disk?
them: no, buy it retail
me: but it's out of print and not in stores any more
them: try e-bay

etc.
etc.

Wasn't very productive, but I'll take it to mean I can copy my disks DMCA be damned.
-nB

Re:They're going to charge *more*?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just put in 4111 1111 1111 1111, some sites don't explicitly deny that number and it passes on a few sites. The transaction will go through- it's a test number.

Re:That was supposed to be the deal in Germany

[koma77]

It's exactly the same in Sweden, and probably in many places in the EU. It's also impossible to buy blank media for use not related to private copying; say to make a backup of your HD. UNLESS you are a company. They can buy blank media without this "tax". It's time to do something about this paradoxial law.

Fair use goes way Beyond Copying

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a concession, we always had this right. The DMCA created a catch 22 by making it illegal to decrypt the item in order to exercise this right. Now they want to make this a for pay privilege. What is worse, being able to copy once DOES NOT = fair use by any means. Fair use means being able to work with the content in any number of ways in addition to being able to copy it. For example, taking clips and making presentation for a class, copying the sound tracks and mixing them for you own entertainment, creating a parody, and editing out objectionable content.

What they are trying to do is turn a fundamental right into much weakened for pay privilege so they can have control and power over it. They want is to have their cake and eat it to. It should not be up to them to determine what is and is not fair use is. Fair use should be any use that our populace finds to be on average fair to both the consumer and rights holder. Yep that is as nebulous as it sounds and it does change from time to time. That is what they have to accept living in a free society, not this managed copy crap MS is trying to use to keep their walking corpse moving.

Who will ENFORCE the deal?

[dpbsmith]

We've been here before.

The Audio Home Recording Act of 1991 gave consumers the right to copy CDs as long as they were copied onto specially-encoded blank media ("Music CD-Rs" or "Audio CD-Rs") whose price included a fee paid to the music industry.

I owned a home audio recorder (computerless CD copier) that fell within the scope of that act. I bought the prescribed media. It worked quite well for a number of years. It used a technical mechanism called SCCS which sounds very similar to this "managed copying." It allowed first-generation copies from original media, but would not copy the copies.

Then the music publishers came out with copy-protected CDs. My home audio recorder would not copy these CDs. Basically, the SCCS mechanism cut in, insisting that the copy limit had already been reached and that further copying was prohibited.

It was all well and good that the law gave me the right to copy them, and that I paid for every copy I ever made (in the form of the extra costs of the "music CD-Rs"). But there was basically no way I could take advantage of this right.

I made numerous calls, send emails, and letters to the CD publisher (UMI) and the recorder vendor (TEAC) trying to resolve the issue. I was never able to get satisfaction, beyond returning the CD for a refund.

It's the usual consumer problem. These guys were breaking the law, but it's awfully hard to stop a big company from cheating consumers if they only cheat each individual consumer by a small amount.

What's to stop the DVD publishers from making this "managed copying" available for a while, then using technical means to renege on the terms a few years later?

What's the good of a reasonably fair-sounding deal if David has no way to hold Goliath to the terms of the deal?