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Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying 354

Posted by kdawson from the not-your-bits dept.
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."
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Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying More

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying

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  • This amendment is NOT an amendment to the law. It's an amendment to the license agreement between the association responsible for the DVD standard and the companies that create DVD products. As such, its only direct impact on the consumer is that DVD Backup products will have their licenses revoked. Which would make it that much more difficult to excercise our fair-use rights to make a backup of the media and/or space-shift the media.

    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.

    • The real problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:15AM (#19595091)
      is the DMCA. It should be changed to address the rights of consumers to make copies for PERSONAL use. All these assults on our rights by business is way out of control.
    • I don't know about the laws in the US (IANAL) but in Canada for a contract to be enforcable it must not pertain to illegal elements.

      So if fair use is legislated, then not allowing fair use would violate that law, and make the contract (agreement) or perhaps that one segment of the agreement unenforcable within the courts.

      Of course, enforcement is one thing, and the DCA is hitting the equipment manufacturers who don't want to rock the boat in most cases. I'll bet Samsung is the only company to have a go

      • US contracts do not have that problem; they include a clause that if any part of the agreement is declared invalid, the rest of the agreement will remain in force. This is why even very similar items in a contract are given separate clauses.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by terrymr ( 316118 )
          It's actually a fairly useless provision. Once a judge decides he's going to fix your contract because it's unfair/unenforceable/whatever it's up to him where he stops.
          • True, but it requires that the judge or arbitrator actually edit the contract. Typically, a judge would address all the issues brought before the court, and no others.

            In Canada, if part of the contract is unenforceable, the entire contract is void by default (not sure if this can be avoided), so the contracting parties need to draw up a new contract.

            • Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)

              by GeckoX ( 259575 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:18AM (#19596127)
              That is not true at all, not even close.

              Contracts are merely written accounts of agreements between parties. As such, they can be changed. I have a contract right here that is a legal representation of an agreement between me and my former employer, which has been manually edited by both parties numerous times, and notarized thereafter.

              Here's a hint the lawyers don't want you to know: Contracts aren't actually worth the paper they are written on. They can ALWAYS be contested. They can also always very easily be changed, in whole or in part. They can't be invalidated because they are never validated in the first place per se.

              There is a reason that contract law is basically a profession in and of itself.

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Dausha ( 546002 )
                "There is a reason that contract law is basically a profession in and of itself."

                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

        • Re:For those who don't RTFA (Score:4, Informative)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:14AM (#19596091)
          But it would still allow backups to be made, because that part is illegal, so the clause that contains the part about making backups won't be able to be enforced. However, I still don't know if this works. Stopping somebody from doing something legal is not actually illegal. For instance, I could license you my patent on the terms that you may only sell the product by people ordering directly via telephone. Normally it would be legal for you to sell the product whichever way you want, but since you're agreeing to the contract, you have to abide by it, or you are in breach of contract.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by walt-sjc ( 145127 )
            The contact isn't between the consumers and the DVD group, it's between the DVD group and DVD licensees. You will still have the right to do backups and other fair use activities, just no hardware will be available to help you do it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Keith_Beef ( 166050 )

          Like TheRecklessWanderer mentioned.

          So if fair use is legislated, then not allowing fair use would violate that law, and make the contract (agreement) or perhaps that one segment of the agreement unenforcable within the courts.

          Which means that if the CCA adds a clause to the contract that the Kaleidoscope signs, and that clause forbids something that is considered "Fair Use", then that single clause is null though other clauses remain in force.

          But Kaleidoscope has a very strong claim, that this clause h

      • So if fair use is legislated, then not allowing fair use would violate that law, and make the contract (agreement) or perhaps that one segment of the agreement unenforcable within the courts.

        i don't think that matters in the US with the way things currently stand. that's why DRM and it's ilk, and anti-circumvention laws are so insidious.

        i too am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the way things work right now, if a vendor were to put up a barrier of some sort, that barrier stands and cannot be legal

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      Consumers have a right to use their bought and paid-for media as they like.

      Wish that was true. It's not specificly listed as a right, and fair use is an affirmative defense. What does that mean? Well, in short it means you do it, they complain, you call fair use, they lose. If you don't get to do it (DRM, DMCA etc.) you complain, they ignore you, you lose. There's nothing to sue the DVD CCA over in the fair use paragraph, it only says that some things that otherwise might be copyright infringement aren't.

      • If you don't get to do it (DRM, DMCA etc.) you complain, they ignore you, you lose. There's nothing to sue the DVD CCA over in the fair use paragraph, it only says that some things that otherwise might be copyright infringement aren't.

        Actually, there's a LOT to sue over here. According to the fair-use laws (including the DMCA), you can make a backup, but you can't break the encryption to do it. It needs to be an exact backup. Thus the only way to make a legal backup is to use a licensed device like Kaleidescape's. The device complies with both the DMCA and DVD license requirements by backing up the disc with its CSS protection intact. So copying the data out of the device won't gain you much. (At least according to TFA.)

        By changing their licensing agreement, the DVD CCA would be demonstrating anti-trust behavior that is damaging to consumers and market competitors. Ergo, they could be brought up on a variety of contract disputes AND anti-trust charges.

        Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once!

    • Related Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:36AM (#19595485) Homepage Journal
      Sorry to reply to myself, but I have a few more thoughts on this that really didn't fit in with my other post.

      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:Related Thoughts (Score:4, Funny)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:46AM (#19595671)
        The music industry already made that mistake once. One would think that the movie industry could try paying attention.

        It's just like kids and hot stovetops. Just cause Jane already burned her hand doesn't mean that Jimmy doesn't have to try again whether it hurts to put his hand on it.

        Unlike with kids, my sympathy is rather limited in this case.

      • Re:Related Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:02AM (#19595931)

        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!


        In my entire life, I've only met one person that copied movies - and he was doing it using two VCRs. It was simple, anyone could do it. You buy two VCR's and you record the movie from one onto the other. A grade-schooler could probably figure it out. My point is the same as yours, however, he's the *only* person I've ever known that's done this.

        These execs need to be focusing on places like SE asia where burned movies are sold on the street like penny candy. When will they learn to stop biting the hand that feeds them? Do I want to copy my DVD's and CD's? Yes! Why? Because when the original media is scratched it RUINS your enjoyment of that movie / music. I copy as many of mine as I can so that I don't have to worry about it. I also keep burned copies of my CDs in my car to protect me from theft. If some jackalope breaks into my car and steals my CDs... I don't care, I'll just buy a spindle and re-burn them - because the probability of the cops getting them from the thief or of insurance fully reimbursing me for their worth is pretty slim. Ever lent a CD to a friend and gotten it back trashed? Of course you have... that's why copies are great.

        As a consumer - if there's no simple, legitimate way to protect the media I've invested my money in then I'll just find another means of acquiring it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I know more than one person who grinds through netflix rentals as fast as he can burn them.

          In fact, I very typically rip a rental DVD to my HD as soon as I receive it. The reason I do so is that these DVD's are scratched to hell and my player doesn't like them, but my DVD-ROM does. My DVD-ROM is, however, awesomely slow to spin up and seek video DVD's, so I just play it right off the HDD. When I'm done, I delete them. Sometimes not immediately, but I do.

          Not that they're going to effectively take that aw
          • I've got some friends who do that, too. (well not coin collecting. That's the height of boring. But at least the coins have some value)

            Have you ever thought about asking him, why bother? I mean, if he's got Netflix, he can go through more movies in a week than he's got time to watch. Logically, it makes no sense to horde them, especially since you can always re-queue a movie if you ever want to see it again, and doubly especially since if you use Netflix, the HD transition happens transparently: you do

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by gosand ( 234100 )
          Do I want to copy my DVD's and CD's? Yes! Why? Because when the original media is scratched it RUINS your enjoyment of that movie / music.

          Here's another example: I have a 2 year old daughter, and she watches Signing Time DVDs. They teach her sign language, which was fantastic. She was communicating with us before she could talk, and she really learned a lot. She still watches them on occasion. I also recorded some Sesame Street episodes and other shows she likes (Jack's Big Music Show is pretty funny)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by camperdave ( 969942 )
          As a consumer - if there's no simple, legitimate way to protect the media I've invested my money in then I'll just find another means of acquiring it.

          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
    • Who needs 'em? I got MythTV, dd, DVD ripping tools and Nautilus Burn.

      Burning is as easy as:

      dd if=/dev/dvdrom of=/data/iso/myfile.iso bs=1024

      Right click on iso in Nautilus, click 'Write ISO to CD/DVD' and burn, baby, burn!

      Ripping is even easier.

  • dear execs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis.gmail@com> on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:09AM (#19594977) Homepage
    suck cock already.

    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
    • y last 6 or so rentals were all shitty despite being "highly rated" so I'm a bit pissed off.

      You must have rented Gigli or Episode 1 right?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by deep_creek ( 1001191 )
      Completely agree. They should focus their efforts on making good/tolerable movies. I watched an old classic "Smokey and the Bandit" last night and wished Hollywood would bring back the magic of real stunts, etc... While some of the computer-animation is cool, it completely robs a movie of being "real". Today's movies remind me of maybe watching a video game with really good graphics. The technology is there, but not quite. I can detect it just enough to tell the actor is standing in front of a blank screen.

  • At last! (Score:5, Funny)

    by aadvancedGIR ( 959466 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:10AM (#19594997)
    It might be the first solid argument I see to switch from DVD to BR.
  • Let's make EVERYONE a criminal!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )
      And you don't even have to go into politics for it!

    • Not everyone, just Companies (Score:4, Insightful)

      by abb3w ( 696381 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:49AM (#19596585) Journal

      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:

      "DVD Products, alone or in combination with other DVD Products, shall not be designed to descramble scrambled CSS Data when the DVD Disc containing such CSS Data and associated CSS Keys is not physically present in the DVD Player or DVD Drive (as applicable), and a DVD Product shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a persistent copy of CSS Data that has been descrambled from such DVD Disc by such DVD Product."

      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....

  • the real reason for a drop in sales? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:11AM (#19595029) Homepage
    go to your favorite movie rental place... of the hundreds of movies on the new release wall we saw 3 that interested us

  • Well if that's the case... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:12AM (#19595037) Journal
    I hereby amend and propose that all offensive military weaponry be banned from the face of the Earth!

    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?)

    /P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )
      Macrovision. Specifically, the intentional degradation of analog signals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blhack ( 921171 )
      Either that or they forgot that we are talking about digital media here.

      dd if=/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 of=/home/john/ohnoesthedata.ruhroh ...oops ;-)

  • If I can read it, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:16AM (#19595107) Homepage
    If I can read the disk, I can back it up. It's as simple as that.
  • Actually 2.

    1. How will that prevent the 99% of existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd's?

    And 2. How will that prevent the 10% of existing computer users with Divx software from ripping their dvd's?

    • Re:There's just one thing I don't understand... (Score:4, Informative)

      by bdr529 ( 1063398 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:23AM (#19595281)

      1. How will that prevent the 99% of existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd
      My understandnig is that it won't PREVENT "existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd[s]", but will make it much harder to find software to do so. And will make it harder for existing software to get updated as they (the software vendors) will be in "violation" of a contract...

      And 2. How will that prevent the 10% of existing computer users with Divx software from ripping their dvd's?
      See Item 1.

  • Not enforceable. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:21AM (#19595223)
    If the drive is physically able to read each bit, then no matter what you tell the vendors making the drives, it's pointless. Plus this does go against fair use. All it's going to do is hurt the people who are lawful and have a media center. The people pirating , or mass selling DVDs, wont be hurt by this.

    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?

    • Re:Not enforceable. NOT TRUE AT ALL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:17AM (#19596121)
      If the drive is physically able to read each bit, then no matter what you tell the vendors making the drives, it's pointless.

      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.

  • Time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DanMelks ( 1108493 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:23AM (#19595269)
    And just how long will this magical content protection system last against the now angry black, grey and white hats of the world? Please, because I am just dying to know.
    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?
  • Existing hardware aside, they're only going to create a market for un-crippled chinese knockoffs. And by knockoffs I mean after hours fabrication runs in the same factories that make the real thing.
  • This seems to be an odd thing for a law to do. To force a public contract, where as long as you receive content in the form of a specific type of consumer-oriented layered disk, you suddenly may not read that content and then write that same content to another layered disk - but only in that case. Seems like an absurd way to essentially throw away the DVD format as a source for future (and current) general information use. Sounds like something from the Mercantile age, where protection of companies was m

  • Go for it! (Score:4, Funny)

    by TomatoMan ( 93630 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:23AM (#19595289) Homepage Journal
    After this, try to get a law through that prohibits more than four people from watching a DVD at a time without paying additional fees. It makes just as much sense, will be just as likely to get through with all the lobbying muscle and greedy congresscritters, and will have just as much impact in the real world: zero.

    I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD. I wonder why?

    • You think you're joking, but you're not (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:55AM (#19595827) Homepage
      Media companies have always worried about how many eyeballs will be watching that screen. That's why the videos you buy are "licensed for home use only."

      Sometime before home video turned off (and turned out not to be the "strangler" of movies that Jack Valenti testified it was), RCA developed a system intended for video rental that they thought would overcome studios' objection to putting their content on home video. It was a cartridge with a mechanical design that would not rewind; the tape locked in place when viewing was complete, and required a special tool to release it. You could only watch it once, then you'd have to take it back to the video rental store where they would unlock it, rewind it, and charge another rental fee for another viewing.

      RCA brought studio executives in for a demo, sure they had a winner. The executives said "We have no interest in this whatsover. You've given us absolutely no way to know how many people were watching it."

      Now, in recent years there has been quite a lot of activity in biometrics and eyetracking. It is not at all inconceivable that someone could design a relatively low-cost device that could be built into a DVD player, PVR, whatever, that could tell how many eyes were watching. (And might even be able to discount cats' eyes, although dogs' eyes would be harder). And charge you accordingly. And maybe even charge extra if it detected that nobody had been watching the ads and coming attractions at the beginning.

  • Stupid Rules Degrade All Rules (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:25AM (#19595315) Homepage Journal
    When are they going to learn that enacting unfair restrictions like this will only degrade people's respect for other, perhaps legitimate, restrictions? As others have noted, any such total ban on copying will largely be ignored by those with the means. And those who don't have the means to ignore and get around the restrictions will simply stop buying DVDs if they cannot easily view their purchase on the device of their choice.
  • If you can't cope with not being allowed to copy the DVD, don't buy it. The movie companies want you to waive your right to copy the DVD before buying it, otherwise they won't sell it to you, you can't force them to sell it to you.

    Will that put a dent in p2p sharing of copied dvds (which is fine as long as you're not the original copier)? Certainly not !
  • Seriously? There will always be tools to rip a DVD, even if you just read the raw image from the disk with dd or something. As far as requiring the DVD in the drive, that is just silly. There are plenty of programs to mount an ISO image on Mac, Linux and Windows. On WinXP I use Daemon Tools, Mac and Linux have built-in support for mounting images.

    This seems bound to fail to be enforced at all, so why go through the trouble?
    • "This seems bound to fail to be enforced at all, so why go through the trouble?"

      Its just another bunch of clueless execs and lawyers who know jack shit about the actual technology puffing their chests and chucking their weight around. Despite DeCSS and the hack of HD-DVD these idiots never seem to learn. God knows what they use to get their MBAs but it can't be brains.

    • Re:How would they enforce this at the end-useEASY! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:28AM (#19596315)
      They would enforce it by requiring all playback software to only playback from a physical DVD drive that contained a DVD with a media descriptor block of a type you cannot purchase on blank, writable DVD discs. The media descriptor information is one thing you CANNOT write to on your writable DVD discs. It's set by the manufacturer, and what you buy is what you get.

      And if you believe this has never happened before, you're wrong. The so-called "music blank CD's", which are the only sort your audio component CD recorder would ever accept use exactly this same trick! A music writable CD-R is identical to a computer CD-R, except that it has a special media code that the audio component CD-R recorder recognized, and this indicated that a tax (up to $0.30/CD-R) was charged for this otherwise identical recordable media. It worked there, and would be hard to defeat here if the content industries can force through legislation mandating its use in all equipment and players sold in this country.

  • Is DVD tech dying. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:31AM (#19595413)
    With Blu-ray and HDDVD out, is DVD a dying technology? Granted I still like DVD and see no reason to dump it. I'm guessing there will be a time when you go to the store or blockbuster and all they have is Blu-Ray with a few DVD's in the bargain bin. Just like DVD's are to VHS now.

    My biggest concern is how long till this will happen. With DVD's VHS was obsoleted quickly. But with Blu-Ray/HDDVD it really doesn't negate DVD as a good media.

    So maybe this is just a way for them to try and squeeze even more dollars before DVD's go away.

  • Looking at the Kaleidescape [kaleidescape.com] website it appears this system looks like it does everything MCE extenders are going to do, but I'd rather go with DIY (read cheaper) hardware. I've looked at Pluto [plutohome.com] and it looks to be a decent choice, but I'm not sure it's the best choice. Anyone have any references to DIY slim boxes for playing movies/music from a backend server? I don't care so much for DVR/TV, I'm more interested in playing XViD/Matroska/etc and MP3's anywhere, while making it simple enough for my wife and kid
  • Sorry DVD Consortium -- you can't end an arms race that way...you can only up the ante.

  • all of this stems from a broken business model. The only license sold to watch movies is a movie ticket. If you sell someone the content of the movie on a disc, how in the hell is that equivalent to only selling a license to watch the disc's content? It's their own fault for not realizing this. DVD's are not priced appropriately, and their content cannot be protected appropriately for what people want. Therefore, either abandon the media completely, or realize that you've been selling people the content for years, and that trying to enforce a 'one-viewer-per-purchase, no copying' type licensing scheme on DVD's is ridiculous when movie tickets exist for that very purpose.

  • Yet another example of media and technology companies ultimately biting the hand that is feeding them.

    Sometimes I think that if they could devise a way to charge for every single time a DVD (other recorded medium) is *played*, they would try to do so. I'm not talking PPV by cable, but PPV by the recorded media that is the consumer's own possession.

    Trying this backhanded way of "banning" all copying is not going to matter one whit. If a person is sufficiently motivated and has the means to to do so, they wil
  • how am i supposed to preview my DVD in DVD player on my Mac when i'm making it - the disc is not on a disc, so must i burn my DVDs before playing them in DVD player?

    i mean, apple has to use this license for DVD player, to get the legal CCS decryptors, no?

    Does this mean the end of Open VIDEO_TS folders?
  • The Jukebox makes it more convenient to have a lbrary of DVDs. That is the main reason people buy it. Are they really suggesting that a significant number of people will go to the effort of buying one of these just so that they can then resell the DVD? And even if they do, it's a maximum possible loss of one sale of each DVD the jukebox owner buys.

  • Different take on what the amendment means (Score:3, Insightful)

    by milamber3 ( 173273 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:53AM (#19595801)
    I may not be reading this properly but I don't see the blocking of all DVD copying in the amendment:

    6.4. Certain Requirements for DVD Products. DVD Products, alone or in combination with other DVD Products, shall not be designed to descramble scrambled CSS Data when the DVD Disc containing such CSS Data and associated CSS Keys is not physically present in the DVD Player or DVD Drive (as applicable), and a DVD Product shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a persistent copy of CSS Data that has been descrambled from such DVD Disc by such DVD Product.
    I read that they want to prevent a copy being made of the descrambled data stream coming out of the product. As far as I know that is already blocked in most devices. I can't see any interpretation where unencrypted data will be blocked from being copied. I don't necessarily agree with this limitation but I don't see it having much of any impact due to the availability of CSS decryption tools.

  • Yeah, this will stop me! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chris Tucker ( 302549 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @10:56AM (#19595839) Homepage
    I have Mactheripper and several other DVD copying/copyprotection-stripping/de-regionalizing applications, as well as a brand new DVD-CD R/W drive in the PowerMac. (Soon to have another, faster R/W drive in the second bay to make backing up DVDs all the faster.)

    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?

    • Seriously, do they actually expect this to do anything at all to stop DVD copying or piracy?

      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.

  • That's the nature of information...

    I'd have thought that the shareholders would have figured that out by now. *shrug*

     

  • How did he win? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @11:06AM (#19595989)
    ...a DVD jukebox company which successfully defeated a suit by the DVD CCA this past March.

    Did he win in court because he pointed out the license agreement didn't prohibit this usage, or did he win on other grounds? If they're changing the license agreement to close up some holes (think GPL 3), he may have a case of unfair and tortorus interference in his business. If he won on other grounds, this might not affect him -- or us, under the same decision -- at all.

    As far as I'm concerned, I'm ready to support removing ALL rights from the movie industries. They'd still find a way to survive, and even prosper, but not in the insane taking of public rights they now enjoy.

    Remember, everyone who initially came to Hollywood to found the western movie industry did it because they were stealing the use of Edison's patents, and were trying to avoid his enforcers. They were all a bunch of thieves to start with, and that hasn't changed all that much since!

  • Article update (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sherloqq ( 577391 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @12:30PM (#19597175)
    From the article:

    Editor's Note: This story has been updated at 4:20 PM PDT with comments from both the DVD CCA as well as Kaleidescape."
    Now we know what them folks over there are all smoking...

  • A note to DVDCA... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Thursday June 21, 2007 @12:33PM (#19597217) Homepage Journal
    I have about 400 legally bought DVD's. If they prevent me from playing them from my new file server rather than from the original disk, I will stop buying more and instead download ripped movies, as they'd have taken away an essential feature.

    I doubt I'm alone - people who buy large volumes of legal DVD's are the ones who'll be the most affected by this. Actual pirates will easily work around it.

  • More laws just means more broken laws (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rai ( 524476 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @01:45PM (#19598269) Homepage
    Given all the DRM/DCMA/Patriot Act rules, half the stuff I do on my computer is probably illegal. Lucky for me, words on paper have never prevented me from doing any of it and I doubt putting more words on paper will either.

  • Dear Hollywood... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Thursday June 21, 2007 @09:03PM (#19603465) Homepage Journal
    ...the horse is in Beijing. Good luck with "Operation Barn Door".

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