Comments on: At RealDVD hearing, MPAA says copying DVDs never legal
In case to decide whether RealNetworks can once again sell RealDVD, MPAA tells judge that consumers never have the right to make a copy under the DMCA.
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The MPAA and RIAA manipulated Congress to pass a law that did an end-around of the fair use concept that was achieved with the Betamax ruling.
And hardly anyone cared or noticed that the MPAA / RIAA took away a right that was determined by the Supreme Court as legitimate.
This was set up to bring a case all the way up to the Supreme Court (with a Conservative bent towards businesses), to reduce the scope of the Betamax ruling.
I have both DiVx and DVDs and I hate DVDs because I have to put up with 2 minutes of nag screens before I get started. When my son watches movies, I prefer to play a DiVx file in the DVD player because I can push play and it starts. With a DVD, even after you skip the nag screens and start the movie, they still sneak 2 more nags in before the movie starts. The only way to circumvent this is to push Next NEXT, NEXT until you zip past the beginning of the movie. So if buying a DVD is the right thing to do, then why do we put up with all these penalties?
Also, one DVD has a bad sector and I got it replaced and it still has the same problem. So again, another penalty and if I tried to get a DivX version, it would probably be illegal, even though I own that movie.
In conclusion, people will default to the easiest way to play their movies. If the MPAA cannot figure out how to ride that wave, then they will simply lose momentum and relevance. Putting blocks up against paying customers is not wise.
Also, the CSS license does not give Real any rights whatsoever with regard to ARccOS and RipGuard, which are copy protection mechanisms used by the studios on some of their highest value movies. Realistically, you can't sell a DVD player that can't play these things, so it appears that Real began work on trying to find ways to circumvent these technologies. That's a big no-no under DMCA.
More importantly, this means it's never legal to play DVDs. Even the ones that you bought legally. There is no way to legally play a DVD. You can never play your paid for DVDs legally without breaking the law.
The DVD player device has to circumvent the copy protection and create a temporary copy in memory before pushing out another temporary copy to the TV. Both of these are illegal. See http://www.wow.com/2008/07/15/blizzard-wins-lawsuit-against-bot-makers/
You could say playing the DVD is covered in fair use, but if the MPAA denies fair use then fair use doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist how can playing the DVD be covered by fair use? It can't. You can't cover someone with something that doesn't exist. If fair use does exist then how can the MPAA say it's NEVER LEGAL TO MAKE A COPY? It can't be both. They contradict! So basically the MPAA is saying fair use doesn't exist.
The only solution to this particular problem is the MPAA of course sells the maker of the DVD players a license to copy. There's just one problem. If they sell licenses to copy then they are basically admitting that it is okay sometimes to copy a DVD which means they just lied in court. Awesome! If it's ALWAYS illegal to copy a DVD then how do you play one? Both can't be true.
Also, even if the MPAA wiggles out of this one they have a much bigger problem on their hands.
The DMCA isn't a contract or something that can be licensed away like a copyright. It's the LAW! The MPAA can give a license to make copies. However, what they can't do is give someone a license to break the law.
Just like I can't sell you a license saying it's okay for you to rob banks. Can't do it. The law is the law. No corporation can license away the law. You might be alright to remove the copy protection on your own copyrights, but the DVD player makers don't own the copyrights to the movies they're breaking the DRM off of do they? Only the MPAA orgs own the copyrights don't they?
So, if the law says you can't remove DRM off works that someone else owns the copyright too, how does the DVD player play the DVD? It can't! And the MPAA can't sell a license to them allowing them to break the law either! There's no exemption in the DMCA for that!
To play the DVD it has to circumvent the "COPY PROTECTION" so it can make that copy for the CPU to operate on. However, the DMCA is a LAW that prohibits doing just that. There are no exemptions to the DMCA for cirvumventing the DRM just because you'd actually like to play the DVD. There's no Linux exemption in other words.
I would assume that playing the DVD of course would logically be covered by fair use. But if the MPAA won't acknowledge fair use and says it's always illegal to copy DVDs then how is playing the DVD covered by fair use if fair use doesn't exist?
Like I said before, if fair use does exist then how is it ALWAYS ILLEGAL to copy a DVD? It can't be both! The MPAA has just lied to a judge telling them it's never okay to copy DVDs while at the same time selling licenses telling people it's okay to "sometimes" copy the DVD.
It's a technicality that makes all DVDs illegal. Unless the MPAA is saying it's okay to make a copy as long as you have a license to do so, but then they're admitting that it is okay to "sometimes" make a copy which means they just lied to the judge.
It also means every company that makes DVD players has a license to make copies of DVDs as long as they have a license to play DVDs. Which I though Real had. If not, all they have to do is get a license to make DVD players and then they can release their software. If the major issue is the other two forms DRM copy protection well then Real just has to get a license to break those copy protections too. It's just a licensing thing then.
Unless of course the MPAA is saying the license is only for playing and it doesn't allow you to make a copy. If that's the case then all DVD players are illegal because so far no one has found a way to invent a DVD player that doesn't play the movie without making a temporary copy of it.
Unless the MPAA is saying it's ok to make a temporary copy. Then Real could just put in code that deletes the copy you make after 2 million years. Technically it's temporary right?
Nothing the MPAA is saying here makes sense. No matter what they say it contradicts with something else they've said.
And, Imalittleteapot, I was thinking about explaining that the requirements for a conforming implementation of CSS are a little more complex than you might have guessed 'till I hit your remark that you think a copy that only lasts 2 million years would qualify as temporary. So I now realize I'd be wasting my time trying to explain how the CSS specs do contemplate that a software implementation would necessarily manipulate small amounts movie data in temporary buffers and that some of that data might get flushed to disk by the operating system, but that there's a world of difference between that and purposely making a complete, persistent copy of the entire disc. I realize that this distinction would be lost on you.
So let me simply put it a bit differently, in a way that your own life experience has probably already taught you: Not everyone thinks the way you do. And in particular, even if you think there's really no difference between a few kilobytes of movie data copied to a buffer for a few milliseconds versus the whole disc being copied to disk and saved there for 2 million years, other people, including most judges (and they're the ones whose opinions count!) probably will see a difference.
No SaturatedFats you're wrong. They don't in fact see a difference. Please read up on the Blizzard lawsuit.
http://www.wow.com/2008/07/15/blizzard-wins-lawsuit-against-bot-makers/
They decided that even copying small portions of a copyrighted work into temporary ram only temporarily is still considered a violation of copyright if you are not authorized to do so. Now, what the MPAA is saying is that you're never authorized to make a copy. Put the two together and you're never authorized to play the DVD. Like I said. It's a technicality.
Also, consider how BitTorrent and file sharing programs work. When someone torrents a file rarely do they get the whole file from one person. They get small pieces of it from many uploaders, but the RIAA has sued many of those uploaders and won against them even though they're only uploading a small bit of the copyright work. Also, the person downloading it may not even be keeping a copy of it. They may simply be using a P2P streaming program that forgets the data once it's played just like a TV would. Still illegal. Doesn't matter how little the amount you copy is. A partial copy of a copyrighted work is still a copy in the court's eyes.
The court cases have already determined that it doesn't matter how small the data packet is or that it's not the whole work. A copyrighted bit is a copyrighted bit. Even a few bits is illegal. It's already went to court and this has been determined. It's not up for debate. If is wasn't illegal then I should be able to upload anything I want as long as I only upload one packet of it right? But that's not the case is it?
So, please read up and educate yourself about the past court cases that have already decided things like this. It's not up for debate. It's already been decided. It doesn't matter if the DVD player only makes a small copy at a time. It could be sending those small bits out to a recording device that will reassemble them into a whole work just like P2P downloaders do.
The courts have decided even making small itty bitty copies is still violation. And now the MPAA is saying that no one ever is authed to make a copy even if they have a license. That means all DVD players are illegal, or the MPAA is lying. It has to be one of them.
Does Real have a license to do so? Can Real buy one of these contracts or licenses? Why not?
Everyone understands that to build pretty much anything that reads data in, transforms it, then produces some kind of output, will, of necessity have to employ buffers for managing the data as an ordinary course of achieving the intended result. Yes, that's a copy of a part of the data. But it's expected that only a relatively small amount of data will be present in the buffers at any one time and that it will be discarded as soon as it's been processed. This is understood as quite different than creating a persistent copy of the entire disc onto your hard disk.
http://www.wow.com/2008/07/15/blizzard-wins-lawsuit-against-bot-makers/
They were determined to be violating copyright the same way. Loading a small temporary copy into ram and buffers. It was determined to be unauthorized copyright violation. Are you saying the law is wrong in that case, or that the MPAA is wrong in this case? Which is it?
"But it's expected that only a relatively small amount of data will be present in the buffers at any one time and that it will be discarded as soon as it's been processed. This is understood as quite different than creating a persistent copy of the entire disc onto your hard disk."
No it's not understood. I just debunked that for you with bot the Blizzard example and the Torrent example. Small copies are still copies. I just blew that argument out of the water and you tried to use it again. Sorry, you lose.
However, even assuming that's true I'll debunk it another way. EVEN THE MPAA DOESN'T AGREE WITH YOU.
From the article.
"Yes it would be circumvention," Williams replied, "and no it would not be fair use. The only backup COPY Congress envisioned was archival, that you would never use until such time when your main computer wasn't working...". If I'm playing the DVD then my computer or DVD player is in fact working isn't it? So, any copies would be illegal then would they not? This also includes the copy required to play it.
In other words the MPAA said there is no other form of copy you can make. Even the temporary small copy into ram and buffers has been determined to be copyright violation in other court cases. Are you saying that you're wrong or that the MPAA is wrong?
Or, does it hinge on a license. If so, then who has a license to copy? Nobody correct?
But that doesn't mean there can't be other issues of law, not contract, at stake. There certainly are! For example, Real does not have any contractual arrangement with anyone granting it any special rights whatsoever with regard to ARccOS and RipGuard. So their attempts to read disks with those copy protection schemes are matters of law, specifically, DMCA.
Beyond that, I guess I'm done. If you still believe none of this makes sense, that's fine. You're welcome any opinion you like. I'm just trying to explain what's in the license and how it answers the questions you raise. If you don't find that helpful, I give up.
Okay then. You finally agree with me. If you get the right licenses and contracts, and properly implement the CSS specs and drive hand shaking and get the other two licenses for the other copy protection measures then jump up and down on the moon three times and meet all the other specs and do so in a certain very limited fashion, then THEN a user can make a very partial limited copy for the purposes of playing the DVD correct?
Okay, gotcha. That means the MPAA just lied to the judge because they say under no circumstances could you make a copy. Other court cases have already determined even a partial copy is a copy.
So yeah, maybe real needs to buy some more licenses before they can sell they're software, but it still doesn't explain why the MPAA is lying to a judge when the judge asks a question. Unacceptable behavior if you ask me. There are times when one can make a copy for the purpose of playing back the movie. This should be corrected in the case.
Sure it costs a lot of money to make a movie. But, once made the owners
a)distribute it to first-run movie houses, where they make money;
b) then they distribute it to the second run movie houses;
c) then they distribute it to pay-per-view;
d)then they distribute it to iTunes etc.;
e)then they release it on DVD;
f)then they release it to the pay cable channels;
g)then they release it to the second-tier cable channels;
h)then they release it to broadcast.
Repeat for each industrialized nation.
And if you remember DivX, they tried to make you pay every time you played your disc.
The companies' vision of the revenue stream is that, once made, the piece of intellectual property will produce revnue forever, for no effort on the owners' part. And that the ownership can be bought and sold like real estate, with those sacred rights intact, never ever to go into the public domain.
When I watch Casablanca, not only is just about everyone associated with making it dead, but the studio itself no longer exists. Why should some holding company come along, buy up a film library, and benefit from a law designed to benefit content creators--into a new century?
The lawyers will of course argue for as much as they can get--and the companies will try to intimidate--and cchange the law to suit them.
that doesn't make it right.
Hey don't buy software from some smuck when there are plenty of free open source alternatives for every OS out there for the taking.
Hmm so now the MPAA says that copying a dvd is never legal? That sounds eerily similar to a certain worldwide church saying any religion other than those sanctioned by the church are heretical sects and should be considered evil.
Nah that doesn't sound self serving to me at all.
If they are the only ones that can make copies, there goes the entire concept of a media player for any third party. The film industry will controll everything media related.
Putting a tag on Neflix media would be extremly easy. Yet, they do nothing about, Rent, Rip and Return.that is the first time I have heard the phrase which coined by who else but the film industry.
We are not talking about going after the bootleg copies or the incomplete versions leaked out ot the internet. We are talking about freezing MEDIA PlAYERS in there tracks. Freezing the future and the technology behind it.
No Copies but we can Archive. If I buy a DVD and Archive it. I play the one in the media player and the original or "archive".
I truly hope this Judge is awake and see what the film industry is attempting to do.
Or else we will see the MPAA's media player, and at what price?
Fast forward to Copyright Act of 1976 to update U.S. copyright law to conform to the Berne Convention's standards and add Television, motion pictures, sound recordings, and radio to copyright. and established 'Fair Use'. Previous copyright law set the duration of copyright protection at twenty-eight years with a possibility of a twenty-eight year extension, for a total maximum term of fifty-six years. The 1976 Act, however, substantially increased the term of protection. Section 302 of the Act extended protection to "a term consisting of the life of the author and 50 years after the author's death."[5] In addition, the Act created a static seventy-five year term (dated from the date of publication) for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire. I
n 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended copyright protection to the duration of the author's life plus seventy years for general copyrights and to ninety-five years for works made for hire.
Let's be honest here the 1998 act and DMCA are both attempts to squash 'Fair Use", if copyrights are now the property of essentially immortal corporations nothing waill ever be in the 'public domain'
I know perfectly well that the reason "fair use" is always the issue is that that's what's covered by the DMCA. But that isn't what the vast majority of people who want to make copies (and not pirate them) are making them for. I wonder what would happen if the real reason was actually discussed in an official capacity. Maybe it's time to stop hiding behind obscure arguments from the past and make the legal machine aware that the world is still moving forward, and no amount of lawyers can stop that. Sooner or later, the film companies are going to be in a corner, as the distribution technology for their product has far surpassed the legal means to control it.
The cable companies are trying to do the same thing with their use of content. They don't raise download speeds in large part because this would help video download services. The cable companies tell you that downloading videos on the internet takes up too much bandwidth, yet apparently the same movie DOESN'T take up too much bandwidth if you use their On Demand-style services, which doesn't make much sense to me, as they both come in on the same cables. Yet Neflix, Blockbuster, Amazon and Apple are adding new content everyday.
The old business models for the film and cable industries is quickly evaporating, yet instead of adapting, they are digging in their heels and making a last stand. The music industry, on the other hand, has reluctantly decided to make some changes that may keep it alive in the new digital world enconomy. While even online music stores and DRM-free downloads may not save it, at least they are trying. The MPAA seems to have little to no interest in doing so. Things like Hulu may seem like a step in the right direction (and maybe it actually is, I don't know for sure), but it seems to me to be more a giant advertising campaign for the various studios huge library of old shows and movies (I haven't thought about Airwolf for 20 years until I saw it in the show list).
If the MPAA wants to make this last stand and slowly (or maybe quickly) make their last stand, then good riddance. Maybe whoever show up to fill in the vaccuum will learn from the past.
2. the MPAA (and all it's members) is a know and proven criminal organisation with no legal purpose of any kind and as such should not even be eard by any court of laws that is not corrpupted (by the MPAA itself). Case dismiss
3. The illegal copy protection infecting most DVD is100% broken and does nothing to prevent copy. it is a just a annoyance. Case Dismiss
4. The DMCA is void, it was created by a group of know openly crimplague criminal organisations (MPAA/RIAA/Macrovision etc...) and was push AGAINS the public will into a law that clearly reflect the level of corruption that is currently infecting the USA on all levels.
the DMCA need to be removed, the MPAA/RIAA need to be shutdown for crimes agains humanity, ALL DRM need to be decleared illegal and any company making/devlopping DRM need to be shutdown at once (1st should be Macrovision, the whorst company on the planet). Here you go problems solve.
- by ralfthedog May 26, 2009 12:03 PM PDT
- Just stop people from watching movies at home. People who watch movies at home (AKA criminal thieving psychopaths) quite often let other people come to their house and watch movies. Many of the people who come over have not purchased a license to watch the move so they are in violation (This makes it a criminal conspiracy). The movie theaters loose money because these evil people at home do not eat movie theater popcorn and drink movie theater coke.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 2 of 2 pages (98 Comments)People who watch movies at home also make an unauthorized copy of the movie in their own heads. They share unlicensed and low quality versions of this copy by talking about the movie (If they describe the movie in a bad way, they can hurt future sales of that movie).
One solution to this problem would be to only let people watch a movie at a licensed movie theater. All viewers would be placed under general anesthesia before the movie starts so they can not form an unauthorized copy in their own brain (This would also reduce the production costs of a movie because the viewer would not know the movie sucked.)
A better solution would be forcing all makers of food that could be eaten during a movie to pay a tariff to the MPAA. All movie viewers would be given a list of talking points after a movie. It would be a criminal act with mandatory minimum sentencing for a person to talk about a movie unless they stick to the talking points. This might require a change to the US Constitution, however we choose to view the Constitution as a general suggestion, not law.