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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
08/12/09
Oh, the almighty dollar.
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08/12/09
Yes. Yes I think that accurately summarizes how royally screwed up this mess is.
08/12/09
Anywho, it should be completely legal to make copies for your own personal backup and use (like it supposedly is) and be legal to use the tools to do so. They will never ever ever be able to stop people from pirating and bootlegging DVD's so they may as well make it easier on the rest of us.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
Also, unnecessary much?
08/12/09
At the same time, congress needs to revisit the DMCA. Folks ought to have a right to view content on whatever device they see fit, and not be locked into a particular format. Let's get some consumer protection up in that DMCA for a change.
08/12/09
The judge is simply interpreting the law as it is written; he has no power to change it.
Blame the legislators for passing such terrible laws in the first place, and demand that they fix it.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
Users: "we want to be able to copy the content we purchase, regardless of encryption"
Big Media: "They want to anally rape your mother!"
Consider this: It is still illegal for blind people to circumvent encryption in e-books so they can use text-to-speech. A blind person can, however, develop their own software to do this. It is a known fact that blind people are masters of breaking encryption schemes.
If the freakin blind don't get a break, I don't expect we will.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
We as nerds might have convinced ourselves that backing up movies and stuff is more common than it is. I don't think that's true, at least not outside of the subset of the population that is ALREADY enraged over the DMCA.
08/12/09
My point was that Joe Sixpack isn't even aware that the DMCA effectively differentiates your consumer rights on one 12cm silver disc vs. another. Movies effectively get more protection. If the studios started suing people for personal backups, the news stories might finally get people to notice. "Wait, you mean I can't copy a movie like I can a CD? Why the heck not?" You'd likely see stories about the cool things you can't do with movies that you have been able to do for years with music because of the law. As digital movie downloads and streaming start to become more common, people would wonder why they can't just use the disc they already paid for to put content on their portable device (especially as small HDD and SSD sizes grow).
By flying under the radar as it relates to consumer usage, the studios are avoiding further scrutiny of the special protection the DMCA gives them. It's a smart strategy because, as of now, the vast majority of people don't even know that there is a legal difference. At worst, they think that companies like Apple are trying to get them to buy downloaded movies from ITMS by not making DVD rips available in iTunes. They don't even realize what's behind it. I have no doubt that lawsuits against users would indeed get enough folks to stand up and take notice.
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08/12/09
@danger the pirate (now with google voice!): It's marijana.
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05/08/09
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05/07/09
Since I'd love to show this instructional video clip on my own website, I've set up my camcorder and am recording it off the Giz site, and then will import it into iMovie and export it in a web-compatible format I can upload to my site. Works like a champ!
Then, if anyone sees it on my website and would like to show it on theirs, I'd be happy to lend them my camcorder along with instructions so they can tape it from my site and get it up and running on their site in no time at all!
This digital technology... it's amazing what it can do!
05/07/09
So, apparently, the MPAA is fighting the extension and/or expansion of the exemption, saying that this idiotic technique is suitable for classroom purposes. I don't know about most teachers, but I sure don't have time to set up a camcorder to capture a TV screen and get substandard quality.
05/07/09
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05/07/09
The advantage here to an educator is HUGE, i.e., to already have the pertinent sections edited and pieced together ready to show.
05/07/09
If there were a device to similarly convert the digital video to analog, and then back to digital, strictly for the purpose of downgrading quality by a negligible generation of d/a/d conversion, I wonder if that would pass their test? After all, the whole purpose of this ridiculous contraption is to artificially cause generational loss of quality.
Since that's what seems to pacify the MPAA, they might as well just release a video plug-in for teachers that adds noise and distortion to video clips used in the classroom since it would have the same effect.
Or for teachers who are less video savvy, perhaps the MPAA could just supply bags of scratched up sun glasses for students to wear in class whenever the teacher shows a video, to replicate generational loss without the fuss.
05/07/09
05/08/09