When it comes to making personal copies, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel left that totally gray—that is, she chose not to rock the boat on whether or not making personal copies actually falls under the "fair use" doctrine of the DMCA. Lots of "mays" and "whiles" in there:

"So while it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual's computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies."

So DVD ripping is kind of like laws about pot in some places: It's sorta legal to possess in certain circumstances, but not kosher to sell it. Thanks for clearing that up, judge.

What that means for Real, and their long-term plans—a box that archives DVDs—is even murkier. [Wired, NYT]

Like the ones protecting ISPs from getting sued because no-no content whisks through their tubes and that basically form YouTube's lifeline. He also wants to consider making content filtering mandatory, like the insane whole-network one AT&T's thinking about firing up.

Needless to say, this would make Hollywood happier than fecal-eating pigs in shit—Viacom's been fighting YouTube's safe harbor claims in its ongoing lawsuit, for instance. If the safe harbor provisions were strung out, YouTube really would be blasted out of existence, along with any other site that puts up user-generated content. Not that any of that matters more than the almighty dollar to the studios. [Ars]

The gist of all the suits against YouTube is that, because it doesn't pro-actively take down or automatically block copyrighted content, it effectively doesn't fall under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. If Universal, Trent's former record label, hosts a site where a fan pulls a Danger Mouse with Year Zero and Prince's 1999, which Universal doesn't own, they think they'll be opening themselves to the same blasts they're pelting YouTube with. Then their lawsuit would be in jeopardy, and you can't have that.

Trent's thoughts:

While I am profoundly perturbed with this stance as content owners continue to stifle all innovation in the face of the digital revolution, it is consistent with what they have done in the past. So... we are challenged at the last second to find a way of bringing this idea to life without getting splashed by the urine as these media companies piss all over each other's feet. We have a cool and innovative site ready to launch but we're currently scratching our heads as to how to proceed.

Pursued by the newly formed COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE, composed of 29 entities, such as Viacom, Microsoft, Disney, MPAA and RIAA, pirates raced home aboard their mopeds and bicycles, custodians of cracked copies of Windows Vista and bootlegs of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, looking to save their people and restore freedom software, movies and music to the galaxy. – Matt Buchanan.

Backers of stronger copyright laws form lobby group [CNET via Techdirt]

DoJ's logic for throwing an "attempted" copyright infringer in the slammer for 1-10 years? "It is a general tenet of the criminal law that those who attempt to commit a crime but do not complete it are as morally culpable as those who succeed in doing so." Other "intent" clauses are strewn throughout the bill. Hit the jump to make your eyes pop out of your head.

The new legislation gives more teeth to the DMCA as well, adding forfeiture penalties on top of the 10-year sentence and $1 million fine for criminal violations of its anti-circumvention clauses.

It gets better. The Department of Homeland Security will directly notify the RIAA when pirated CDs are imported and intercepted by the government. Your computer, or anything else "intended to be used in any manner" for criminal copyright infringement is subject to forfeiture, on top of fines and jail time.

And CNET says it best here: "Wiretaps would be authorized for investigations of Americans who are "attempting" to infringe copyrights." I'm glad it's not super easy now or anything. Oh wait.

The DoJ press release's highlights:

• Provide stronger penalties for repeat-offenders of the copyright laws;
• Implement broad forfeiture reforms to ensure the ability to forfeit property derived from or used in the commission of criminal intellectual property offenses;
• Strengthen restitution provisions for certain intellectual property crimes (e.g., criminal copyright and DMCA offenses);
• Ensure that the exportation and transhipment of copyright-infringing goods is a crime, just as the exportation of counterfeit goods is now criminal.

Gonzales proposes new crime: 'Attempted' copyright infringement [CNET via Consumerist]
Press Release [DoJ]
Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 [Politechbot]

Now, we will be eager to see exactly how this yanking process works, and if there is any room in it for protest, deliberation or out-and-out legal confrontation. Frankly, an automated censoring product seems a little bit scary. What is clear at this point is that this is Google's way of appeasing some of the angrier content owners who have already taken action. According to a wire report, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said today that the tool may at least help play down the allegation that YouTube encourages copyright infringement. "As that product rolls out, the issue becomes moot," said Schmidt.

Sure, but then what's to become of TIME's Person of the Year??? – Wilson Rothman

Google's copyright-protection tool unveiled [CNNMoney.com]

But that's all boring and totally irrelevant to the clip's entertainment value. The above is a revised version of the pulled clip. Original quote in its entirety after the jump.

Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you're doing. I mean Picasso had a saying, he said good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

Broadcast Denied [I, Cringely via Slashdot]

Zucker whines that "YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It's proven it can do it when it wants to." It sounds strange, considering NBC has an official deal with YouTube, but not when you consider how wishy-washy NBC has been, pulling clips not officially uploaded by the channel.

Murdoch's criticism is more of the same old, same old: "How do you monetize it?" It's still the question du jour for sure. Then again YouTube's founders, who each walked away with over $320 million seem pretty monetized. – Matt Buchanan

NBC blasts Google's YouTube over copyright [CNET]
Murdoch the latest media mogul to take on YouTube [CNET]

Any video that shows my choreography being done incorrectly is being removed. I don't want future generations having to learn it wrong and then relearn it as I am being faced with now because of certain sites and (people) that have been teaching it incorrectly and without my permission. That's the reason I (copyrighted) it in the first place.

P.S.:Craptacular rendition of Electric Slide featured out of spite.

'Electric Slide' on slippery DMCA slope [CNET via Slashdot]

With that volume of requests, Google doesn't have the manpower to check to see if all of the clips are actually copyrighted material. And it seems like Viacom just told them to remove everything that came up during certain searches, meaning they didn't verify each clip either. Yes, two gigantic companies are working together to censor online videos, with neither of them actually bothering to make sure they aren't removing thousands upon thousands of legitimate content. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

This is terrible, and Google needs to pony up the dough to make sure their service isn't being completely perverted by these corporate thugs. And hey, Viacom: screw you. This kind of severe, anti-consumer action is not how you win loyalty. –Adam Frucci

Viacom terrorizes YouTube with bullshit DMCA notices [Boing Boing]
Viacom yanks Daily Show from Youtube [ValleyWag]

We've heard good things about T-Mobile before and after the ruling. They're one of the more friendly companies that will go ahead and unlock if you tell them that you're heading overseas. But how about Cingular, Verizon and Sprint? Are they giving up unlock codes like leftover Halloween candy?

Let us know in the comments. – Jason Chen

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independent software developers who want to develop software for cellphones without having to go through the corporate red tape. Also in the ruling is the permission for educators to use snippets of movies for educational purposes and for blind people to use special software to read copy-protected e-books.

Several things come to mind with this ruling. Firstly, I'd like to thank the government for giving us small pieces of fair use once again. (Of course, the implicit indication is that now all other forms of fair use are illegal and can only be made legal by the granting of more exceptions. Oh DMCA, how we love thee.) It's also nice to see that blind people need to get special permission to use something that they've purchased. Secondly, how many people are going to claim to be educators know when they rip and snip DVDs? Laws are fun to sidestep. – Nicholas Deleon

U.S. Copyright Office issues new rights [AP/Yahoo! News]

This service is all fine for grandma—who can't compute her way out of a wet paper sack—but according to the DMCA, any attempts to circumvent the encoding scheme on DVDs is a big federal, pound-me-in-the-ass no-no. That means The City is breaking DMCA several times a day, transferring customer's videos onto their iPods and other portable media devices. – Jason Chen

Circuit City Flouts The DMCA For A Tenner [Consumerist]