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This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate

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PhilanderSisyphus
05/08/09

In reply to This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate
Hmmm - I am doing this almost every second weekend. Recording the F1 GP via my macbook with built in camera for my wife (working late). Just too lazy to get a recording device since I have (besides this one) no other need for it. So the macbook does me just fine. Does this mean Bernie can't slap me with his b.lls.ck? Even the better!!!
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something_unique_and_descriptive
05/08/09

@PhilanderSisyphus: There's these things called torrents, I hear you can find all sorts of stuff on them *cough BBC-F1 cough*
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frigg
05/07/09

In reply to This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate
That's awesome.

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!
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bosskev
05/07/09

In reply to This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate
OK, folks, here is what is at stake and here is why the MPAA put this (ridiculous) video together (emphasis added):

At the DMCA 1201 hearings at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress, representatives from the MPAA showed a video demonstrating how users can videorecord a TV set. They argue this is an acceptable analog alternative to breaking copy protection on a DVD.

The hearings occur every three years to determine whether the Librarian at the Library of Congress (through direction of the Copyright Office) should create exemptions to the anti-circumvention provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

In 2006, film and media professors were granted an exemption in order to break copy protection on DVDs so that they could utilize high quality video clips in classroom teaching. Up for consideration during the 2009 exemption hearings is whether this exemption should be extended to apply to faculty teaching in all disciplines, and whether the exemption should apply to students.

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.
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spannu
05/07/09

@bosskev: Most teachers don't even have time to show anything on TV, and unless it's a better school/higher education, they would have to bring their own DVD player/DVD anyway. Basically, this is just an excuse to make hearings seem worthwhile, when the whole thing (DMCA) is just a huge dirty diaper that someone forgot to throw away.
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joelydanger
05/07/09

@bosskev: I wonder if they can take themselves seriously when they're trying to present this. This is so ridiculous. But there's one thing I don't get. They're getting the Audio straight from the DVD player right? So its ok to copy the audio straight from the source and not the video? Just give them the exemption. Teachers have a hard time as it is, and this is only going to make things more difficult for them.
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bosskev
05/07/09

@spannu: Agreed about the dirty diaper analogy. Still, it is not about bringing or using a DVD player in the classroom--it is about the fact that, as of 2006, certain teachers were granted the legal right to RIP fair-use segments from commercial DVDs via copy-protection breaking tools like Handbrake.

The advantage here to an educator is HUGE, i.e., to already have the pertinent sections edited and pieced together ready to show.
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frigg
05/07/09

@joelydanger: Of course, the audio is going through a d/a conversion, and then back to an a/d conversion.

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.
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TheDoomer
05/07/09

In reply to This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate
I've never seen a teacher that ripped a movie for class, they always had the actual disc. Other than that........seriously MPAA? seriously?
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something_unique_and_descriptive
05/08/09

@TheDoomer: The issue here is that teachers are wanting to rip the video so that they can incorporate portions of it into their classes. Like an archeology professor could take a bunch of Indiana Jones clips where he's recklessly looting some temple, "splice" them back to back, and say "This is an example of what not to do"... rather than waste a bunch of class time swapping DVDs around and cuing up scenes.
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Windhawk
05/07/09

In reply to This Is How You Record a TV With a Camcorder So You're Just an MPAA Toolbag, Not a Pirate
MPAA 2.0: "Use a number 2 pencil and draw the scene from the DVD just so. Then flip the pages quickly and you've got a pirate-free copy of the DVD you just watched."
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RT100
05/07/09

@Windhawk: Oh that would still be piracy. You never mentioned getting permission from the copyright holders to do this. Oh and the permission has to be requested via first class letter
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something_unique_and_descriptive
05/08/09

@rt100: And notarized by three unrelated people.
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