Dave,

You guys may/or may not be breaking the copyright laws, it depends on the software you use. Legal software would include license fees to the copyright holder. For example, my interpretation of the article was; 321 Studios was selling legal DeCSS decryption software, meaning they were paying the license fees. Then got into trouble when they started selling "ripper free versions" which apparently violated what MPAA (RIAA is music) thought was their license agreements...yet to be decided by the court.


Convergent,

Great write up, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
(Wonder if Kodak will start making digital camera phones, or buy Apple.)

Internet Services may become a medium of distribution change for MPAA. They could sell 'rights to a movie for individual use' and offer to replace or change format for individuals as needed for the duration of the copyright. However, they refuse to go in this direction for several reasons.

1) MPAA would want a higher up front price to cover their future liabilities.

2) MPAA has the production and release costs of big movies high, which tends to give them more control over the business as a whole. So, they tend to concentrate their money in driving the entry costs ever higher. However, over the lifetime of movies longterm returns on investment become more important and are more unpredictable. MPAA creates the mess of unpredictable second copy demand thru license and copyright controll to after release market companies. Nice to have the big cake and control of any crumbs that may add up.

3) Failure recovery for MPAA investments is in their favor. A movie can pay for itself within weeks of release, or all sorts of market write-offs soon take effect covering investment losses. And license and copyrights keeps them into all profits for any success turnaround for the longterm.

4) It does cost more to make your own copy. MPAA benefits by encouragement of the hate and desire to get around their control.

Business is GOOD for all copyright lawsuits, always in the favor of those who have the most control, money, and size of lawfirms. Average people can not fight it, pay taxes for the court system, pay taxes for the enforcement system, and are stupid enough to keep voting for the Rich Man's Republican Party to keep it gong!!!

May computer geeks get going so fast that all Control Institutions can not keep up.