Many of us are eager to use our pdaPhones to view movies. I have a new Sony Clie UX50 pda in addition to my Kyocera 7135 and one of the main reasons I have the Clie is for mutimedia applications, including watching movies, especially when I'm away from home. We all know there is software available for purchase that will make it possible to make a copy of copyrighted (and copyprotected) movies. So here is the question of the day...if you own a copyrighted movie and you want to make a single copy of the movie to view on your pdaPhone, are you breaking the law? According to a recent court ruling you are. Read more about it here...
As silly as this ruling miight sound, the RIAA is really paranoid about this and they are willing to spend gazillions of dollars to prevent any copying whatsoever of copyrighted material.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and admit right here that I am breaking the law. I have made some copies of movies that I own so that I can watch them on my Clie pda. In my opinion this is a law based on paranoia and greed and needs to be fought.
So, let us know your opinion. Are you willing to face the potential of stiff fines in order to enjoy the pleasure of viewing a movie on your pdaPhone? The news staff of pdaPhone is eager for your opinion on this issue. Please share your opinion with us!
i still use kazaa ( and i AM a music producer with ASCAP) and its absurd to make a personal copy of a movie against the law. the bootleg industry is huge and the powers that be want every piece of change they can get. we do need to stand up to this. with all of the digital rights management going on and the electronics manufacturers implementing code to degrade the digital outs on consumer gear, things are getting way out of line.
I think the industry is chasing their tail. The market is shifting just like it shifted for the camera/film industry. The shift is from hardware to services. Same thing has happened to some extent in the computer business. They can either hang on to their old thinking and ride the horse to the grave, or get innovative and use their market position and brands to dominate the new space. Protectionist thinking generally loses out over innovation and creative thinking.
As an example, lets say you are Kodak and you are getting killed by internet based companies that are converting your film processing customers to digital upload/mailed back prints. What do you do? You could fight it by saying they violated some patent that you had (don't know if that's true... just guessing). Or, you could be innovative. You have computerized film processing equipment in all the drug stores and grocery stores in the US. So, you network them together and beat the guys at their own game. Now you allow people to upload their images... but rather than mail them back to them... you let them drive to the local drug store and pick them up locally in an hour. You then leverage the Kodak brand and you would shut the little guys out if your price is competitive.
Same kind of thinking is possible with film. They just need to get creative. DVDs cost much less to produce than tapes, but yet they charge more to the consumer. This causes people to want to copy them. Either drive the cost down through volume so that its not worth making copies, or you go to some other delivery model that is more convenient or provides some value that you would lose by simply making a copy.
Back to your original point... I think that if you buy something for your use, you should be able to use it on different mediums. They either allow a way to do it, or people will figure it out.
Originally posted by Convergent As an example, lets say you are Kodak and you are getting killed by internet based companies that are converting your film processing customers to digital upload/mailed back prints. What do you do? You could fight it by saying they violated some patent that you had (don't know if that's true... just guessing).
If you really were just guessing, you are a psychic. Check this out...
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.
Originally posted by dwdod I'm willing to go out on a limb and admit right here that I am breaking the law. I have made some copies of movies that I own so that I can watch them on my Clie pda.
Are you willing to face the potential of stiff fines in order to enjoy the pleasure of viewing a movie on your pdaPhone?
I still respect you Dave
If I could ever find the time to convert some of my DVD's to watch on my Treo 600 I wouldn't hesitate to do it
Good thread Dave
__________________
Please visit my picture site: Robert-O-Rama :)
Right now as the law is written in the DMCA, copying a DVD is technically illegal. But this is pure BS, shoved through congress by one of the industry's many paid lapdogs while nobody was paying attention.
There's been quite a solid tradition within copyright law for years known as "fair use", allowing you to make copies for your own use or backup. I don't see how DVDs should be any different. I suspect that somewhere not too far down the road there will be a legal challenge to this and that part of this bogus legislation will be repealed.
__________________
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Originally posted by rlwhitt Right now as the law is written in the DMCA, copying a DVD is technically illegal. But this is pure BS, shoved through congress by one of the industry's many paid lapdogs while nobody was paying attention.
There's been quite a solid tradition within copyright law for years known as "fair use", allowing you to make copies for your own use or backup. I don't see how DVDs should be any different. I suspect that somewhere not too far down the road there will be a legal challenge to this and that part of this bogus legislation will be repealed.
I hope you are correct rl. Unfortunately, in my cynical approach to life, I tend to believe that whichever side can afford to hire the slickest law firm will win. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with "truth and justice".
On the other hand, the thing I liked the most in your post was your signature line. I got a good chuckle from that!
Actually, I don't believe that the link you orinally posted, Dave, would apply to you, because the subjects of those lawsuits are companies that are disseminating technology which is subject to 17 U.S.C. 1201 (part of the Copyright Act). Section 1201 specifically preserves your fair use rights as far as copying of copyrighted material goes. The real trick is how much protection is afforded by the fair use doctrine, which is a notoriously ambiguous body of law. Meaning, in response to RL's post, that copying isn't necessarily technically legal if it falls under the protection of the uair use doctrine.
Practically speaking, your better protection is that you are actually making your copies at home for your personal use and not posting them on Bittorrent or Kazaa, so there's not a realistic way that any copying would ever be a commercial issue for the MPAA or whoever, or that their Kazaa snoops would ever be privy. That doesn't, alone, have an effect on the legality of copying, but it could be relevant to a fair use analysis.
__________________
---------------
The same thing we do every night, Pinky...
Originally posted by BrerLapn Actually, I don't believe that the link you orinally posted, Dave, would apply to you, because the subjects of those lawsuits are companies that are disseminating technology which is subject to 17 U.S.C. 1201 (part of the Copyright Act). Section 1201 specifically preserves your fair use rights as far as copying of copyrighted material goes. The real trick is how much protection is afforded by the fair use doctrine, which is a notoriously ambiguous body of law. Meaning, in response to RL's post, that copying isn't necessarily technically legal if it falls under the protection of the uair use doctrine.
Practically speaking, your better protection is that you are actually making your copies at home for your personal use and not posting them on Bittorrent or Kazaa, so there's not a realistic way that any copying would ever be a commercial issue for the MPAA or whoever, or that their Kazaa snoops would ever be privy. That doesn't, alone, have an effect on the legality of copying, but it could be relevant to a fair use analysis.
Well, you're the lawyer in the pdaPhonehome family, but I think you are wrong. Quoting directly from Judge Susan Illston's comments...
"It is the technology itself at issue, not the uses to which the copyrighted material may be put," Illston wrote. "Legal downstream use of the copyrighted material by customers is not a defense to the software manufacturer's violation of the provisions (of copyright law)."
I interpret that to mean if I use software that circumvents the copyprotection mechanism incorporated into the movie in order to make a copy of the DVD for whatever purpose, I'm breaking the law. Please explain to me the error in my thinking here.
First, the sentence "Meaning, in response to RL's post, that copying isn't necessarily technically legal if it falls under the protection of the uair use doctrine" should be "Meaning, in response to RL's post, that copying isn't necessarily technically *illegal* if it falls under the protection of the *fair* use doctrine." I have been training myself to use the Dvorak keyboard layout, which has unfortunately increased my incidence of weird typos.
Preliminarily, I would say that even though I'm a lawyer I'm not providing any legal advice. These are just personal observations. That said, reread the judge's comment's that you posted (you being Dr. Dave). "Legal downstream use of the copyrighted material by customers"--meaning fair use by you, the consumer--"is not a defense to the software manufacturer's violation of the provisions."--that is, the manufacturer's violation of sect. 1201 through the dissemination or trafficking of software. Section 1201 specifically preserves your defense of fair use (as well as other defenses, for that matter).
If you have a source that shows the orders or judges' comments in more detail, I'll be happy to take a look at them. I didn't see the specific quote you provided in the linked article.
__________________
---------------
The same thing we do every night, Pinky...
Originally posted by BrerLapn ...reread the judge's comment's that you posted (you being Dr. Dave). "Legal downstream use of the copyrighted material by customers"--meaning fair use by you, the consumer--"is not a defense to the software manufacturer's violation of the provisions."--that is, the manufacturer's violation of sect. 1201 through the dissemination or trafficking of software. Section 1201 specifically preserves your defense of fair use (as well as other defenses, for that matter)
I guess I see your poiint. So, it is legal for me to make a copy of a copy-protected movie by utilizing illegal software. This is giving me an Excedrin headache...
Yeah, like I said, not legal advice. I'd like to get my hands on the various judges' orders to have a better feel of the arguments being made and the bases of the decisions they're making. One distinction, though, is that your actions are having no commercial effect on the copyright holders, while disseminating software that allows people to create copies to post on Kazaa does have a commercial effect. The brazenly paid-off behavior in Congress that keeps currying to the MPAA and the RIAA creates a lot of problems.
__________________
---------------
The same thing we do every night, Pinky...
Copying anything is legal when the copyright holder sells a license to do so.
Copying copyright material has exceptions for for several areas, like librarys, law enforcement, research, and individual fair use rights.
The DeCSS is software to decrypt and copy for open source Linux operating system. The MPAA did not license any software for Linux, and in effect gave up that small market by not providing a license for that segment of users. The Linux user public did not have any means to make a fair use copy. DeCSS code was written and posted free to the public for many months. Andrew Bunner therefore was not violating a trade secret, because it was no longer a secret before he started distribution of DeCSS software. And thus, the Ban against Andrew Bunner was overturned as a violation of his free-speech rights.
Copyright protects the right of the Public to have information, while establishing a means for the original author to protect their intellectual property in distribution to the public. If the author did all the distribution himself (before computers) then he would not make much money. So, the law allows him to sell or transfer his copyrights to a distribution business (MPAA) which creates and meets the demands of mass markets timely, i.e. more sales, more money. In the DeCSS case, the distribution (actually the DVD makers) business lost its copyright protection to the greater good of the Public, because they did not make a means of distribution to a small sector of the Public and allowed someone else to fill that demand. It wasn't worth it to license copy software for the small market or to enforce prevention; later, when the small market started growing into the enterprise business getting much larger, it was too late to claim trade secret protection --- free use rights had already made the trade secret public knowledge. Another reason why an individual would transfer their copyright to a large distribution business, which is supposed to have the resources to enforce protection timely in all markets.
Today, a single person could give away intellectual property to mass markets via computers, but would have to be anonymous or else he would be subject to later disputes about whether or not he transferred copyright protection.
Copyleft was invented to protect the open and free distribution and allow the retention of claims to being original author, and stopping someone later from charging the public and making money as if they had acquired the copyright. And a Copyleft can include variations such as when someone adds their work to yours and wants to sell the combination. Or put it into a format usable easily by the public and charge a fee for making it easily usable, like the open source distribution companies as Red Hat, Mandrake, or those funny little penguin names.
Originally posted by LonghairSteve Copying copyright material has exceptions for for several areas, like librarys, law enforcement, research, and individual fair use rights.
So...Steve-with-the-long-hair...explain something to me...
Lets say that I want to make a single copy of a DVD that I have purchased. Just for the sake of example, lets say the DVD is "Pirates of the Carribbean". I want to make this copy so that I can convert it to a format that will play on my Sony Clie. I understand that making this copy is considered legal under the "individual fair use rights". It seems to me to be a classic example of a Catch-22 if the courts make it illegal for 321 Studios to sell me software that will make it possible for me to produce this copy.
I don't know the specific names of software or equipment available to accomplish your example task, but that points up the problem of stifling innovation and development with the DCMA going too far in protecting copyright control over general Public good.
Making the license and means to accomplish fair use goals is left totally up to MPAA. Lets compare that to law enforcement and security protection, which demanded a backdoor on encryption technology to be included so that they could develop their means to accomplish their excepted rights under copyright laws.
The DCMA law goes much farther, Dave, than MPAA just controlling software to make copies. For example, anyone could project a movie, get a video recorder trained on the movie screen, and make a copy. Not under this DCMA law, because they included a technique to make 4 lines of scrambled blurr on such a copy. Then the DCMA went farther, and demanded that all future recording devices would have to have the electronics included to accomplish this protection, and no longer could manufacture old systems or develop new systems without it. This adds cost to every future recording system you buy, and makes your old recorders illegal to produce anymore which also affects parts repair business. MPAA does not have to produce the copy equipment, but has made electronics companies meet their hardware encryption guidelines. The electronics companies can accept the added costs, if the technology works and forces people to only buy their licensed equipment, i.e. joined forces with the MPAA.
Then they tried to go a step farther, and make it illegal to develop de-encryption software all together. That would have made a total lock and control for MPAA on whether or not any devices were ever made for like fair use. Of course, the law enforcement and security would have to have their backdoor and legal development of copy software (which includes de-encryption software for exact copying, best quality).
So, MPAA would grant a license to a big electronics company like Sony, and you would have to buy their equipment to copy "Pirates of the Carribbean". If they didn't want, for example, TIVO to be able to copy that movie they would put too high of a price on their license for them. Extreme case, if you built your own equipment and software (especially if you sold it), then you would have to buy a license from MPAA, include the copy protection electronics in your equipment, and not reverse engineer the software...cough, cough, tough task.
Thus you are already stuck with only being able to buy electronics that meets DCMA guidelines. Any company that produces that will also buy the software de-encryption license, if they want to cater to the market that has a right to make copies. They could do that for all the movie theaters, but make the costs so expensive that a home user could never afford to buy copy equipment. This creates a stronger market for cheap equipment for the home user, and the longer time without --- all the better for high costs when made available finally.
I don't watch mass media produced propaganda at all. No movies, no TV, a glance at headlines or a still image is enough. I would not be suprised that a method for fair use copying of movies has not been made available to the public yet, and will not be until the demand maximizes the market value. Publicity about lawsuits helps increase the demand, duh!
I believe in the Internet. For the first time in history, the people can reach out to the world. We have lived our whole lifetime with only the Rich Man's concepts coming into our homes. Hell with Rich Man's entertainment and dumbing down the masses to their perspective of keeping themselves rich. Let's computer geeks get going so fast that all Control Institutions can not keep up. Don't break the law, that is a control institution. Know the rules, but forget about how the Rich Man wants to protect himself. Put your picture of you and your Kyocera 7135 on the net, and I'm interested. Learn how to include micropayment and quality content, and I just may buy from you.
321 Studios produces one of the most popular DVD copying software suites on the market. They are the target of the recent lawsuits initiated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) intended to prevent the copying of copyrighted DVDs. 321 Studios firmly believes they are in the right and the use of their software (provided it isn't abused) is protected under the "fair use" provisions of the copyright laws. 321 Studios has appealed the recent judges decision, and have initiated a lawsuit of their own aimed at the MPAA.
In 321 Studios' recent newsletter, they refer to a CNet review of an interesting new program that should help make it possible (ie legal) to copy a DVD movie to a handheld device for viewing. The CNet Review is by David Carnoy, the Executive Editor of CNet Reviews. This review is germain to this discussion and so I am copying it here...
________________________________
...if you're a devotee of Palms, Pocket PCs, and smart phones, you've probably noticed that these devices are viable PVPs, particularly as prices for high-capacity 256MB and 512MB memory cards continue to fall.
Pocket PC films for sale
Before we get into the gray zone, let's start with the black-and-white. PocketPC Films sells full-length Pocket PC versions of such titles as Natural Born Killers and Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit 2002. Though highly compressed (low resolution) and a little pixelated, they run smoothly with stereo sound on the latest generation of Pocket PC devices, including the iPaq H2210 and H4150 we tested them on. Though PocketPC Films' selection is growing, most of its current offerings aren't terribly enticing, and the idea of a company selling me a different version of a DVD I already own (such as The Cube) seems, well, duplicitous.
You may already know about the shadier solutions. Publications such as Maximum PC magazine and TechTV Online have offered step-by-step instructions on how to use several free programs to turn a DVD into a WMV file optimized for Pocket PC viewing. But friends of mine who've attempted the conversion say that it's a complicated and time-consuming process that doesn't always work.
Dutch treat
Enter DVD To Pocket PC, a controversial program from Amsterdam-based Makayama Software. The application lets you easily convert a DVD into a WMV file that fits on a 128MB or 256MB memory card. You can buy the $25 download on the Handango Web site, where until recently, a disclaimer read, "Due to regulatory limitations this software may not be used by citizens of the U.S.A., Norway and Malaysia to convert copy-protected DVD's."
Because of those legal issues, I didn't try DVD To Pocket PC with a copy-protected disc, but they didn't stop several dozen people--about half of them apparently U.S. residents--from using the program and posting their comments on Handango. Despite the application's sluggish prep time (up to several hours per movie), the reviews are generally favorable, though some note that the software has its bugs and is far from infallible. My own tests, which included (yawn) my wedding video, bear out this opinion.
Straight to the top
Disappointed that I couldn't realize my dream--legally, anyway--of viewing The Big Lebowski and Office Space, two of my favorite DVDs, on my Pocket PC, I contacted Makayama's CEO, Vincent Verweij. I was wondering whether his company would be putting out some Yank-friendly software, and I wanted to hear what his views on fair use were in light of the recent DVD X Copy ruling.
Unsurprisingly, Verweij told me that he'd been closely following the DVD X Copy court case. He said that in response to 321 Studios' loss, Makayama would shortly release a new version of DVD To Pocket PC that U.S. citizens would be able to use legally because it would no longer decrypt DVD content. Lo and behold, just days after our conversation, an update appeared on Handango, and the disclaimer now reads, "This software may only be used to convert personally owned DVDs."
Verweij explained, "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA] allows authorized equipment and software, such as hardware and software DVD players, to unlock the Content Scrambling System and Macrovision protection on DVDs. Our software has an authorized embedded Microsoft Windows Media Player that will autoplay the DVD in your drive when you start our software."
In the new DVD To Pocket PC, Verweij said, it's Windows Media Player that finds and unlocks a disc's encryption. Makayama's application just extracts the unlocked content and compresses it into a file that you can make fair use of on a personal mobile device. Verweij called the program "a textbook example of fair use. It does not allow you to make identical copies of your DVD to a blank CD-R or DVD-R. Our software does not violate the DMCA." The CEO added, "Think of our product as the software version of the PEGA-VR100K, a Sony device that records any video source to a compressed file on a Memory Stick."
Of course, as Jeff Lebowski (a.k.a the Dude) might proffer, there's a lotta ins, a lotta outs, and a lotta what-have-yous when it comes to fair use. And while it would seem perfectly reasonable to make a crappy, low-resolution copy of your Big Lebowski DVD and view it on your Pocket PC, Palm, or smart phone (yes, Makayama is working on DVD To Palm and DVD To Smart Phone, among other programs), life isn't always fair. Or as the Dude says, "Careful, man, there's a beverage here."
We'll see how this all plays out. No one's gotten sued yet, and perhaps Makayama has hit on an ingenious little loophole that makes it kosher for you to roll your own Pocket PC film from a DVD in your personal collection.
_____________________________________
The above article was written by David Carnoy, Executive Director of CNet Reviews. Click here for the original article...CNet Review
THanks for the article. That's clever of them. Presumably, Microsoft has already paid a copyright royalty for each copy of WMP that they distribute. By using WMP, the Dutch company has hopefully avoided the problem that 321 Studios faces. Sad to see there's no Palm version; hopefully one will be forthcoming.
__________________
---------------
The same thing we do every night, Pinky...
Login
Panel
