Film Studios Sueing DVD Copying Software

[Dj Petro]

I didn't know if this had been posted. I looked but didn't see anything.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&ncid=738&e=2&u=/nm/20030917/tc_nm/...h_copyright_dc

Are others soon to follow?

_

[Jukka]

Nothing new in that, its been going on for sometime with other companies. Quite simply if you sell / distribute software in the US that cracks CSS your in line for being sued.

[BJ_M]

what the heck is "DVD CopyWare" ? i never heard of it before .. maybe its good ..

[Jukka]

Its in the Tools section, although no comments.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Better d/l and buy all your DVD backup software now before it's all banned or the legal fees cause these companies to go bankrupt.

"If backup software is outlawed only outlaws will have backup software"

[SaSi]

In theory, if lawsuits against creators and distributors of DVD copying software are able to stand in a court, then DVD and video related forums and sites will probably follow.

It's a chain of mallice behaviour:

The developer creates the tool of crime.

The distributor makes it available broadly.

The user, well forget about them, they should be shot - not jailed.

The DVD forums explain how to commit crime in excellence. They should be shut down.

And then the list goes on:

Pioneer, Sony, Teac, Ricoh, etc also create tools of fraud: DVD copiers. (What, they are just recorders? Yeah, like a rifle is for hunting bears. You use a rifle to kill, a knife to stab and a DVD recorder to steal Hollywood their wealths).

What else, oh yes, TDK, SONY, Ritek, Optodisk, ... are also acomplices, as they provide the bullets (oops, correction) media to commit the crime.

And the real and on-line stores also distribute them and help murderers kill, close down computer stores or fine them badly.

And the Computer magazines that also distribute trialware,shareware and freeware tools and extensive articles on how to use them are in the list.

And, I think, well I'm not certain yet, the corner news stand that sells you these questionable magazines of crime for money (so acomplice to fraud for personal monetary benefit, wow), are in the list to go to jail.

Now, once Hollywood succeeds (I guess they don't struggle and plan for failure) in putting us all away - or drive us bankrupt - I really wonder:

Who the hell is going to be their audience any more?

[i am x]

In theory, if lawsuits against creators and distributors of DVD copying software are able to stand in a court, then DVD and video related forums and sites will probably follow.

It's a chain of mallice behaviour:

The developer creates the tool of crime.

The distributor makes it available broadly.

The user, well forget about them, they should be shot - not jailed.

The DVD forums explain how to commit crime in excellence. They should be shut down.

And then the list goes on:

Pioneer, Sony, Teac, Ricoh, etc also create tools of fraud: DVD copiers. (What, they are just recorders? Yeah, like a rifle is for hunting bears. You use a rifle to kill, a knife to stab and a DVD recorder to steal Hollywood their wealths).

What else, oh yes, TDK, SONY, Ritek, Optodisk, ... are also acomplices, as they provide the bullets (oops, correction) media to commit the crime.

And the real and on-line stores also distribute them and help murderers kill, close down computer stores or fine them badly.

And the Computer magazines that also distribute trialware,shareware and freeware tools and extensive articles on how to use them are in the list.

And, I think, well I'm not certain yet, the corner news stand that sells you these questionable magazines of crime for money (so acomplice to fraud for personal monetary benefit, wow), are in the list to go to jail.

Now, once Hollywood succeeds (I guess they don't struggle and plan for failure) in putting us all away - or drive us bankrupt - I really wonder:
Who the hell is going to be their audience any more?

They started with shutting down Napster. Tons of other programs took it's place. They're now going after downloaders of .mp3 files. Happy hunting for the 10,000,000 PLUS people who download per DAY. Now they're coming after us movie downloaders, and creators of DVD copying/code cracking software. We'll see. Through all this, some people get busted along the way. I feel for those people. Yet there are MILLIONS who never get busted, and there are the brainiacs who come up with software to bust/crack THEIR software, no matter HOW "secure" their software is. It's a never ending cycle. Back in the 1800's, they were going after bootleggers of liquor. NOW liquor is LEGAL. In some countries, weed and other drugs are legal. This is one battle that is NEVER going to end, cuz they'll never catch EVERYONE, and from a legal standpoint, there are always going to be some kind of loophole invented that will protect at least some of the creators of the "illegal" software.

[Vejita-sama]

The DMCA is crap (legal but crap nonetheless) anyway. I think the real purpose of these lawsuits is to try to scare everyone into acting right. The problem is that people do not commit crimes (any crime) with the idea that they will be caught. And when millions of people record songs from the radio, backup CDs to audio tapes to go workout, mix/match CDs to CDR, backup DVDs that they own, etc. and what 1-2 get reamed for it... it's not like it's going to increase CD or DVD sales

[SaSi]

i am x,

What you say is on the edge of legality. I was never refering to downloading ripped movies or songs. This is illegal, properly covered by reasonable laws and I don't recommend anyone breaking these laws.

Also, promoting the idea of downloading illegal movies or songs is against the policy and rules of this forum, so be careful with what you say.

On the other hand, if I have a book and want to make a photocopy of it for personal use, this is perfectly legal - at least within the EU. Copier machine manufacturers and photocopy paper manufacturers even pay royalties for building such machines and the law states that a citizen can copy for personal use (whatever that is - backup, ease of handling, preserving the original - making notes on the copy, etc).

Therefore, since the server for DVDRHelp is currently located in USA, may I suggest that it is relocated to a european country? France could be a very good candidate, since the law there even allows reverse enginering to a certain extent.

Vejita-sama,

What you say about recording songs from the radio, of programs from TV, is nice. The same thing applies to recording streaming audio from the internet (media servers). Actually, a media server on the net broadcasting songs or video is (in a legal frame) the equivalent of a Radio or TV station. And recording radio or TV broadcasts for later view is legal.

This whole mess with copy protection and stuff reminds me of an article I read in BYTE magazine 23 (!!) years ago. (Anyone here remembers BYTE magazine)?

The article was about computing in Russia.

Among other interesting things, it was discussing the fact that photocopy machines were illegal in USSR those days. For this purpose, groups of people were taking original books, sharing parts of them and typing them on their PCs to produce what was an early version of e-Books of today. Then they were sharing them with floppy disks.

Of course, this act was illegal, but what can you do about it? Nothing.

Technology advances beyond the brains of old-fashioned short-sighted beaurocrats and lawyers. They fail to realize that they need to adjust the legal frames to what technology creates. And they also need use technology to lower their costs and produce this cost cutting to the end-users.

An music LP, 20 years ago, cost me the equivalent of todays $3. This is a price that accounts for inflation and stuff. A CD cost me the equivalent of $12 10 years ago. Today, CDs cost between 18 and 25 euro, which is between $20~30.

I have absolutely no reason to want anyone to steal away the intellectual property of my favourite artist. But does anyone know how much out of these $25 goes to the artist? Less than $4 to the average one.

An extreme example is the Classical Music CDs. There are no intellectual rights for them as the artists died 100~200 years ago! Some orchestras claimed royalties for playing the music but that was rulled out as they did not add to the intelectual value of the content. Record companies get the full sale price (which obviously is not the full retail price) for themselves.

They claim that producung, packaging and distributing the CD is pretty expensive. Well, automotive companies, when they had an expensive process inflating the price of their product they thought about it and replaced the expensive process.

Remember the days when cars had polished nickel-steel decorations? Well, it stopped. It was because nickel was produced mainly by South-Africa and South-Africa was boycoted and nickel prices went sky-high. So manufacturers replaced nickel with rubber and styled the cars accordingly.

What I mean to say is that if CDs were expensive and obstructing the function of distributing music, Record companies should have (would have) replaced the process with something less costly. (Of course we all know that a pressed CD, complete with 4-colour label printed and jacket with covers costs less than $0.6)

The interesting thing about this copy-fight strugle is that the record companies can only lose. It's up to them to decide how they lose and how badly (it depends on their actions). What they appear to fail to recognize is that they have absolutely no power. All the power is where the money is. And the money is with the consumer. If only we, consumers, realized it also...

[holistic]

A well written article SaSi, very articulate.

In addition to the CD cost anology, I strikes me as absurd to charge up to 30% more for a DVD then for an identical VHS.

DVD is cheaper to manufacture and distribute (smaller packaging/weight/materials).

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