Feds Reject Legalizing DVD Cracking

[drjtech]

Feds Reject Legalizing DVD Cracking, Game Console Modding

Reported by Wired Threat Level:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/dmca-exemptions-rejected/

Copyright regulators rejected on Thursday proposals to make it lawful for people to copy DVDs for personal use or to jailbreak videogame consoles to run custom software.

Every three years the public is invited to submit proposals to the U.S. Copyright Office requesting specific exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This rejection is a very bad omen for the legality of DVD DRM removal in the United States.

-drjtech

[jagabo]

Every three years the public is invited to submit proposals to the U.S. Copyright Office requesting specific exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

That's to give the impression that the public has some input. The Copyright Office is now owned by Hollywood.

[hech54]

Oh my. Do I fly back home an turn myself in for copying almost all of my 8 year old son's Pixar and Disney DVDs....or do we BOTH have to go since he an accomplice?

[jagabo]

Just because it's not a problem for you doesn't mean it's not a problem. The FCC just ruled that all digital cable channels can now be encrypted. There goes that QAM tuner in your HDTV. You'll have to rent a few more cable boxes from the cable company soon. Hollywood won't stop until they have everything locked down and have taken away all your fair use rights.

[jman98]

Hollywood still doesn't get that consumers want to buy a DVD or BD and then have a copy that plays on, say, a mobile telephone or a pad of some kind. Disney, for example, is happy to give you "digital copies" for such purposes, but they expire within a year. People don't want digital copies that expire if they bought the DVD or BD.

I give Hollywood credit as evil geniuses for figuring out how to frame the copy protection issue. One on hand, they argue it as a jobs thing (piracy costs American jobs!) so that provides political cover and justification for the American politicians they (wink wink) contribute campaign money to. They have also framed it for John Q. Public in the simplistic terms of stealing so that he doesn't have to think very hard and it's all black and white to him.

[TSJNachos]

Jman98: I generally don't condome copyright infringement, but with all of three seconds of reading your post, it seems to me like the're just begging to either have MORE music/movies stolen, or for little people like us to start rioting in the streets. That's why I always go out of my way to ensure I don't buy anything DRM-encrypted, except for DVDs when neccesary. I love sites like legalsounds.com, which sells cheap-as-dirt music while bragging about the lack of DRM, and yaboon.com, which sells DRM-free movies.

Hollywood loves to make it as hard as possible for people to legally buy music/movies, and then they complain about mass piracy. If you want to help reduce piracy, stop giving your customers the finger, and let us do what we want!

[lordsmurf]

I don't believe the U.S. Copyright Office has the authority on this topic anyway.

So in a way, this may just be smoke blowing.
I'd bet anything that this was brought to attention by the studios.

It's a bait-and-switch type argument.

"OMG! THEY SAID NO!" .... but it was never their no/yes to give anyway.

[hech54]

Just because it's not a problem for you doesn't mean it's not a problem. The FCC just ruled that all digital cable channels can now be encrypted. There goes that QAM tuner in your HDTV. You'll have to rent a few more cable boxes from the cable company soon. Hollywood won't stop until they have everything locked down and have taken away all your fair use rights.

It is a problem for me. There is no such thing as free TV here.

[jagabo]

Here's another. "Amazon remotely wipes woman’s Kindle", apparently for no good reason and with no recourse:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2219096/amazon-remotely-wipes-woman-s-kindle

[jman98]

Jman98: I generally don't condome copyright infringement, but with all of three seconds of reading your post, it seems to me like the're just begging to either have MORE music/movies stolen, or for little people like us to start rioting in the streets. !

I really don't see how you can read that into what I say, but therein lies the problem with reading and writing. No matter what you say, someone will interpret it in a way you never intended.

[jagabo]

I don't believe the U.S. Copyright Office has the authority on this topic anyway.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

part of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, provides that, upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, the Librarian of Congress may designate certain classes of works as exempt...

[Steve(MS)]

Evidently I have been a "pirate" from the 60's since I copied my own music back then from LPs and even recorded off radio.
They make up the rules as they go, make up names like "pirate".
Seems they are sort of "------ givers", they sell something then claim they still own it.
Copyright and patent laws have got out of hand too with extremely long term confinements.

If they claim they still own it, then they need not to sell it publicly at all, nor air or rent it out.
Anything sold...there is no guarantee who the new owner(s) will be.

What they should understand is people like to copy stuff they buy and they don't like being told
what to do with stuff they purchased.

If they ever start trying to enforce ridiculous laws, there will be a severe backlash against it.

[jimdagys]

The FCC just ruled that all digital cable channels can now be encrypted. There goes that QAM tuner in your HDTV. You'll have to rent a few more cable boxes from the cable company soon. Hollywood won't stop until they have everything locked down and have taken away all your fair use rights.

Can't you just set the cable box to output on channel 3 (for old TVs) and then just record the program to an old VCR?

[usually_quiet]

The FCC just ruled that all digital cable channels can now be encrypted. There goes that QAM tuner in your HDTV. You'll have to rent a few more cable boxes from the cable company soon. Hollywood won't stop until they have everything locked down and have taken away all your fair use rights.

Can't you just set the cable box to output on channel 3 (for old TVs) and then just record the program to an old VCR?

If you have a cable box, recording is often possible using analog connections, but that wasn't the point of the jagabo's statement regarding encryption. His point is that cable subscribers will now need a cable box to watch the same digital cable channels that the FCC previously REQUIRED cable operators to provide unencrypted so they could be tuned and watched using a digital TV tuner.

[jimdagys]

Got it. With all these boxes, maybe the new TVs will do away with any kind of tuner, just like today's Walmart VCRs don't have tuners.

[Tom Saurus]

Welcome to the club, other countries around the world, are legislating various Copyright stuff into law; including Canada at Hollywood's request.