Encrypting a DVD so that others cannot copy

[bode]

No its ok. It was as my old boss who supplied me with standard contracts and release forms which his solicitor/ lawyer had drawn up.

If anyone asks, I usually tell them that I retain the negs and this will be kept for a lifetime if you wish to get copies in the future.

This is standard practice anyway, the photographer always retains the negatives because it is his copyright. People are ok with this because these are your terms.

A few agaencies will want to get those negs off you, so you would work out a cost for that. There are so many considerations.

Reproduction fees for example. A client must state how they intend to use the image. If it's for a billboard campaign, obviously I would charge thousands to use that one image. But it is all negotiation.

[Tommyknocker]

Given the choice between the author who wants to squeeze me for every cent he can, or the videographer who gives me the same initial rate, but does not copy-protect my video, guess who will gets recommended the relatives and guests?

[jimmalenko]

Thanks Bode. It makes a bit more sense now. I guess you provide your own film and equipment as well as expertise - the consumer provides the occasion.

[bode]

Exacty that, my camera costs thousands, my experience takes years and everyone knows how long it takes to author a bloody dvd!

you have to pay for that.

anyway, dinner time

[hififan]

Pelsass

You seem to have missed the point in your examples. You are not the producer or owner of Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed's wedding--you are not the copyright holder--you are a "work for hire" and the copyright and reproduction rights transfer to Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed once you have completed the assignment.

Your film examples do not equate to your situation. The actors, dirctor and other associated film employees are compensated by the copyright holder--namely the film studio and/or producer.

Your further example of Walmart charging for reproductions fails to hold water--People with dark room access can reproduce photographs thus bypassing Walmart. individuals with computers and photoprinters--bypass Walmart.

If you want copy protection, contact the macrovision website. Macrovision will only license to the copyright holder. I doubt that you will be able to obtain releases from Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed or their guests, the Rabbi or Minister, Catering Hall Personel etc.

Yes you can put in the fine print of your contract that X Vdieo owns the copyright but it will not hold up--even if Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed sign off on it. A court will examine the relationship of the contracting paties and the end use of the finished product.

People with DVD drives will bypass you. Being in America or not you are not entitled, at any rate, fair or not, to control who may copy or how many copies are made of Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed's wedding.

You may of course offer to sell copies but Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed are not obligated to purchase additional copies from you.

[Tommyknocker]

Hear, hear!

[dcapp1]

Pelsass,

I don't know why you put a post like the one you did on this site anyway because the whole idea of this site is to show people how to back up there media collections with cd/dvd burners. You might say that this is different because you purchased the original, therfore you own the copyright. When you add everything up it is the same as what your saying. Should I pay the movie industry everytime I want to back up one of my movies. I don't think so. This is my movie, and I'll do whatever I want with it. The movie industry can s*&k on that!!!!

[jimmalenko]

To summarise,

I think Pelsass needed the technical info from all the gurus at this site who maybe don't have the morality. He then tried to pull a moral high ground which failed dismally in this audience and the scope of his original post was lost forever. He just wanted to use the expertise of people who know how to get around copy protection in an attempt to provide himself with a mechanism to fool the average joe sixpack.

Pelsass, wrong forum my man !

[aero]

1, Pelsass is in the US and US laws apply, not EU laws.

2, if it were true that an photographer/videographer retainsthe copyright, why is it that news paper and magazines, TV shows need people to sign waivers to allow them to show the pictures/clips. I think this is a relevant point.

Also, as was stated before, since no one here can confirm that he/she is a board certified lawyer, anything stated here is purely conjecture and means absolutely nothing.

That is funny. What is a "board certified" lawyer anyway? You simply don't know the basics of copyright (or how lawyers are accredited).

It is one thing for people to develop moral rationals against big studios and recording industry and lack of choice resulting in copyright violations (perhaps I do as well), it is another to just invent bogus readings of the legal issues which are clear as a bell.

On waivers. I worked in the news busines for years. You sign a waiver (and only under certain rare conditions) having NOTHING to do with copyright, but with privacy. And newpapers don't ever have to ask an adult (and rarely children) photographed for a waiver..NEVER...if the picture has anything to do with news.

In this thread I never read so much uniformed commentary in my life. Firstly about who is "employer." Anyone here whohas done any consulting work can tell you when you hire a wedding photographer you are not his "employer" for purposes of rights to his work or any othe reason. He is a contractor. ALL rights are based on contract. If the guy works for you full time and you are sending him a w4 then you normally own his works, if not you don't.

Put it in terms anyone who thinks about consulting can understand. A company asks you to come in as a consultant on a project. You say: "ok, I offer you two ways to pay me; a) I do the work for a nomianl fee on speculation, offer it to you and you pay me for how much/often you end up using it; or b) you pay me outright a large fee to own all rights even though you don't know how good my work might turn out. "

If you offered plan "a" and the contracting clients aid they used your work for a small project and paid you the bottom of your scale, and you later found out they that they used it for a much larger project(s) you would have been ripped off.

Anyone who has hired a wedding photographer knows this is analogous to the plans they offer. They are not ripping anyone off or gouging them, they are offering different written plans depending on what people can afford, how much they wish to spend up front etc.

I did some photography for the news business. If you are a full time photographer for a paper they own it all. If you are a stringer or independent you sell them "one time use" "limited use" "regional" "syndicated" "worldwide" "full rights" "exclusive etc. these are all defined to protect everyone.

Let's not confuse a) how technical developments challenging the ability to enforce copyright and b) reacting against heavy handed tactics and lack of consumer choice that current mass entertainment technical copyright regimes have created; with c) what the rights actually are.

Unless your contract with the photographer or videographer states that the client has the rights, the photographer keeps ALL the rights. For that matter, if someone, profesional or otherwise, photographs or videotapes you walking down the street, you have NO rights to that photograph.

Now to the question at hand:
1) If this is not a work you have copyright to or you are not creating a "new work" by editing a video then you should not encrypt. that is morally wrong.
2) If you are making changes and creating a new work, technical means are avaialble, but economies of scale to get css are prohibitive for small business. also ask yourself: why wedding video photographers haven't macrovisioned their vhs tapes for years?
3) Technology changes. for archival purposes, even if the dvd format and media have a life of, say, up to ten years, people are going to want to eventually transfer personal digital data to the next formats and therefore encrypting is a bad idea and a bad busness model.

[aero]

[quote="irongang"]

I worked as a video editor for several years. Are you saying that I own the material that I worked on even though I was hired and paid to do the work by other people? I'm sure they would be surprised to hear this.

Huh? They would not be suprised to hear it if you were a consultant as 99.99% of wedding videograpahers are. If you were a statutory employee you don't own the rights. If you a consultant it depends entirely on your contract.

[ThunderSkyzo]

If this is true... when i'm coding a project for my compagnie... i'm the artist (yes programmations is an art and not a science) so i keep all the right ont this code ( i work with contract )

I you keep the copyright on theses DVD movies... so you've the right to sell anybody wedding on the net or wal mart

BTW, it'll be illegal to put a copy protection on your DVD
except if you pay the $$ to put this kind of protection

[bigshotceo]

When you buy a Lord of the Rings DVD, you are not actually paying to buy a disc with video data on it, you are buying a license to view the movie. The movie is of the actors reading their lines, special effects, etc and is the intellectual property of the company producing it. The encryption is there to protect someone who purchases the dvd from duplicating it for others who have not purchased the license to view the dvd.

If a company is hired to film a wedding, they are not buying the rights to the wedding, they are simply providing the service of getting the wedding onto tape. As well, if a company is hired to author a dvd using said footage, they do not own rights to the final product; rather, they were simply providing a service. A similar example is if a 3rd party company is hired to Lord of the Rings film and make a dvd out of it, it is the movie studio that owns the rights to the dvd, not the 3rd party.

To sum up, you do not own the rights to the wedding video, you are merely providing a service.

As for your comment about "well, why can't the actors in a movie sell copies of the movies they're in?" the difference is that the actors are providing a service (the acting). They were hired and paid money with the knowledge that they were selling away their rights to their acting.

Finally, you criticize that any individual would actually want to backup their wedding DVD. Well, as we know, DVDs do scratch. If my Lord of the Rings DVD becomes scratched beyond repair, I can either buy a new one (there's sure to still be some in the market) or forget if altogether (it was a good movie, but I could live with not seeing it again). If my wedding DVD becomes scratched beyond repair, my only hope is that you have a copy if you're still in business (I'm not trying to question your company's stability, but it is a possibility). I can't go out and buy a new copy of my wedding in a store.

I

[rhegedus]

No, the photographer has manipulated the light, chosen the aperture and shutter, arranged his subjects and brought this together to create a piece of "art" His creation.

Would the same still apply if he just put his camcorder on a tripod pressed record and went outside for a cigarrette? Is he still arranging the light etc? He's no different to the guy at the mixing desk of the Metallica recordings.

I don't believe the employee part matters in this case. The photographer owns the intellectual copyright of the work by law.

The employee part is quite clearly stated as an exception to the author having first ownership of copyright. It was not written in the copywright act for fun!

First ownership of copyright.

11.—(1) The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it, subject to the following provisions.

(2) Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary.

(3) This section does not apply to Crown copyright or Parliamentary copyright (see sections 163 and 165) or to copyright which subsists by virtue of section 168 (copyright of certain international organisations).

[lordsmurf]

This is a work for hire. The employer (bride and groom) retain copyright. The other chump just made the video. He was paid to operate the camera and put together the video. He's not an artist of any kind when it comes to the video content. He's merely recording the events, in documentary style. End of story.

All of this should be arranged in contract in advance. Anyone not drawing up a contract is an idiot, and in a court, were it to go that far, the bride/groom would win without a doubt.

I'm a freelance photographer, this much I know.

There are several kinds of assignments, 1) those where I shoot work and she owns the images (I work with models from time to time), 2) those where I shoot the images and we both own copyright but must sell together, 3) where I shoot and we both own copyright and can sell apart, and 4) those times where I exclusively own copyright.

There are several scenarios. The wedding style should always be #1 version. This is almost always implied, if not explicit. That is service-based. What reason do you have, besides extortion, to keep a wedding video? Unlike model photography, I see no wedding videos in demand. The is also no way you could ever sell it without their explicit permission.

Also, video and photo have little correlations. So you cannot compare little Suzie's school pictures (and the evil photographer that insists on charging an arm and a leg for prints) to the video shot of a wedding. The situation is different. They did it without you asking, at school, adn then offered you prints. The school/yearbook often funds this or the photographer takes a gamble that he'll make money. The wedding customer came to you.

You'd have to be one evil, cold-hearted bastard to try and ruin somebody's wedding memories because you want more money. Charge more upfront or do something else.

You are in the wrong. Ethically. Maybe legally.

And I'd like to add that most wedding photographers/videographers ought to have their equipment taken from them and be banned from ever doing it again. I've restored many, many wedding tapes and DVDs since I began offering video restoration services. If my wedding videographer did that lousy of a job (speaking of the source I was working with), he'd better run and hide.

In all cases, have contracts.

Oh, and be prepared to lose business. At least given the business model you've suggested to date.

[lordsmurf]

And newpapers don't ever have to ask an adult (and rarely children) photographed for a waiver..NEVER...if the picture has anything to do with news.

No. For instance, people in handcuffs. Or on private property. Or indecent images. Etc. You said you were in news, you should know the rules.

Anyone who has hired a wedding photographer knows this is analogous to the plans they offer. They are not ripping anyone off or gouging them, they are offering different written plans depending on what people can afford, how much they wish to spend up front etc.

Distribution rights on a wedding video? Get real.

Unless your contract with the photographer or videographer states that the client has the rights, the photographer keeps ALL the rights.

No. It's not that simple. This is WHY you should always get a contract. Each instance can be different, based upon intent as somebody else said.

For that matter, if someone, profesional or otherwise, photographs or videotapes you walking down the street, you have NO rights to that photograph.

True, but this doesn't automatically mean you have the right to use it. I have plenty of photos of hot women flashing me, but I can't use them for anything other than personal pictures to drool over.

Now to the question at hand:
1) If this is not a work you have copyright to or you are not creating a "new work" by editing a video then you should not encrypt. that is morally wrong.
2) If you are making changes and creating a new work, technical means are avaialble, but economies of scale to get css are prohibitive for small business. also ask yourself: why wedding video photographers haven't macrovisioned their vhs tapes for years?
3) Technology changes. for archival purposes, even if the dvd format and media have a life of, say, up to ten years, people are going to want to eventually transfer personal digital data to the next formats and therefore encrypting is a bad idea and a bad busness model.

But strangely enough, you came to the same conclusions!

What we need are some of those law talkers to intervene: adam, txpharoah, somebody else.

[Will Hay]

What we need are some of those law talkers to intervene: txpharoah

Will

[tompika]

What we need are some of those law talkers to intervene: txpharoah

Will

I thought they were the same person...

I meant txpharoah and lordsmurf....

[lordsmurf]

What we need are some of those law talkers to intervene: txpharoah

Will

I thought they were the same person...
I meant txpharoah and lordsmurf....

I could be him in 10 years or so (live in same state, similar educational background, similar fields, similar hobbies). Although I'm not much of a deer hunter (never hunted once in my life). He likes to talk about his hunting videos, and his wife and kids ( ).

I used to think Will and tgpo were the same person.
And jeex and defense
Devanshu and someboy else (already changed their avatar)
Same for tx and BJ_M

[hudsonf]

I don't know the law but this is how I feel !
If I pay a carpenter to build a house; who owns the house ?
If I pay a tailor to make me a suit; who owns the suit ?
If I pay a cobbler to make me a pair of shoes; who owns the shoes ?
If I pay a photographer to make a video; who owns the video ?
I would never sign a contract that said I couldn't make copies of a video of my own event. If I went to a photographer and said make me a wedding video and he had to hire actors, write a script, make props, rent a building to film in, then I would say he owned the video . But if it was my wedding and I paid for everything then I feel I own the video .

[robb7979]

Pelsass,
I agree with you completely. You retain the complete copyrights. Good now that we got that out of the way, I'd like to buy a copy of the last 10 weddings you did. (I like weddings). Anybody see a problem with that one? (I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed would). Let's use our heads instead of our wallets to think.
-rob

[robb7979]

As a matter of fact,

According to The U.S. Copyright Act Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1 Section 101 your work is defined as "A Work For Hire" Definition:
"a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment"
According to the aforementioned Code Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 2 section 201 paragraph B. (oh I can't wait for you to read this) well here's a direct cut and paste

(b) Works Made for Hire. -

In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.


***APPLAUSE ALL AROUND***
Thank you, Thank you.
Good Luck in your "Business"

-rob

[triphop]

Rob, All:

READ CAREFULLY.

The videographer at your wedding is not your employee just like the architect who designs your house is not your employee. That is a contractor/contractee relationship. You, as the contractee, do not own the copyright to the video production just as you do not own the rights to plans to your house UNLESS you buy the rights as part of the contract. Buying the rights is an additional expense that some of you are calling: "Up front expenses". Call it what you will.

As for the strawman argument about employees - heres how that works: If you are the draftsman in the architects firm or the video editor in the video production firm, you do no own the rights to the videos/plans you work on since you are governed by the terms of your employment contract which generally stipulate that all works performed by you during the course of your employment are owned by your employer. This is different from patents which generally involve the inventor and others...

This is the law and it is generally uniform across the globe. As to the fairness of it - you can argue as much as you want, but this stuff wasn't pulled out of someones *ss over a weekend of heavy drinking.

The major gripe I have with copyrights is the current practice of extending them. They are currently 95 years (I believe) - this is ridiculous.

[aero]

If this is true... when i'm coding a project for my compagnie... i'm the artist (yes programmations is an art and not a science) so i keep all the right ont this code ( i work with contract )

I you keep the copyright on theses DVD movies... so you've the right to sell anybody wedding on the net or wal mart

BTW, it'll be illegal to put a copy protection on your DVD
except if you pay the $$ to put this kind of protection

If you are coding a project for your "company" means you are most likly an employee so none of these very common and well know rules apply to you. Your "contract" probalby is 95% abiout limiting your rights, not those of the comany.

If you ever worked as a consultant with your own contracts you would know this issue.

As far as selling "anyone" wedding video, you are confusing copyright law and privacy law. All of this depends on the contract anyway.

[aero]

If a company is hired to film a wedding, they are not buying the rights to the wedding, they are simply providing the service of getting the wedding onto tape.

Completly and totally false. A person or entity asked, and indeed even paid to film or photograph an event, absent a contract in the US would ALWAYS hold ALL copyrights if they were not an employee (and paying the photographer does not make him an "employee"). Unless the person having the wedding holds a contract explicity handing over the rights they would not own any copyright to any material from the event.

Finally, you criticize that any individual would actually want to backup their wedding DVD. Well, as we know, DVDs do scratch. If my Lord of the Rings DVD becomes scratched beyond repair, I can either buy a new one (there's sure to still be some in the market) or forget if altogether (it was a good movie, but I could live with not seeing it again). If my wedding DVD becomes scratched beyond repair, my only hope is that you have a copy if you're still in business (I'm not trying to question your company's stability, but it is a possibility). I can't go out and buy a new copy of my wedding in a store.
I

True, but irrelevant to copyright

[triphop]

I don't know the law but this is how I feel !
If I pay a carpenter to build a house; who owns the house ?
If I pay a tailor to make me a suit; who owns the suit ?
If I pay a cobbler to make me a pair of shoes; who owns the shoes ?
If I pay a photographer to make a video; who owns the video ?
I would never sign a contract that said I couldn't make copies of a video of my own event. If I went to a photographer and said make me a wedding video and he had to hire actors, write a script, make props, rent a building to film in, then I would say he owned the video . But if it was my wedding and I paid for everything then I feel I own the video .

Ok Hudson, you own the house, the suit, the shoes and the video (that video, not all derived videos). But thats not what we are talking about, is it? We are talking about the design, the blueprint, the information (think meta-house, meta-suit, meta-shoe if you will). You do not automatically own the designs from which the products are created. When you buy that suit of clothes, you have not bought the rights to the design used to create that suit of clothes.

Of course there are practical limits to creating physical artifacts from the original design (you need to be somewhat skilled with thread and scissors to successfully reproduce a suit of cloths from another). This DOES not apply with digital media - you can, at very little cost, reproduce endless, perfect copies of that wedding DVD. This ease of replication does not mean that you are now entitled to making these copies.

That you and I think about this restriction is immaterial - this is the law. Where the law does become somewhat vague is in the areas of:

1. Fair-use
2. Personal backups

What the original poster was attempting to ask was: Is there a way to restrict subsequent copies of a copyrighted work. He is 100% within his rights to attempt to do this assuming he owns the copyright.

[aero]

This is a work for hire. The employer (bride and groom) retain copyright. The other chump just made the video. He was paid to operate the camera and put together the video. He's not an artist of any kind when it comes to the video content. He's merely recording the events, in documentary style. End of story.

Excuse me? In order to be "work for hire" the videographer has to sign a contract stating the work is "work for hire." Ther is NO such thing as "work for hire" without signing a "work for hire" contract. The Bride and Groom are not "employers." They are clients

Getting paid does NOT automatically make it work for hire.

The default for all copyright is that the creator of the work OWNS all the copyright. He must sign away his rights to lose them. Contractors getting paid does not consitute lose of rights.

[aero]

As a matter of fact,

According to The U.S. Copyright Act Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 1 Section 101 your work is defined as "A Work For Hire" Definition:
"a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment"
According to the aforementioned Code Title 17 U.S.C. Chapter 2 section 201 paragraph B. (oh I can't wait for you to read this) well here's a direct cut and paste

(b) Works Made for Hire. -

In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.


***APPLAUSE ALL AROUND***
Thank you, Thank you.
Good Luck in your "Business"

-rob

As a matter of fact you are completely and totally wrong. Your problem is that you don't understand the the artist/creator/cameraman/editor in this case is not an employee. They are a contractor and thereby own all copyright to the work unless they specificall handed them over in writing.

that is the law, there is no question about it. If I am not your statutory employee, and you give me your wedding video to edit...you can pay me a million bucks up front and unless I specifically sign over the copyright to you, you don't have a single right to that finished product...there isn't a shadow of ambiguity in the law about that.

[triphop]

Copyright automatically belongs to the party that performed the creative work unless explicitly contracted away. You do not need to DO anything as the creator of the work to retain copyright. Problems arise during collaborations (As mentioned by Smurf above). It is prudent in these situations to stipulate who owns the copyright. The model obviously has a strong stake in photographic images of him/herself.

As for weddings, it again is prudent to sign a contract prior to the production of the wedding video to assert who owns the rights to the video and how these rights may be limited. Obviously the wedding party is interested in limiting the video screening by the copyright holder but this might be handled as follows (dialog):

Videographer: If you allow me to display portions of you wedding video on my website for advertising purposes, I will discount your wedding 10%.

or

Videographer: If you want to retain full copyright and keep all source material, I will charge you a 15% premium.

regards,
TH.

[robb7979]

Aero,
You are quite simply wrong. It is clearly spelled out in copyright law. The video is a production. Pelsass is simply a Technician He is not the sole creator of this audiovisual production. Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed can, in fact, be considered the producers of their wedding "film." They told their Technician what they wanted, they paid for his services. If he had faded at a point they didn't want, or added music they didn't like, he would have changed it.(which probably happens often). In short, He is making what they want, not what he wants, which is the discriminator when assigning creative rights. They hired the religion, bought the flowers, picked a cake, rented tuxes, bought dresses, told who to stand where when and how, and...oh yea they HIRED A camera JOE. Not an ARTIST. Get over it. Read the LAW. I did, and the Production is a "work for hire" I gave you the definition, and it is clearly stated in said law that this is the only definition that will be considered when assigning "work for hire" status. Argue with facts, not greed. If you'd want to argue more we can consider the fact that the production is of a social event not for profit or open to public attendance. In which case no person would be author of said material, had the newlyweds not paid for THEIR production. Subject closed.
-rob

[robb7979]

What are you talking about a "work for hire contract" I gave you the definition according to law. The cameraman would retain ZERO rights. Bottomline is The person paying for the film got what they wanted, from their heads.