Leave aside your feelings about 2008 Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr (pro or con) because I think we can agree he is right on this issue:
There is now unfolding in a federal court in San Francisco a lawsuit in which several major Hollywood movie studios are suing RealNetworks - a relatively small but successful company that develops and markets Internet communications technology - in an effort to prevent the company from selling a software product that simply enables consumers to copy their DVDs to their personal computers. If the studios are successful in this Goliath-against-David legal action, Edison’s lesson in hard work will have been effectively reduced to, “genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent permission.”
I blogged about this issue previously and believe it deserves wider discussion/attention.
Barr points out this is really not in the studios long term interest:
The studios, in this latest knee-jerk, anti-technology litigation, appear to be flailing about and striking at any entrepreneurial effort to enhance the ability of consumers to lawfully enjoy the very product the studios offer - movies. In so doing, the studios have not only placed themselves at odds with consumers - who more and more are searching for technological products that offer options and security for their audio and visual needs - but also with entrepreneurs and technology companies who could be among the industry’s strongest allies in fighting video piracy.
The movie industry’s tin ear in refusing to deal constructively with outside technology (that is, technology the industry did not itself develop and own) is even more difficult to understand, considering the manner in which their colleagues in the music industry have in recent years stopped fighting and decided to embrace technology that has the potential for making more music available to more consumers in more, and more easily accessible, formats.
I noted in my earlier blog that I didn’t think we had a lot of leverage in this case, but Barr also points out why we should care nonetheless:
Defendant RealNetworks has the law, the facts and common sense on its side. The industry has money and hubris in its corner. Regardless of whether you ever might consider purchasing RealDVD software, this case should concern you; that is, if you wish for fair play and innovation to remain valued commodities in 21st century America. Thomas Edison understood this. Let’s hope Judge Patel does, too.
This is an issue that libertarians, conservatives, liberals, and the general consumer should all agree on. Heavy handed anti-consumer, and anti-innovation, legal action helps no one (well, except maybe a few lawyers). And is the last thing we need in this economy.
I just wish I was more sure that “the law, the facts and common sense” win in the courts these days . . .
Piracy issues?
iamcool388 Wednesday, March 11th at 1:50AM EDT (link)Wouldn’t being able to copy your DVD on your computer make it even more easier for piracy to be done? I know thats gotta be one of the reasons Hollywood is against it… Does the software some with some sort of encryption, or protection, that makes sure that the digital copy created is for personal use only and not for distribution? I think that might allay some concerns.
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Is it because I is black? - Ali G
Some fundamental problems that immediately come to mind
Jeff Walden Wednesday, March 11th at 4:21AM EDT (link)Why is it not acceptable to make a(n exact) backup copy for safekeeping in case the original DVD is damaged? This right is present for other media, so why not DVD? (The format shift is not relevant to abuse of a backup capability; it’s the ease of duplicating and distributing digital content that makes abuse easier.) Exact backups are a great advantage of digital storage media. Note that it is to the benefit of the producers to curtail this ability as far as possible because it will result in higher sales for them, so there’s a profit motive to making it hard to make backups.
If you rely on encryption/protection/DRM/whatever to protect the content, it’s either an offline or an online system. That is, either it doesn’t require phoning home to the company that sold the movie (so you can use the copy freely without a net connection), or it does (and at least sometimes you’ll have to allow the playback system to verify that permission to use the copy is still granted). In the former case all details of that protection must necessarily also be available offline — so one determined person can reverse-engineer the protection. In the latter case you prevent many legitimate uses, and you have to somehow preserve the metadata necessary to make the call home (yet another thing to not forget). Consider a Windows install DVD; if you buy a new computer and want to install it there, you need the license key to do so, and without it the DVD is basically worthless. Either way you end up imposing costs on all the people who legitimately make copies (not a great way to treat the customer), and in the offline case the lawbreakers will end up getting their illegal copies anyway. The online case is trickier but not necessarily insurmountable — applications of cryptography and computational complexity can make it practically impossible to retrieve the unrestricted copy from the restricted one — but the burden on legitimate use is still too heavy relative to the deterrent capability.
The popular conception is that you buy a DVD, when in fact the creator merely grants you the right to perform it privately. Forcing users through hoops to use copies is, psychologically, a bit of a rude awakening if you’ve assumed you actually own the DVD in question.
Also, a parallel to your initial question offered as something to think about (I assume you would answer this question the same way most commenters here would, and thus what this suggests about copying copyrighted material): wouldn’t being able to own a handgun make it even easier for gun crimes to be committed?
You are probably right...
iamcool388 Wednesday, March 11th at 5:48PM EDT (link)But I dont think I can equate buying a dvd to buying a handgun. Customers DO have to jump through hoops to buy a handgun… I’m not sure, but I would assume most places you have to get a license, do some training of some sort etc etc. I plead ignorance in what the procedure is, but I am definitely sure that it is tougher than buying a dvd.
Similarly, with guns arent there laws which prohibit them from being sold to felons or people with prior convictions? I guess what I am saying is… there is some semblance of care taken to ensure that guns dont fall in the wrong hands… I have never been asked whether I have ever previously pirated a movie or a software before buying a DVD.
Again, I havent thought about it… Maybe owning a handgun makes gun crimes easier, but that is why we put rules in place which dont let felons own them… Think of this rule as the encryption/DRM aspect to this issue.
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Is it because I is black? - Ali G
Blame the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Finrod Wednesday, March 11th at 11:21AM EDT (link)The DMCA is what gave the MPAA the legal teeth to try this kind of crap. When the DVD format was being created, the MPAA looked at the mess (in their view anyways) that the RIAA had allowed to happen with the cd audio format being wide open and unencrypted (great for consumers), and demanded that dvds be encrypted. With the DMCA being passed, it made breaking an encryption system, even just for fair use rights, to be illegal.
Media producers hate fair use; they want you to have to pay through the nose for anything you want to do with their product. Remember VHS being compared to a serial killer, back in the day?
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Finrod’s First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.