Redstate

...mean you're making serious legal points, much less points at all.

What was your point?  You started by laughing at conservatism, started saying how simple the cases issues are, and then you said "Copyright law is stupid," and "That's how copyright law works" and "if you read the DMCA you CAN do wrong once you purchase the disc, you can do plenty wrong."

What was your point?

My link about the fast forward button was to my blog post about movie makers trying to prevent fast forwarding or skipping of the previews put on the DVD for other movies.  Same situation.  They really don't make any friends this way.

...with a few Video CD's that had movies that were still in US theaters on them...

I said, "Uhhh... huh?"

He said, "Afghanistan doesn't have copyright laws..."

I'm glad to know i can come to a sight that normally has good debate and discourse and while trying to make serious legal points simply be derided, insulted, and compared to a vile group of people who tried to wipe out my great-grandparents and their children.

Thanks again, for being such a great bunch.

I'll buy a TBC/Framesync before I voluntarily lock myself into something like that... I'm a technophile, but I like control more than 44kHz/1080i ... and will for years to come...

Good point about imports... This is as good a place as any to point out that NHK (the Japanese BBC) has been using 2048 HD for years and they have a few 4096 HD cameras they play with, as well...

they have microsoft's permission to do so.

I think you should be able to hire someone to edit your legally purchased movie (for you personal use only of course) however the DMCA and other copyright law says you can't.  The ultimate point is that the copyrighted work belongs to whoever copyrighted it and therefore they get to make the decisions about how it appears/is edited.

The difference between the edited versions on planes and the ones being sold is that the airline versions are done by the studios/directors/produces aka the copyright holders.  They get to edit it and hence preserve their (arguably) "artistic" expression.

that you could hire someone to edit your personal copy for you, under your direct supervision. In this case the person doing the editing is simply operating some hardware to make changes you want to make. The problem with what thes organizations is doing is that they are exercising their editorial judgement in place of the legitimate owner of the intellectual property and then selling the product of their work to you.

I find this diary entry and comments hilarious given what the conservative mindsight should be.  If the court had ruled the other way, people would be decrying the "activist judges" who unfairly stripped copyright holders their ability to protect their property.

The case breaks down very simply and logically: The movies are copyrighted by the studios therefore you can't change them and resell them.  That's how copyright law works, it doesnt matter if you buy a legitimate copy of the disc too.

Now I personally think that it is a nice thing to have edited versions of the movies available, but our laws (and common sense) say that the editing is done at the discretion of the copyright holder, not a third party.  If you want DVD's that are heavily edited, petition the studios and convince them that there is a market for them to invest their time and money into.

I would prefer to purchase both the improved movie and computer.  Wouldn't it be nice to never see the dreaded blue screen again.

They consist of a jillion takes of scenes shot out of sequence and then cobbled together by numerous people adding sound, music, additional dialogue, special effects, etc, etc and then several versions materialize for different media, audiences and distribution. If a movie is a piece of art, so is your house and your car.

What is really the difference between what they are doing and what people are doing with PVRs? Seems to me the whole idea behind a PVR is to "modify the product without the permission of the creator."

We should be able to modify anything we buy however we see fit, so long as:

1. It's made clear what it was and who created it
   
   
2. It's made clear who modified it and what they did to it
   
   
3. The creator gets paid

I have not heard anyone argue copyright that way. I don't think it has any basis in the law.

As your book analogy would be applied to movies under the current law: it is illegal for you to underline or highlight passages in your own book. It's also illegal for you to do it any anyone else's book. It's also illegal for someone else to do it for you if you tell them exactly what to underline. That's why this is particularlly close to affecting PVRs... if the content owners weren't afraid of a horrendous backlash it probably already would have.

They have an entire candy store and then some written into the law... but they are afraid to pig out at the store or we might take notice and remove it entirely.

...two or three times in the post you commented on?

LARGE portions of DMCA are unconstitutional... at least they will become so, at some point.... /crossesfingers... (Unconstitutional because they restrict my freedom after purchase before I violate the copyrights of the holder...)

What with the horrible state of copyright law today. Maybe we can get changes to the DMCA because of this... though I know there are ridiculous treaty obligations tied up in that as well. I'm not sure what we can throw away and what we have to keep. I'd like to get rid of the entire thing.

is to not buy the movie at all, I suppose. That's where I pretty much am anyway. I hardly ever go to the cinema any more, and I almost never buy DVD movies.

It also illustrates Hollywood's deepening depravity. Today we experienced a case in point. My wife and I were watching a movie with our 12 year old daughter on Oxygen, a non-premium cable channel aimed at women. I don't know what movie it was, because we had just changed the channel to it. Within ten minutes, we were watching, with our 12 year old daughter, an actual sex scene. And this was during the 6pm hour. We immediately changed the channel, and Oxygen immediately joined the "banned" list in my house.

to me.

Essentially the studios (and Directors) are saying "don't sell my movie in a way I haven't approved of". That would be the same as buying "Catcher in the Rye", excising out whatever objectional passages you saw fit, and then selling it. JD Salinger, or his publisher, had no say in how the book was eventually sold, so it's copyright has been infringed.

I agree completely that sanitized versions of movies should be available. Why don't the studios release the airplane versions of their movies? I don't know.

Here's another analogy. What if a company bought new PC's and altered the Microsoft software so that it actually worked. Then they sold it as a PC with Microsoft software. Technically, they've violated Microsoft's patent by using their product, altering it, and selling an improved (or altered) one. Just because the software is better now doesn't make it right.

Suppose I buy a copyrighted piece of art and decide to have someone touch it up to match the colors in my home. Am I breaking the copyright laws? Or if I decide to pay someone to black-line through offensive words in a copyrighted book I purchased, would I be breaking the law?

You'd likely not be violating copyright law, but you may well be violating laws re: taste.

Better to just stick to Thomas Kincaid paintings and the "Left Behind" series. Makes everything easier.

US patent law is what enforces those, along with the DMCA. But not all countries have those ill-advised laws.

Hooray for the Internet and relatively cheap international shipping.

Countries like Australia and Taiwan are good sources for higher-quality hardware.

I'm expecting to have to do some importing on a more regular basis once this HDMI end to end garbage comes into place.

...only criminals will be able to Fast Forward.  (Count me in.....unless you're tracing my IP)

Yeah, Disney movies are especially bad about locking one into their preview package.  I believe Columbia (Sony) are as well...  Thankfully, most DVDs for purchase (as opposed to the occasional rental) dispense with previews altogether, or >gasp< put them in their own "Folder" on the disc, for after you've been sufficiently entertained...

obfuscating to effect obfuscation. Can't have that. He might as well write stuff in Latin.

Thankfully I have done neither. But I'm not too sure that Thomas Kincaid and the Left Behind series don't violate the taste laws.

...Of course, you can't resell copyrighted material without permission.  That's obvious.

"our laws (and common sense) say that the editing is done at the discretion of the copyright holder, not a third party. "

"Not a third party" --- correct.  However, once this "third party" has purchased the disc, they're the SECOND party, not a third party.  (They still can't sell it, though -- that would involve a third party!)

"editing is done at the discretion of the copyright holder" --- no.  Once it's in my house, as long as I don't abuse my privileges by involving a third party, I cannot do any wrong.  Unless you're willing to entertain the notion that I couldn't hand-copy a novella for my own (private) purposes... then you're even more wrong...

you're trying to make.  The whole point of the ruling is that they can't SELL the discs with the edited movies.

I may not have been clear in my original post that i am making the assumption that the editing company in question is going to be selling the edited copy.

(and btw, if you read the DMCA you CAN do wrong once you purchase the disc, you can do plenty wrong - hence the shutdown of companies that produce software that let you backup your DVD movies)

i just got really annoyed by the diary because it is trying to attack judges who made a valid and correct ruling because the diary author doesnt like hollywood

I wish it were against the rules for leftists to come in and lecture on what the conservative viewpoint on anything should be, because it really gets on my nerves.

Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.

you or I might hope... (Non-disclosure agreements and such)

...or head ..throughout this thread...

It was a little harsh, but only because he's not been arguing from anything but strict construction, as to obfuscate his feelings & thoughts...

Buy a copy of the book. Get out your magic marker. Put it on eBay. There's nothing illegal about that. Or anyone selling used textbooks (with the inevitable highlighting in them) would be in jail.

And as far as the other analogy goes... OEMs can and do that... Remember Compaq TabWorks? They didn't even use PROGMAN as their Program Manager in Windows 3.x. Instead, they used a horrible program they wrote themselves or bought somewhere that had a database that got corrupted every time you had an abnormal shutdown, so you would lose all your icons. It was great. OEMs are also responsible for the 50,000 icons you get about buying Quicken and AOL and everything else under the sun. I wouldn't say they make anything better, but they make lots of changes to their image.

...is as recognizeable in commerce as Fair Use is in copyright law...

Just because sometimes lawyers & judges do right (and wrong) by us doesn't mean they always do so... the same goes for lawmakers.

I'm not sure of anything in the copyright law that makes a distinction between direct supervision or not. I'm also not sure what different it would make.

Under existing law it would be illegal for anyone to even rip the movie, much less edit it. It doesn't matter if it's under your direct supervision. It doesn't even matter if you are doing it yourself.

To corrupt the young, of course!

I've recently begun the process of digitizing a great deal of it for my own use. (Very tedious process, by the way.) I have owned many of the records for years and years. The royalties were paid to the artists and Lord knows the labels got their cut. So I feel in no way guilty about home recording.

Under existing copyright law, even this is illegal.

Copywright law is phenomenally antiquated, and until congress (and the PTO) get their bearings straight, it will continue to be so.

1. I agree with them. The movie is someone else's intellectual property, you just own the medium. The editing services do not have the right to modify the product without the permission of the creator.
   
2. The problem with using these services is that they purchase legitimate copies of these films and edit them then sell them to you. This means that the "creators" of this cr*p got their money anyway. The way to stop it is to stop giving them money at all.

...will sue them for "potential DMCA circumvention violations..." ...and I wish I was joking...

Is probably going to tell you what you can think about the movie after you are finished viewing it and what you can tell your friends about it.

is a bit unfair. Just sayin'. However, affiliating him with the shift and pucnuation keys would be an improvement.

but I'm simply arguing from what I view as common sense. If I buy a book I can underline passages, black out passages, whatever. Similarly I would argue that I can make whatever changes I like to my personal property --- the copy of the movie that I bought. My view is that someone operating an editor for me to make the changes is simply my agent. In the case of these services they are making changes exercising their judgment, not mine.

Like I said IANAL --- thankfully.

is who is doing it, me or some paid service.

With my PVR or editing bench I am making the changes using my judgment. Buying one of these edited programs someone else is substituting their judgment for the judgment of the actual owner of the intellectual property contained on the DVD.

Deny them the money.

If you puchase one of these "family friendly" versions, the studio still got their money anyway so they are not being "punished" by purchasing from these "re-editing" outfits.

Why should I not be allowed to hire someone to edit my legally purchased copy of a movie. Suppose I buy a copyrighted piece of art and decide to have someone touch it up to match the colors in my home. Am I breaking the copyright laws? Or if I decide to pay someone to black-line through offensive words in a copyrighted book I purchased, would I be breaking the law?

As to your final point, the editing necessary to change many R-rated movies into PG-rated movies has already been done. They do it regularly for the airlines. The fact that they have to sue companies to stop selling these edited versions ought to be a clue that there is a market. My gripe is that we get trashier versions, but not toned down versions, even though they already provide them for airlines.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1039

Prof. Ed Felten has a pretty good take and summary of the case. What's interesting to me is the DMCA violations ClearFlix was committing that the studios declined to press charges on.

On the other hand, I agree with the ruling. ClearFlix had no authorization from the copyright holders to copy, alter, and distribute the content and were properly stopped. It's as simple as that. It has nothing to do with fast forward or viewer choice.

Hollywood's stance on this is puzzling to me. They consistently release alternate "unrated" (read: more raunchy) versions of movies. They regularly provide the airlines with alternate cleaned up versions of PG-13 and R rated movies.

These companies they sued bought an original copy of each and every movie they rented. They didn't just buy one copy of the movie and make multiple cleaned up copies from that. They bought one to one. Thus, the studios were actually making more money before the court ruled in their favor, because under this ruling these companies will no longer be purchasing movies.

Why is Hollywood cutting off its nose to spite its face?

They already have the airline versions. Why not release those as well as the unrated versions and let us choose which of the 3 versions we want to see? Why are we only offered the raunchier versions? Why do their stockholders allow them to refuse to take advantage of this potential revenue stream?

Their defense appears to be their artistic license is being infringed. They want everyone to see the movie as it was originally intended. Yet, when they release unrated and airline versions the movie is no longer as it was originally intended.

This diary's issue is one of ownership.  For the sake of ownership, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to make a digital copy of a movie you've purchased and then edit that digital copy down in a pleasing manner.  Frankly, it's nearly impossible to do this legally, as the MPAA/RIAA/WIPO have all but killed Fair Use in the digital sphere.

The ClearPlay device described above is in no way, even without Congressional dispensation, an infringement of the copyright owner's rights, as it neither MAKES a copy, nor ALTERS the originally purchased material in any way... (pretty clever, I must say, if it works) ...

Funny though that you bring up the criminalization of the Fast Forward button:

ABC Tries to Kill DVR Ad Skipping

Network's advertising president says he would "love it" if cable operators disabled the feature.

Shaw says cable operators might lose some subscribers if they blocked the Fast-Forward feature. However, he says it's in the interest of both parties to reach an agreement.

I'm watching my DVD on my DVD player and I can't have control of the device. What I don't get is why hardware vendors don't ignore the PUOs (Prohibited User Operations) and just let the user do whatever they want. That would be a selling feature in a DVD player... something to set your player apart from the rest... especially nice now that they have become commodities.

He attacked Hollywood.

You should sue the NEA for failing to teach you to read.

I particularly liked Devonavar's reponse to Michael Ash's post.