MPAA to Customers: "Go Fuck Yourself"

[Alyeska]

Link

Movie Studios Sue to Stop Loading of DVDs onto iPods
November 16, 2006

The MPAA studios are at it again, snatching away our fair use rights, so they can sell them back to us for an "additional fee."

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York, Paramount Pictures v. Load 'N Go Video, the MPAA member companies have sued a small business for loading DVDs onto personal media players (e.g., iPod Video) on behalf of customers.

According to the suit, Load 'N Go sells both DVDs and iPods and loads the former onto the latter for customers who purchase both. The company then sends the iPod and the original DVDs to the customer. So the customer has purchased every DVD, and Load 'N Go just saves them the trouble of ripping the DVD. The movie studios' suit claims that this is illegal, because ripping a DVD (i.e., decrypting it and making a copy) is illegal under the DMCA. The suit also claims that this constitutes copyright infringement.

Although this lawsuit happens to be aimed at Load 'N Go, the DMCA theory in the complaint makes it crystal clear that the MPAA believes it is just as illegal for you to do the same thing for yourself at home. Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod.

This is copyright gone too far. If you buy a DVD, you should be able to make a personal copy of it for your iPod, just like you should be able to make a copy of a CD for your car, without having to ask permission or pay a second time. That's one of the things fair use is for. Of course, the MPAA claims the DMCA changed all that. Before the DMCA, the studios would have had to go to court and prove that "space-shifting" is not a fair use. After the DMCA, they simply argue that "circumvention" of the CSS encryption on DVDs is forbidden by the DMCA, fair use or not.

This lawsuit is just the latest example of the entertainment industry taking aim not at "pirates," but at the legitimate fair use rights of music and movie fans (we've already written about the lawsuits against the XM inno and Sima). And it's not just lawsuits -- here's a summary of what entertainment industry lobbyists are pushing in Congress. That's why EFF is proud to be involved with the Digital Freedom Campaign alongside CEA and many others, fighting for a sensible copyright law, rather than Hollywood's copyright law.

Posted by Fred von Lohmann at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Technorati

I do believe Shep asked when pirating becomes morally justified. I think this qualifies.

[Stark]

So they're saying even if you own x DVD you have to buy it AGAIN to watch it on a portable device?

Is *anyone* going to support shit like that?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

At least two major groups of people will support it. Lobbyists and lawmakers.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, see, the free market will get rid of this as people stop buying DVDs and iPods, then they'll have to stop acting like prize twats. Don't pirate, it's mean.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

No, see, the free market will get rid of this as people stop buying DVDs and iPods, then they'll have to stop acting like prize twats. Don't pirate, it's mean.

Amen, brother! Remember, large corporations are people, too. You wouldn't infringe on your grandmother's copyrights, would you? Well, would you, you communist terrorist bastards?

[Ford Prefect]

This is nuts. This is moustache twirling ridiculous.

[phongn]

It still isn't morally justifiable to pirate movies or software even with draconian MPAA, RIAA or BSA tactics - but I don't find any particular ethical problem with ripping a DVD you own onto an iPod.

[Stark]

But that IS piracy dude!

[Admiral Valdemar]

It still isn't morally justifiable to pirate movies or software even with draconian MPAA, RIAA or BSA tactics - but I don't find any particular ethical problem with ripping a DVD you own onto an iPod.

They're moving the goalposts. To them, this is piracy. What you're doing is illegal in their eyes, so really you have to ask yourself this: do you go by your common sense, or do you abide by corporate legislation to the T? Remember, recording shows off TV on your VHS is illegal, especially lending that tape to a mate and hitting FF when the ads come on.

Laws = right(!).

[PeZook]

Like any oversized, overstretched, powerful empire, the MPAA is loosing their touch with reality. And as soon as they start replacing the objective world with their own (where piracy is the cause of their problems, not a side-effect of their policies), they will crash and burn, and get replaced by something new, which will also crash and burn after reaching a critical mass. People will either stop buying overprotected, overpriced DVD's, pirating them instead, or they will just not give a fuck and rip them anyways. What, the MPAA is gonna start searching your home for DVD ripper software? Or your car for copied CD's?

The only problem is that they have enough money that it may take a while for them to go down. Like a few decades.

[Praxis]

I do believe Shep asked when pirating becomes morally justified. I think this qualifies.

Agreed, I will continue to use Handbrake and I will continue to recommend it to everyone I know.

[RThurmont]

I don't consider ripping a DVD for purposes of fair use to be piracy, although it is technically a violation of the DMCA. If the DVD in question is not protected with CSS, though, it would be perfectly legal. The DRM inviolability provisions of the DMCA are what create the illegality, if broadly interpreted.

[Darth Wong]

"Fair use" copying is not piracy. The only infringement here is against the DMCA, not the copyright holder. And the DMCA does not apply outside America, and I suspect it may not even be constitutional inside America. That's why the MPAA is careful not to sue anyone on DMCA grounds who might have the financial means and desire to fight back and take it to a Supreme Court challenge.

PS. I once made a copy of a particular movie for which I own a legal DVD, using software to snip out a few scenes that I considered objectionable. The idea was to make a "sanitized" version for my kids to watch (note: this is not the same thing as censorship because I am a private citizen altering my own legal copy, not a lobby group trying to force the studio to change its movie). Anyway, this is completely legitimate behaviour under "fair use" copyright law, but if I were an American citizen, I could be in serious trouble for doing this. That's how fucked-up the DMCA is.

[PeZook]

Anyway, this is completely legitimate behaviour under "fair use" copyright law, but if I were an American citizen, I could be in serious trouble for doing this. That's how fucked-up the DMCA is.

You may have been able to use the "think of the children!" defense in the hypothetical court case, though

[Xisiqomelir]

The DMCA isn't as evil as so many make it out to be.

Yes it is. Restricting how you use your private property for these private, non-copyright infringing purposes is absurd.

[Darth Wong]

The DMCA isn't as evil as so many make it out to be.

From Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems:

EDIT: apologies, the link seems to have timed out. You should be able to get to the context of the quoted text here, and then follow the bottom link (Passed by both House and Senate), and then proceeding to the correct section (1201: Circumvention...). /EDIT

`(d) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

Once again, "Nothing in this section shall affect rights... including fair use". Seems pretty clear cut to me: the DMCA does not prohibit you from making a copy if it is fair use.

That is not explicitly what it states. It states that you have the right to make a fair-use copy, but it also states that you don't have the right to circumvent copy protection technology in order to do so. Those two statements are not necessarily in contradiction. The law was written very carefully.

[Alan Bolte]

The trouble is that the result is: you have the right to make a fair-use copy...unless the copyright holder doesn't want you to. That's not a right, that's a lack of any rights.