SPN Lifer

Thank you for your clear, accurate, and insightful posts to this thread, addressing various misinformation or personal views masquerading as "law."

If people don't want to take your word for it, perhaps they should buy, borrow, rent, or copy the treatise by Professor Thomas McCarthy.

I also appreciate the various hints and "how to" posts by others about the DMCA and avoiding speeding tickets or red-light cameras, from an academic viewpoint, of course.

bbkenney

This is not an attack or even a rebuttal directowards this poster, but if I own something, morally, I can copy it, burn it, skim it across the lake, staple it to a Beanie Baby or paint it blue. Like many things in our society, this one is political. The "industry" has the lobby to get the laws written. Us disorganized peons, do not have the wherewithall to challenge the insane laws effectively.

Where, for example, did even the CONCEPT of the various International "Zones" come from and the "laws" that a DVD bought in one place (lets take UK for example) could only be played a few times on an American DVD, computer, etc?

mongatu

>>>. . . Us disorganized peons, do not have the wherewithall to challenge the insane laws effectively.<<<

I would submit that the "disorganized peons" have done pretty well with things like, e.g., bittorrent, although it's true it hasn't gotten rid of any laws.

PTravel

I wasn't making any moral judgments at all -- merely explaining the law.

First sale doctrine provides that, once you purchase an authorized copy, you can do anything you want with it that doesn't implicate any of the reserved rights specified in the Copyright Act. You can burn it, skim it, staple it or paint it (or sell it, rent it, loan it or give it away). Legally, you can't copy it without authorization, absent a statutory exception, e.g. fair use. Nonetheless, I routinely copy rental DVDs to my laptop so that I can watch them on the plane and in hotel rooms. It's probably fair use (though don't take that as a legal opinion) but, even if it's not, I'm sure I would do it anyway.

The zone concept implicates only the DMCA in that, to view a zone 1 DVD on a zone 2 player or computer, you need to get around the coding which, in this context, may constitute a DMCA violation if zone coding is deemed a digital copy protection scheme (I don't know the answer to this). Differential pricing based on geography has been practiced by businesses for years, and a whole body of law evolved in trademark to address gray-market importation (which is legal in some contexts). The problem, as you've correctly indicated, is that corporate interests have managed to get special-interest laws enacted -- the DMCA is clearly an example of this, as are the laws intended to prohibit Americans from buying prescription drugs in Canada and Mexico.

I'm not a politician, only a lawyer. I don't make the laws, and I don't have to like them, only understand them.

themicah

The "zone" system isn't based on law in the sense of statutes and court decisions. It's based on contract law. To produce and sell a DVD player (whether a hardware DVD player you hook up to your TV or a software DVD player you run on your computer) that plays commercial DVDs, the maker of the DVD player has to get a license for the CSS decryption software that decodes encrypted (i.e., most commercial) DVDs.

I believe the license requires (someone please correct me if the requirement exists elsewhere) makers to restrict their DVD players to playing only DVDs from one zone. The zone system is designed to protect differential pricing, and to protect international release schedules so that a movie still playing in theaters in one country but available on DVD in another country can't be easily exported, cannibalizing box office receipts.

PTravel is right that circumventing the zone system on your DVD player "may" constitute a DMCA violation if it is seen as circumventing copy protection technology. My guess is that a court wouldn't punish you for it, however, since you can make a pretty forceful argument that the zone system technically doesn't protect copying, but only a distribution scheme. The catch is that makers of DVD players that are too easily hackable may be in violation of their licenses for CSS, and could in theory lose the right to produce DVD players that play back CSS-encoded DVDs.

But again, I could be off, so someone please correct me if you have better information.

Wingman32

You could just copy the movie to your HD, not tell anyone, watch it, delete it (maybe even keep) and nothing will happen--unless of course you turn yourself in to the Feds.

-W

hfly

You cannot be busted for the Zoning thing on its own. Hell, technically you could just buy a half dozen machines from different zones. Producing machines that are all zone is not necessarily illegal either as certain countries have PROHIBITED the zone system and manufacturers have to produce open zone machines for those markets. In any case, other than only 2-3 serious manufacturers almost all machines are now easily changeable through semi-hidden service menus. Technically and legally you can do whatever you want to your hardware, the only question becomes whether you void your warranty.

PTravel

That's correct. However, getting around the zone system probably violates the DMCA.

Not exactly. There are a variety of patents and trademarks associated with DVDs. The license covers all of these, not just the CSS decryption.

The zone system also support differential pricing.

Sorry, but that is not right. Copyright is an exclusive right that includes the right to distribute as well as the right to copy.

SchmutzigMSP

To the OP:

I face the same situation as you and I do copy the movies to my computer. The first and obvious reason is it reduces things I need to keep track of while on the road. The second reason is a little less obvious: watching a movie that has been stored on your hard drive uses less battery power than popping in a disc and having it spin up and down while watching the movie. I usually delete the files after I am done watching the movie.

I know this is a legal gray area, but I do what I want. If MPAA really wants to prosecute me for copying a couple of movies onto my computer that I delete anyway, bring it on.

pdhenry

How do they sell these players?

Others...

DEVIS

Good point!

Often I am in the position of having to purchase DVDs from Europe, region 2 coded. Innitially, online retailers would ask me if I had a region 2 player and upon my positive response they would charge my CC and send out the DVD.
In this manner I have obtained all sorts of movies, including one that has been banned for sale in the US.



While a lawyer may very well specialize in that area, what he/she is exactly specializing in is the law of the matter, not the matter at hand. A lawyer may tell me what I can or cannot do based on the terms of use agreement, but a lawyer cannot tell me why this is so. An IT person can explain why the terms of use are such as they are and if requested, go in more detailed technical explanations. But all of this pertains to the IT world, not the lawyers world. IT related laws must have been written with the help of IT practitioners, but more often, as somoene mentioned here earlier, they cater to the paying (donating, contributing, campain funding, whatever) lobby. In essence, lawmakers are the shopkeepers and the industry is nothing more than a paying customer that demands service.
While I realize this view may be too controversial for some people's ability to suck in certain information, I would like to direct your attention to the skyrocketing profits of the contracting companies working in Iraq. Oh man how the money is flowing... straight from our pockets onto theirs!
But back to the topic at hand...
You mentioned how you rent DVDs then copy them to your HDD for later viewing. Doesn't this violate some terms of use agreement between you and the rental company?

nordmann

Sorry to bring this up again. But I have a Video Ipod and I have friends that own other portable players that are for sale in any store really. My questions is this. Why sell a product that laws will restrict you from using them. I read an article which I don't know where now,but it was talking about Video Ipods and how if I were to rip my dvd to put on my video ipod that I would be doing so illegally. So why sell a product that will get someone in trouble? I went to that website mentioned earlier www.ishowstogo.com and checked it out and regardless of if how they are doing it is legal or not they have a good point. I can get my movies on my ipod but through them if I want. Or I can buy software out there that will make it so I can convert my own.

So i ask how can they allow companies to sell this if we can't even use them without breaking the law?

themicah

A good lawyer has to be able to do both. A litigator needs to know the specific subject matter of his case at least as well as the expert witnesses if he wants to convince the jury that his client's position is correct. Similarly, a business lawyer needs to understand exactly how her client will use complex enterprise software before she can help her client negotiate the terms of the license.

Sure, the lawyer probably can't actually program the computer or deploy the software herself, but she better understand the ins-and-outs thoroughly if she's going to do a good job.

DEVIS

Well there are different kinds of videos, hence not everything that you can watch in your ipod can be a movie. Family videos, vacation videos, skydiving videos, even your own adult reenactment of "Beauty and the Beast"

BMW isn't selling you the Z4 so that you can dragrace it along I-95 but you do it anyway...

GadgetFreak

Welcome to Flyertalk. I have a video iPod and I buy TV shows from the iTunes site. It is perfectly legal. I also subscribe to video podcasts that are again perfectly legal (and free) such as the Tiki Bar . I suspect they will also sell movies sooner rather than later. So it isnt that you cant use it legally.