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Originally Posted by rlauzon
Which means that almost all DVDs will not be "commercially distributed" because region encoding violates Fair Use.
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This is no accident. Region encoding is one of the things I'm trying to tackle with this. And you're right, the MPAA won't like it. They won't like any of it. Neither will the RIAA. Somehow we have to find a way to get enough people behind this that it can pass anyway.
One point is that if the studios want to keep something in commercial distribution and still mess around with region encoding to try to control when a product is released in different markets, they can do that for up to 3 years, then come out with a region-free version if they want to retain commercial interest. Studios might actually go for this. They like to re-release "special editions" with a few extras to see if they can get people to pay for content again.
NatCH, good catch on the "otherwise transfer" line. Yes, you ought to be able to give away something you've purchased.
The language in this is fairly strong, under the assumption that it would get chipped away during the lobbying process. But not so strong, I hope, that it wouldn't seem like a reasonable starting position. I'd expect to have to negotiate on the time limits, for example.
I think the "cultural heritage" stance is key to getting attention on this, but there may be other good attention-getting arguments. I'm open to suggestion.
Another question is how to handle collaborative works. Most books have a single author, especially fiction, or a short list of authors, but the chain of ownership needs to be clear for any creative work. Suppose there are three authors for a book. Do they each get a shot, one at a time, for two years each? For 1/3 of 2 years each? If a movie falls out of distribution, the dvd distribution studio loses the rights, but who comes next? The producer? The director? Do the lead actors ever get a chance at ownership? Everyone in the credits, in order of appearance? This could be subject to reductio ad absurdum, with movies tied up while the key grip gets a shot at distribution. It will need to be spelled out in the draft of the bill.