Piracy is necessary and doesn't hurt revenues

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Or are you saying that you can purchase an out-of-region disc, legally, so you can look at the disc on a shelf. because if you played it, that would be illegal under US law.

The flaw in your logic is your belief that playing a DVD constitutes "circumventing a technological measure". Playing a Region 1 DVD on a Region 1 DVD player is not "circumventing a technological measure" - it's using the device for its intended purpose. There's no "circumvention", and there's certainly no law prohibiting anyone, anywhere in the world, from buying a DVD player for any region they wish.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The flaw in your logic is your belief that playing a DVD constitutes "circumventing a technological measure". Playing a Region 1 DVD on a Region 1 DVD player is not "circumventing a technological measure" - it's using the device for its intended purpose. There's no "circumvention", and there's certainly no law prohibiting anyone, anywhere in the world, from buying a DVD player for any region they wish.

Of course you are circumventing the encoding on the DVD. It is like buying a tool that removes DRM.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Of course you are circumventing the encoding on the DVD. It is like buying a tool that removes DRM.

By that argument, all DVD players would be illegal.

[Greg Anos]

Let me Highlight the relevant portions...

"Here is the US letter of the law (from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act):

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title...; to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.

A region code (in the US) qualified as a "technological measure".

I make no comment on other countries' laws.... "

The copyright authorities allow the playing of a particular region's DVD's on that region's players. That is what they are authorizing when they release a DVD with a region code. So a region 1 can legally play on a region 1 player in the US.The copyright holders who released the DVD's in the US, expressly, authorise this. However, the purpose of the region code in the fist place was to limit the playing of DVD's to the region for which the player was authorized. To do otherwise <in the US> is a violation of <US> law. Criminal law, not just civil, according to the DCMA.

Is that clear enough?

[usuallee]

Hey guys, haven't been to this forum in a couple months. I see the same old arguments are being rehashed yet again. It's comforting to know I haven't missed anything.

Let me know if anyone changes anyone else's mind, it would be unprecedented.

Cheers all!

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by usuallee

Hey guys, haven't been to this forum in a couple months. I see the same old arguments are being rehashed yet again. It's comforting to know I haven't missed anything.

Let me know if anyone changes anyone else's mind, it would be unprecedented.

Cheers all!

What? All take all the fun out of debating?

[speakingtohe]

Well not to add any fuel to the fire as what follows can support either side.

In Canada photocopying copyrighted material was illegal even for educational purposes.
At the time it was expensive and when a big fuss was made about educational photocopying the government put a tax on photocopier paper as almost all mass photocopying of copyrighted material was by educational institutes.

Next it was cassette tapes, and a similar tax was imposed on the tapes although this was not generally an educational thing.

Then came DVDs. Same type of tax.

Now I can buy 1000 sheets of paper for $3.00 10 cheap cassettes for $1.00 or 100 DVDs for $15.00 so I can't see the tax as either a deterrent or an adequate source of compensation. With eBooks there is really nothing left to tax. Or everything to re-tax, plus phones and tablets and maybe gaming machines

But... until 2012 all copying was perfectly legal in Canada. Laws against media/content copying have been enacted I believe but are pretty murky. Possibly not enforceable and not widely understood. My cable company rep told me in all seriousness that it was illegal to move my PVR which they gave me as a bonus to the bedroom to watch a show I had recorded in the living room and vice versa even though it is the same cable hookup in both rooms.

And as in most countries it is the government/big company interaction that is basically at fault IMO. If recording things is illegal, then cassette recorders should never have been sold. Likewise DVD recorders and personal photocopiers etc.

And if it is illegal to watch a DVD in another region then I should not be able to buy the player outside that region.

I don't own a player from another region, but then again I have enough to watch and listen too and read etc. without. My life doesn't hinge around having exactly what I want when I want it fortunately as lots of things I can't afford

And I don't condemn anyone whose lifestyle and social interaction/friendship depends on having access to the latest and greatest or anyone else for that matter. I just see no reason for all of the explanations etc. or the active encouragement of others to do the same.

Helen

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The copyright authorities allow the playing of a particular region's DVD's on that region's players. That is what they are authorizing when they release a DVD with a region code. So a region 1 can legally play on a region 1 player in the US.

No, not "in the US". Anywhere. It is legal to play a Region 1 DVD on a Region 1 DVD player, full stop. Give me one example of case law that demonstrates otherwise. Just one, and I'll shut up.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, not "in the US". Anywhere. It is legal to play a Region 1 DVD on a Region 1 DVD player, full stop. Give me one example of case law that demonstrates otherwise. Just one, and I'll shut up.

HarryT, US law is only valid in the US...that's why I restrict my comments to the US. But since I live in the US....(And it was the US media creators who required the region code/geo-restrictions in the first place. Very US centric blokes.)

[eschwartz]

HarryT, under the DMCA, a law that is legally binding only in the US:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title...; to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.

Is it not bypassing, to buy a DVD made available for Region X, to buy a Region X DVD player and play that DVD in another region?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Is it not bypassing, to buy a DVD made available for Region X, to buy a Region X DVD player and play that DVD in another region?

No. It's using the player for the entirely legitimate purpose that it was sold for.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

HarryT, US law is only valid in the US...that's why I restrict my comments to the US. But since I live in the US....(And it was the US media creators who required the region code/geo-restrictions in the first place. Very US centric blokes.)

Then please feel free to select another region. Presumably you're under the impression that you'd be breaking the law if you were to play, say, a Region 2 DVD from the UK in the US, right? Can you give me a single example of someone ever having been prosecuted for the heinous crime of playing a "foreign" DVD in the US?

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

HarryT, under the DMCA, a law that is legally binding only in the US:



Is it not bypassing, to buy a DVD made available for Region X, to buy a Region X DVD player and play that DVD in another region?

Certainly not. Unless the selling/buying of players from/for a different region were illegal. Which, I assume, isn't the case.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No. It's using the player for the entirely legitimate purpose that it was sold for.

But it is illegal, because the DMCA forbids you from bypassing or avoiding copyright protections. Buying and using an out-of-region DVD player is bypassing/avoiding the protections that stop someone from Region X playing Region Y DVDs. Regardless of where you got the tool from or whether or not any active effort per DVD on your part is required.

You are right, it is a stupid law and a stupid interpretation of the law, but it fits with the actual words, and thus is technically illegal. (Only in the US.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ST-One

Certainly not. Unless the selling/buying of players from/for a different region were illegal. Which, I assume, isn't the case.

Correct. That is indeed not the case.