Developers of the MP3 Have Officially Killed It

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ApK

You sure that's been settled? I don't think it has.

I don't think it has either. In the US legal system, there are a lot of situations where the law is inconsistent. It says one thing, in one place and something else in another. The way this is settled is either the law gets changed, or it comes up in a court case and is ruled on. The ruling only applies in the area that that court has jurisdiction, but lawyers can use that ruling as a presidency in other jurisdictions.

So far, I don't know of anyone being taken to court for bypassing DRM for their own personal use. There are plenty of companies that now provide decryption software on the open market in the US and have been selling their product for a number of years. So far, there has been no attempt to shut them down.

I think that for the most part, people are satisfied with the status quo. DRM is a barrier that is easily bypassed. Most people don't care one way or the other. They watch their DVD's on their DVD player, they read ebooks with the recommended reader (kindle, iBook or whatever).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So far, I don't know of anyone being taken to court for bypassing DRM for their own personal use. There are plenty of companies that now provide decryption software on the open market in the US and have been selling their product for a number of years. So far, there has been no attempt to shut them down.

That's not entirely true, is it? I'm sure you'll recall that a few years ago the company who makes "RealPlayer" were taken to court over a program that bypassed the DRM on DVDs, and were prohibited from selling it. The judge in the case ruled that the right to make a backup of media such as DVDs does not grant the right to remove DRM in order to do so.

[rem736]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's not entirely true, is it? I'm sure you'll recall that a few years ago the company who makes "RealPlayer" were taken to court over a program that bypassed the DRM on DVDs, and were prohibited from selling it. The judge in the case ruled that the right to make a backup of media such as DVDs does not grant the right to remove DRM in order to do so.

for a normal consumer, is it technically possible to make a legal personal backup copy if the original DVD has DRM?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's not entirely true, is it? I'm sure you'll recall that a few years ago the company who makes "RealPlayer" were taken to court over a program that bypassed the DRM on DVDs, and were prohibited from selling it. The judge in the case ruled that the right to make a backup of media such as DVDs does not grant the right to remove DRM in order to do so.

Not exactly. I think you mean RealNetworks case in 2009. RealNetworks was sued for breach of licensing (they were licensing CSS) rather than violation of DCMA. The big issue that RealNetworks faced was the judge found that they had engaged in evidence destruction.

The other major case was the DeCSS case in 2000. In that case, the judges ducked the question of DCMA by making a narrow ruling that the defendants had not claimed to be engaged in fair use but rather that it violated their 1st amendment rights to free speech. In their ruling, they hinted that they actually agreed with the defendant, but he argued the case on the wrong grounds (free speech rather than fair use). The meaningfulness of the case is shown by the fact that you can still download DeCSS and DVD rippers are widely sold by main stream companies.

One of the oddities of the US appeals system is that court cases are frequently decided on very narrow technical questions that avoid the broad question that is being raised.

So far, the question of fair use allowing the overriding of DRM hasn't actually been heard in court.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So far, the question of fair use allowing the overriding of DRM hasn't actually been heard in court.

I'm not disagreeing with you about that. I was merely disagreeing with the claim that there'd been no attempt to prevent the sale of such software. You've cited two examples of such cases yourself.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not disagreeing with you about that. I was merely disagreeing with the claim that there'd been no attempt to prevent the sale of such software. You've cited two examples of such cases yourself.

Hmmm...what I read was

So far, I don't know of anyone being taken to court for bypassing DRM for their own personal use.

Which is completely different from someone being taken to court for selling/distributing software to break encryption.

Shari

[ApK]

Originally Posted by shalym

Hmmm...what I read was
Which is completely different from someone being taken to court for selling/distributing software to break encryption.

Shari

Then you totally stopped reading one sentence too soon.
The sentence following the one you quote is:

There are plenty of companies that now provide decryption software on the open market in the US and have been selling their product for a number of years. So far, there has been no attempt to shut them down.

See post 122 for clarity.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=122

[HarryT]

It was the sentence after that that I was commenting on:

There are plenty of companies that now provide decryption software on the open market in the US and have been selling their product for a number of years. So far, there has been no attempt to shut them down.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rem736

for a normal consumer, is it technically possible to make a legal personal backup copy if the original DVD has DRM?

In the UK, no, it isn't.

[ottdmk]

Originally Posted by rkomar

No, the latter is not allowed if the DVD is encrypted (which almost all are). You are not allowed to circumvent any digital locks. The government has said that they wouldn't prosecute anyone who did it for personal use, but they still steadfastly refused to change the law before enacting it. So, there's still time for an international treaty to force the government into enforcing the law. That whole process leading up to the law smelled fishy.

I'd forgotten about that. The DRM on DVDs is so completely cracked that I forget it's even there. Still, format shifting is still explicitly allowed for all non-encrypted content (which thankfully CDs are.)

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It was the sentence after that that I was commenting on:

Ah...sorry!! I did miss that sentence, and I read the post 4 or 5 times!! Rather, I saw the sentence, but I guess it just didn't register for some reason.

Shari

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I'd forgotten about that. The DRM on DVDs is so completely cracked that I forget it's even there. Still, format shifting is still explicitly allowed for all non-encrypted content (which thankfully CDs are.)

Well... yes. Maybe. In the US anyway. Audio recordings are explicitly covered by the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992. There is no equivalent law for video recordings so we have to rely on interpretations of fair use doctrine for video.

And there's this: per FCC regulations, American citizens can legally receive and record any legally broadcast signal, and we can do pretty much whatever we want with those recordings for personal use. We cannot redistribute without permission from the copyright holders but otherwise it's fair game. But this only covers aerial broadcasts. Wire line transmissions like cable TV are not covered.

But! the DMCA screws us because digital music and video services encrypt their signals so while we're entitled to receive and record, we're prohibited from "unauthorized" decryption.

But! the DMCA also (allegedly) protects us. It's what makes Stingray devices illegal without court orders because cellular phone signals are encrypted.

TL;DR: don't treat anything discussed here as legal advice or anything vaguely comprehensive regarding the complexities of even one nation's copyright laws.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not disagreeing with you about that. I was merely disagreeing with the claim that there'd been no attempt to prevent the sale of such software. You've cited two examples of such cases yourself.

Yes, but look at the dates of the cases and the actual outcomes. RealNetwork got sued for violation of license, a very different thing. Two cases in 17 years and neither specific to DRM. That's why there are legit software shops selling DRM software now in the open and have been for several years. No one bothers them. That's my point. The most popular DVD ripper for the mac has been in business for some 13 years.

As you may remember the record companies tried to shutdown music downloads way back when as well. They got so beat up about it, they dropped the attempt. I think that in practical terms, the record companies lost that battle as well. Taking grandma to court because her grandkid downloaded some pirated music is a very, very bad visual.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yes, but look at the dates of the cases and the actual outcomes. RealNetwork got sued for violation of license, a very different thing. Two cases in 17 years and neither specific to DRM. That's why there are legit software shops selling DRM software now in the open and have been for several years. No one bothers them. That's my point. The most popular DVD ripper for the mac has been in business for some 13 years.

As you may remember the record companies tried to shutdown music downloads way back when as well. They got so beat up about it, they dropped the attempt. I think that in practical terms, the record companies lost that battle as well. Taking grandma to court because her grandkid downloaded some pirated music is a very, very bad visual.

Napster. Remember one group did take a mom to court and won. But I think there was more to that case than the media portrayed or the judge or jury didn't buy the mom's excuse.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

...Remember one group did take a mom to court and won. But I think there was more to that case than the media portrayed or the judge or jury didn't buy the mom's excuse.

You may be thinking of the RIAA's project early this century where they decided to randomly select around 250 minor infringers to make examples of them; they had previously only concerned themselves with those who shared on a large scale.

It turned out that there were single mothers and children included (the parents of children were told that writing a cheque to the RIAA for several thousand dollars would avoid their being taken to court) and it was, of course, a public relations disaster. From the large music groups Warner Music strongly opposed the project, claiming it was silly to attack potential customers, and the longstanding head of RIAA at the time also opposed it and resigned in protest. Other music groups, particularly the main protagonist Universal, even lost artists, many of which also resented attacks of that type on their fans.

A lesson to be learned for those who have the peripheral vision of a snake in a pipe and can only see strict literal interpretations of the law in front of them; matters such as wider interpretation and actual implementation of legislation, and in business competitive strategies and marketing are hidden from them by the pipe's walls.