Mac Discussion

Hi all,
While I may have protected some of my kids DVD's by letting them watch a BackUp (started doing it after my 3 year old jammed a brand new DVD into the VCR to watch it. Luckily the store believed it was like that when I opened the case and exchanged it)
_ I also thought it was a bit like going a little over the speed limit on an empty hi-way. It wasn't legal but also wasn't really wrong or hurting anyone.
(OK maybe I am hurting the Movie Studios that cant make me pay 3 times for the same movie. Once for VHS, once for DVD, and ANOTHER for DVD when it gets so easily damaged. I also bet they will want me to pay again for the HD-DVD version even though its the same original they are coping from. And No I do not watch all the extras, Just give me the damn MOVIE, leave off the previews, commentary, deleted scenes, and even the extra disc that never gets watched)

But today I read that it is LEGAL to copy my DVD's to an iPod to watch them elsewhere.
The reason is because the DMCA says it is illegal to CREATE software that circumvents copy-protection, but using it is another matter.

This was on another non-competing forum (that I wont mention) in a discussion of HandBrake.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Re: HandBrake, bitrates, and huh!?
Are these DVDs using copy protection? How can you rip a DVD using copy protection legally in the US? As far as I know, you are in violation of the DMCA if you do this in the USA. I'm surprised that you are commenting on a procedure that requires breaking a US law.
If the DVDs in question do not have CSS content protection then it isn't a violation of the DMCA as far as I know. IANAL etc.
...............................................
Re: HandBrake, bitrates, and huh!?
You are in violation of the DMCA if you create software that circumvents copy protection. Using such software, however, is another matter. Some suggest that Fair Use allows you to create archived copies of media you own.
Chris
Chris Breen
...................................................
Re: HandBrake, bitrates, and huh!?
Interesting. I just looked it up and you are correct. I had thought the DMCA was more draconian. Apparently that is just EFF and copyfighter's propaganda (again). My mistake for posting before checking.

DMCA--copyright.gov [www.copyright.gov]
The **** emphasis is mine
Quote:

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. ****As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second. ****

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


So it appears that using the software is not a problem, as long as you are using it for "Fair Use" purposes. Such as archiving and transferring into a different format. Just as coping a Cd to Tape or Tape to a Cd is legal.

Even with his fact I'm not going to waste time backing up my 200+ DVD's when I will just need to upgrade to HD DVD in another year, and then to SUPER_HD-DVD in another 10 years. I'm sure the TV's by then will be a resolution of 10,000 x 6,000 DPI and 3D Hologram, and who would want to watch an HD pixelated 2D picture in only 1920x1080 DPI.

I just will be glad if I get an iPod Video to not have to hide it from the police or airport security just because I wanted to copy one of the movies I bought over onto it.

Big Brother just got a little smaller (wait what was that knock on the door?
?
?
?

"started doing it after my 3 year old jammed a brand new DVD into the VCR to watch it. Luckily the store believed it was like that when I opened the case and exchanged it"

At the begining of your post you essentially admit to theft of a DVD to replace the one your child damaged. Why are you sweating this? Or is this more social comentary than concern?

Some Guy, get off your high horse.
I try not to do anything morally wrong (OK, maybe I'll covet someone's wife, if covet means to desire, and I don't know she is married) Or maybe I'll even drive 75mph on a highway when its deserted.

I posted this because I had always heard it was illegal to make a backup of a DVD, to convert the DVD to another format, or otherwise circumvent the DCESS(??) I read a lot of forums and this was the first I had heard this.
I think its important (IF TRUE) that it is "Fair Use" to archive a DVD.

EVERYTHING I have read says while it is "Fair Use" to make a backup or convert to another format something you own or have license to play/watch. It is illegal to break the copy-protection placed on that item.
BUT
This quote from the DCMA says that while illegal to CREATE software that defeats copy-Protection, it is legal to circumvent that same copy protection for fair use purposes.


Maybe I exaggerated when I said I "started" backing up my kids movies, I planned on "starting" backing up my kids movies but have actually done 3. I just haven't had the time, but may backup "The Little Bear Movie" since my son now insists on taking it to my parents or my inlaws every time he visits.

AS TO MY ADMITTED THEFT (in your words)........
I bought a DVD (think it might have been Toy Story) for my son, we said we would watch it my next day off. That Wednesday we tried to play it, it had a long straight scratch in it and wouldn't play. So I took it back to the store. I told them I had bought it a few days before, I had my receipt and they exchanged it no questions. Later when I told my wife what had happened she told me he had tried to put it in the VCR because he wanted to watch it.

DID HE CAUSE THE SCRATCH? Maybe. But I worked in retail and have seen brand new software opened and new discs with cracks, scratches, rings, and even NO disc in the box's.
What should I have done???
1) Should I have went back to the store and say you exchanged a DVD earlier with a scratch and that I'm not sure how it got there?
2) Should I have demanded they take back the opened copy I had and give me back the scratched one, so I could polish it out with Novus Polish? www.noscratch.com/novus
3) Maybe I should have just turned myself into the local police for "admitted theft" as you assume.

Just so you know what other EVIL's I am up to I'll admit it all !!!!
I have also "STARTED" (1 episode so far) to backup my HD DVR recordings of a TV series so that I can make an HD DVD when the HD DVD recorders are available.
But maybe its wrong to record a TV show now, I better smash all my VCR's, damn that one was a graduation gift from 20 years ago. And then what should I do to my parents who I just gave a TIVO, they have used it to record COOKING SHOWS??? AHHHHH!!!
**** And here is the BIG one****.... I am planning on buying a Video iPod...... I'm not sure what my sentence may be....... BUT I have actually tried to figure out HandBrake since I would like to put TV and MOVIES on that future iPod.
I have actually clicked "MAKE MP4" and converted a movie that had too high of a bitrate, and then tried it AGAIN and made one that played great on "an unnamed acquaintance's" Video iPod.
I will even admit that I will put this movie on my Video iPod when I buy one....

"Some Guy" maybe this is why these forums are so DEAD.
I try to keep coming back here since i've been around for many years (although not a new-fangeled "registered user") but when I post about what I think is a major unknown/misunderstood law, you accuse me of admitting a theft and then asking why I would post, instead of commenting on the fact that it appears the DCMA allows for Fair Use of content you have purchased.

.
Some Guy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "started doing it after my 3 year old jammed a
> brand new DVD into the VCR to watch it. Luckily
> the store believed it was like that when I opened
> the case and exchanged it"
>
> At the begining of your post you essentially admit
> to theft of a DVD to replace the one your child
> damaged. Why are you sweating this? Or is this
> more social comentary than concern?

I think I'm with Some Guy here. We can discuss the pros and cons of this Fair Use debate and maybe the law makers in the various countries will come up with a definitive answer but there is no debate about what you did with that damaged DVD. You lied to the store in order to fraudulently obtain a replacement disc after your child, who is your responsibility, broke it.

The issue of whether or not it's legal to copy DVDs is a gray area caused by our wonderful government representatives as a result of a conflict between the "Fair Use" laws and the DMCA.

By the word of the law, you CAN make one (1) copy of a DVD for personal use only (thanks to the "Fair Use" laws), but you CANNOT circumvent the copy protection on the DVD to make that copy (thanks to the DMCA).

Clearly this is a conflict, one which our wonderful government has no plans to address.

By the spirit of the law (IMO) you can strip off the copy protection and make a "not unreasonable" number of copies for personal use. That means (for example) you could copy a DVD to play in your car's DVD player so the kids don't scratch up the original, and copy it to your iPod so you can watch it on the train, but you CAN'T give, sell, or otherwise distribute the copies to anyone.

I'm no lawyer but that's how I interpret things.


--
The trolls have taken over.
DealMac management has no respect for positive contributors.
Bye, y'all.

Some Guy is right, mundoman. Passing your loss on to a retailer is theft by fraud. (And 'thou shalt not steal' is right up there with not coveting your neighbor's wife).



---------------------

“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer....” –Skepticism and Animal Faith, 1923 George Santayana

YEP, I agree, Some Guy is right. I am astounded how often people brag in our forums how they cheated a retailer in various ways. No wonder prices continue to escalate and the innocent honest ones also pay the higher price.

H Linamen

Mundo,

I have no doubt in my mind your child damaged the DVD when he he jammed it into the VCR. However, I'm uncertain that you knew he'd done this at the time you returned it, i.e. did you open the DVD together. My instincts say you did but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt for now.

The legality of backing up DVDs is a different matter entirely. ZB described the issue well. FWIW, I backup my DVDs. I used my hard-earned money to purchase it, so I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to make a backup copy of it.

Robert

Ok it seems the consensus is I am a thief, cheat, and committed theft by Fraud.

Believe what you may, since I doubt I'll post here again. I have posted here for about 8 years, enjoying the friendships, and discussing all things Mac related. I have sent countless customers to this forum when there was a Mac situation that I did not know the solution to.

I still disagree, though and believe I am a very honest person.

I went to watch a DVD I had just recently bought, it wouldn't play so I took it back to the store.
I told them I had just bought it and it had a scratch, they said grab another, and exchanged it.
No lies, no trying to cheat, no passing the cost.

Later when my wife told me he had tried "Playing it in the VCR" I realized he might have caused the scratch. I am still not sure he did cause it, I have seen many brand new retail packaging opened with similar defects.
But the fact that he would try and play a DVD made me say I would backup all the kids movies(something I have never found time to do)
If I had seen or known he had attempted this I would have just polished it out myself. But I thought it was a defect from the factory. Maybe I was too cavalier when I said "Luckily the store believed", but I believed it was that way TOO.

I started this thread because a MacWorld writer was saying that the DCMA allows you to copy your DVD's under Fair use!!!
I thought that was astounding since for years everything I have read say that while "Fair Use" did allow you to make a copies of media and copywrited material, It was still illegal to do it with DVD's since the DCMA would not allow the encryption to be broken.

I thought this would be very important to anyone considering making a back-up of their DVD. While I never considered it Morally wrong.
Like I said above I just thought it was a bit like going a little over the speed limit on an empty hi-way. It wasn't legal but also wasn't really wrong or hurting anyone.

I'm going to create a new post with the same title, so maybe some people interested in Mac Discussion can discuss the DMCA and FairUse as it related to DVD coping.

BYE

...so maybe some people interested in Mac Discussion can discuss the DMCA and FairUse as it related to DVD coping.

That's probably more appropriate in the Friendly or perphaps Spirited sections of the forum.

But if you didn't know that you child may have/did damage the DVD, then there is no crime. Almost any state or God would agree that if to your knowledged the DVD was damaged before you opened it, then there is no fraud, ergo no theft. Intent plays a major part. No intent, no crime.

If you knew (and only you know if you did or not), then there is a crime. Going over the speed limit is an infraction, not a crime, in most if not all jurisdictions.

So much for much ado.

I haven't read The Act so I can't speak to the exact language, but I *thought* that *breaking* the encryption was the crime, regardless of whether or not one created or "just" used software to do so.

I haven't seen the language that allowed Fair Use to be applied to nullify the language regarding defeating the DCSS (?) encryption.

In either event, I have no problem with anybody backing up their DVDs, or even ripping them to HDs or 'Pods, so they don't have to lug the discs around.

I'm still not sure of the point of the treatise that started this thread.

.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

There is no safety for honest men
except by believing all possible evil
of evil men.

I *love* Sigs. It's Glocks I hate.

I don't post in the forums much at all, but maybe next time you'd be better off just asking your question with less unnecessary background info so that people might provide an answer instead of making meta posts that focus on the noise and don't even try to address your DMCA question.

Now, typically you can make backups of copyrighted materials for your own use (fair use), you can do this with CDs for example, it's just that with DVD's, in order to make a backup copy in DVD format or another digital format you need to use a tool (a program) that may violate DMCA to do it. So, in effect the movie studios are using technology to thwart fair use rights in order to protect their distribution rights from technology.

That said, there really is nothing stopping you from making a VHS copy (the quality will suffer though) there's just technology and the effects of a law stopping you from making a DVD copy. I'm going to stop here though because getting deeper than this requires a discussion in copyright law and technology that I'm not really qualified to get into -- perhaps there's a thread at [www.kuro5hin.org] or elsewhere that gets into the nuts and bolts of this mess and can help out if that's what you're interested in.

Now for some info that might help you with your immediate problem. If you also have a PC there's a program called DVD X Copy that you may still be able to find, which might help you make those backups. I know that Popcorn by Roxio (?) is a program that'll do DVD backups on the Mac (how good, I don't know), but I believe that DVD X Copy has certain, possibly more useful, functions that led to the movie studios suing the maker and (I think) officially forcing the program off of the market and eventually leading to the shutdown of the company (though there seems to be a new version under a "new" company -- see below).

I've never used either program before -- or backed up a DVD -- so I don't know what works best.

Anyway, here's a link to a DealMac entry about DVD X Copy from December 2005. [dealnews.com]

The "new" company's website [www.dvdxcopy-international.ca]

And for part of the story about the whole mess see this [www.theregister.co.uk] and this [www.afterdawn.com]

Hey everyone,

Can the holier-than-thou crap, eh? The man returned a DVD. His main question was separate from that. Dwelling on his supposed "fraud" (at best, fraud) as a way to sanctimoniously suggest it is such people who would 'steal' DVD content is transparent and ultimately laughable. As soon as you all never, ever break any rules, feel free to pontificate on such things. Resting oneself on gray morals is perhaps a worthwhile pastime for you, but it's hardly useful to those of us who don't live in silly-blame-land.

As for the real question, regarding copying a CD... my very good friend who is an entertainment lawyer feels the same way I do: this is all static. "Fair Use" has been in deliberation for a long time, and since VHS and Beta the consumer and the manufacturers have been butting heads. Yes, you can make copies for personal use. That's fairly well agreed upon. You don't have to throw that question to the judgmental dogs here or in any forum. Do it. Enjoy. It's your home.

And in personal opinion, I can't help but chuckle when I go to the movies and see the pre-show ad where the poor lowly grip says please don't pirate movies. Read the papaer, fella. Look at the box office reports. See what star is earning how much. Pirating isn't robbing you. They are. "Pirating" media in this country will likely always exist to some extent. As long as everyone realizes that, it seems slightly more ludicrous that a grip would be in an ad like that while Tom Cruise's salary per movie keeps climbing.

I live in NYC. We have cockroaches here (literal and figurative, but I mean the bugs). They're not going away. Blaming them on the exterminators and bus-boys and garbage-men would be laughable. You do your best. You deal with it. You know they aren't going away. You want to say you're better than a cockroach? Good for you. They'll be here longer than you, or your children will.

> That said, there really is nothing stopping you from making a VHS copy

Macrovision is stopping you from making a VHS copy. Modern VHS recorders blank out Macrovision-protected images from commercial DVD's.

Hey gish, can the "everyone" crap.

Let your ego take a rest, and objectively read the responses before you make erroneous accusations.

Lazy people paint with a wide brush.

Deal with it.

.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

There is no safety for honest men
except by believing all possible evil
of evil men.

I *love* Sigs. It's Glocks I hate.

Mundoman, I appreciate the information, though I suppose it's just one more opinion thrown into the great debate.
I don't pirate movies because it's a tedious PITA and really not worth my time or the expense; and besides it's wrong, whatever the law may say.
I do backup certain of my movies for trips, etc. and I don't feel a bit bad about it, because it's right, whatever the law may say.
The studios deserve their money for their work, as do the actors, authors, grips and whomever. But it seems to me that I should only have to pay it once.

IMHO, YMMV, and any other acronyms that seem to suit.

Yes, but Jesus will punish you for doing so.

Heed your own advice, "RamRod".

Obviously lazy people paint with a wide brush. That's kind of my point, and I was dealing with that. You might want to investigate your own reading comprehension before commenting on someone else's... if your ego doesn't stand in the way.

I love this post. I will use it in one of the classes I teach about online communications.

I have to agree with "Yikes" on this one, if you don't want people discussing something, don't tell them. The post begins with the scratched DVD story, and at first telling, it's theft. The second and third time it's told, it's an accident. If you didn't want to discuss that, why'd you bring it up?

As for the fair use thing, I just don't understand the controversy. Can anyone find an example of "the government" "them" "the recording industry", anyone, discovering someone was making backup copies of their DVDs/CD/tapes, whatever and doing anything about it? Just one case, example, one actual happening?

Now I'm not talking about making 10,000 DVDs in your basement and selling them on the street, or ripping you music and movies and putting them on P2P servers so millions of people can download them. Those are very different circumstances.

Here is how that post should of gone down...



You> Is it legal to duplicate the s.h.i.t I buy from stores and let my kids have their way with it?





Them> LoLLoLLoL