50 Shades of DMCA interpretations Volume 42... Will it ever end?

[Cary Grant]

Whether we like it or not copying ie circumventing DRM is illegal. DMCA trumps all arguments/consumer rights. It does not matter if you have bought the disc from any outlet or if you "rent and backup"
You can argue/dispute the distinction between the two but it is is pointless.

ALL copying that circumvents DRM is Illegal

Yes there is fair use but as stated in a previous posts and here again circumventing DRM is illegal.

In fact under World Trade Rules which are little known to the man/woman on the street anything that a government that can be brought which may impinge on the profits of a company organization ie reduce, is subject to compensation. This is what effectively overthrew the UK's recent copyright fair use laws. that covered copying of CD's non DRM DVD's

The UK government had not carried out a financial analysis of the cost to the companies that would "lose" sales of multiple copies of product/s. if you want to listen to a cd in you house and in your car you have to have multiple copies. The UK government had not provided any financial proof that the companies would not lose money as was the UK governments contention and when it went to court the companies contended that that in fact substantial compensation is due.

Guess what they won and the law was withdrawn.

In the Netherlands a tax is in place on Copying media, CDR/DVDR/BDR/"cassettes" to cover "copying" whether it is used for that purpose or not and this was put in place to satisfy "fair use" These "taxes were/are distributed to cover copying. However Companies still went to court and Copying was deemed illegal if it circumvented DRM and they are now seeking further redress due to "losses". The copying tax has also not been withdrawn.

So physical media centers are legal ,but copying a film/cd, however you obtain it, circumventing DRM to put it on your media center is illegal and if in the UK non DRM as well.

In fact once again in the UK, an eight second film clip also breached fair use as this was legally deemed to be the "most relevant" part of a broadcast ie a goal being scored or a wicket/catch being taken and these "highlights" are of value to companies that provide such clip services for a fee to consumers.

So what is the "value" of fair use

 

[goncal]

Whether we like it or not copying ie circumventing DRM is illegal. DMCA trumps all arguments/consumer rights. It does not matter if you have bought the disc from any outlet or if you "rent and backup"
You can argue/dispute the distinction between the two but it is is pointless.

ALL copying that circumvents DRM is Illegal

Yes there is fair use but as stated in a previous posts and here again circumventing DRM is illegal.

In fact under World Trade Rules which are little known to the man/woman on the street anything that a government that can be brought which may impinge on the profits of a company organization ie reduce, is subject to compensation. This is what effectively overthrew the UK's recent copyright fair use laws. that covered copying of CD's non DRM DVD's

The UK government had not carried out a financial analysis of the cost to the companies that would "lose" sales of multiple copies of product/s. if you want to listen to a cd in you house and in your car you have to have multiple copies. The UK government had not provided any financial proof that the companies would not lose money as was the UK governments contention and when it went to court the companies contended that that in fact substantial compensation is due.

Guess what they won and the law was withdrawn.

In the Netherlands a tax is in place on Copying media, CDR/DVDR/BDR/"cassettes" to cover "copying" whether it is used for that purpose or not and this was put in place to satisfy "fair use" These "taxes were/are distributed to cover copying. However Companies still went to court and Copying was deemed illegal if it circumvented DRM and they are now seeking further redress due to "losses". The copying tax has also not been withdrawn.

So physical media centers are legal ,but copying a film/cd, however you obtain it, circumventing DRM to put it on your media center is illegal and if in the UK non DRM as well.

In fact once again in the UK, an eight second film clip also breached fair use as this was legally deemed to be the "most relevant" part of a broadcast ie a goal being scored or a wicket/catch being taken and these "highlights" are of value to companies that provide such clip services for a fee to consumers.

So what is the "value" of fair use

Nice argument
What you miss is that under your reasoning is what BD and DVD players do is illegal. They circumvent DRM in order to do their job.
AACS-LA licenses are contractual agreements and cannot override the "law of the land" (DMCA)

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Nice argument
What you miss is that under your reasoning is what BD and DVD players do is illegal. They circumvent DRM in order to do their job.
AACS-LA licenses are contractual agreements and cannot override the "law of the land" (DMCA)

Blu-ray players don't circumvent anything to do their job. The AACS-LA, which developed and owns the AACS copy protection system, hands out the keys necessary for the decryption so they can be installed in authorized devices. By definition, what they do isn't circumvention, but legal decryption.

 

[Cary Grant]

Copying bluray/dvd circumvents drm It is illegal according to DMCA. As I stated this is the beginning and end. It is not anything I have come up with It is the law as stated by by DMCA
ACCS-LA are the holders/owners of the drm system that is used on Blurays
Bluray players are players with licences issued by AACS-LA for their drm which is written into the manufacturers agreement before they can even to manufacture these machines to sell to consumers to PLAY discs
If you have no AACS-LA licence and also the now a Cinavia licence you cannot produce/manufacture sell a licenced Bluray player AND have full BD Menus.

Therefore licenced Bluray players are legal devices to PLAY Blurays. The firmware decodes the AACS-LA keys (drm) keys etc and allows playback

No copying is going on.

Legal Bluray recorders ie Panasonics etc. cannot copy retail bluray/dvd discs the internal licenced software does not allow this.


Simply put ANYDVD/DVDFab etc " breaks" the ACCS code in the Disc folder and in the individual files which allows copies to be made ie circumvents drm = illegal. Cinavia is another technical matter

Media players are not licenced and a by-product of that is that they cannot show full BD menus as they are not allowed to use the full BD stack code.

DMCA states that any circumvention of drm is lllegal drm does not really have to be that complicated but for monetary reasons if it was very basic how would the DMCA be enforced.

What the ACCCS-LA are also using is the effort that they have put in to produce such a licencing system for the protection of the copyrights of their licence holders (Studios etc) and the loss to them that is now being generated by ANYONE who copys DVD and or Blurays

The Business model is simply:
If you want to watch a bluray/dvd/film Go to a cinema or buy a licensed player and Buy the DVD/Bluray. It is yours to watch in the comfort of your own home but not to copy , to have public viewings, show in a school/oilrig or public place or allow to be watched by members of the public or for any consideration. If you damage the disc buy it again, if you want you watch in multiple locations buy multiple copies.


As to licences We all know that Slysoft products are on torrent/warez sites with cracked codes etc alongside Adobe Microsoft etc. This is also illegal We do not condone this

The key is always once you have a licence the licence gives you certain rights as allowed by the rights holder for Bluray/dvd it is the right to view on a licenced player only

 

[Korn1699]

No... It is STILL legal to make one copy of each disk, for backup purposes...

 

[George++]

No... It is STILL legal to make one copy of each disk, for backup purposes...

And that is something the US movie industry is working hard to "correct," they have very narrow views of the current legalities.

Neither do most people have a clue what their rights are, so are easily herded by threat of lawsuit.

 

[Cary Grant]

No... It is STILL legal to make one copy of each disk, for backup purposes...

You may think so but actually no

This is DMCA

"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself."

There are exemptions such as

"Motion pictures (including television shows and videos), as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101, where circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures for the purpose of criticism or comment in limited instances"


So a Non US country may have fair use but then it's copyright laws may state that you cannot circumvent drm. Antigua had no real copyright laws especially when they "won" the WTA ruling to allow them to pirate. But then a local law was introduced that you could not circumvent drm and then look what happened.

Fair use is now being interpreted by the Media companies as" we will provide a method by which you the consumer can have a backup" . ie UV or digital copy. Not the right for you to purchase software/equipment that allows you to make a copy of you own choosing

"We all" copy cd's and movies that fact that we do it still does not make it legal. This was the case proposed by the UK government look how far that got.

No they are not going to arrest all of us but the powers that be target the "instigators" ie the people/companies/collectives that allow us to copy by producing software or even disseminate the information to allow us to copy.

 

[Korn1699]

There have been rulings since then that make the exemption for a one backup copy.

 

[rdodolak]

The Librarian of Congress, in the US, has the authority, as granted in 17 U.S.C. 702, to grant exemptions to 37 CFR 201.40 which are laid out in the following publication:

http://copyright.gov/fedreg/2015/80fr65944.pdf
https://www.federalregister.gov/art...pyright-protection-systems-for-access-control
http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedreg-publicinspectionFR.pdf

 

[goncal]

Blu-ray players don't circumvent anything to do their job. The AACS-LA, which developed and owns the AACS copy protection system, hands out the keys necessary for the decryption so they can be installed in authorized devices. By definition, what they do isn't circumvention, but legal decryption.

Decryption is circumvention
AACS-LA engages in contract law
DMCA is a federal (criminal ) statute
Contract law does not override criminal law
Discs come encrypted -- BD player decrypts (removes DRM ) so movie can be played
They circumvent DRM

 

[goncal]

Copying bluray/dvd circumvents drm It is illegal according to DMCA. As I stated this is the beginning and end. It is not anything I have come up with It is the law as stated by by DMCA
ACCS-LA are the holders/owners of the drm system that is used on Blurays
Bluray players are players with licences issued by AACS-LA for their drm which is written into the manufacturers agreement before they can even to manufacture these machines to sell to consumers to PLAY discs
If you have no AACS-LA licence and also the now a Cinavia licence you cannot produce/manufacture sell a licenced Bluray player AND have full BD Menus.

Therefore licenced Bluray players are legal devices to PLAY Blurays. The firmware decodes the AACS-LA keys (drm) keys etc and allows playback

No copying is going on.

Legal Bluray recorders ie Panasonics etc. cannot copy retail bluray/dvd discs the internal licenced software does not allow this.


Simply put ANYDVD/DVDFab etc " breaks" the ACCS code in the Disc folder and in the individual files which allows copies to be made ie circumvents drm = illegal. Cinavia is another technical matter

Media players are not licenced and a by-product of that is that they cannot show full BD menus as they are not allowed to use the full BD stack code.

DMCA states that any circumvention of drm is lllegal drm does not really have to be that complicated but for monetary reasons if it was very basic how would the DMCA be enforced.

What the ACCCS-LA are also using is the effort that they have put in to produce such a licencing system for the protection of the copyrights of their licence holders (Studios etc) and the loss to them that is now being generated by ANYONE who copys DVD and or Blurays

The Business model is simply:
If you want to watch a bluray/dvd/film Go to a cinema or buy a licensed player and Buy the DVD/Bluray. It is yours to watch in the comfort of your own home but not to copy , to have public viewings, show in a school/oilrig or public place or allow to be watched by members of the public or for any consideration. If you damage the disc buy it again, if you want you watch in multiple locations buy multiple copies.


As to licences We all know that Slysoft products are on torrent/warez sites with cracked codes etc alongside Adobe Microsoft etc. This is also illegal We do not condone this

The key is always once you have a licence the licence gives you certain rights as allowed by the rights holder for Bluray/dvd it is the right to view on a licenced player only

Again, unless the DMCA specifically allows the AACS-LA or its agents to bypass DRM Then the fact that BD players are licensed by AACS-LA is irrelevant, they bypass DRM

 

[TM2-Megatron]

[Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The Act defines what it means in Section 1201(a)(3):

(3) As used in this subsection—

(A) 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; and

(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Thus, if there is some "technological measure that effectively controls access to a work", it is illegal to circumvent that measure. However, Section 1201 creates several exceptions to this rule, and the Library of Congress is empowered to create additional exceptions.

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

They have that authority. Not sure what isn't clear. By definition, it isn't circumvention.

 

[LogicDeLuxe]

What's on DVD or Blu-Ray, I wouldn't call DRM. It's copy protection.
DRM wouldn't even prevent copying, it does prevent using the content in ways not authorized.
Valve's Steam is the best example of DRM. You have to activate a game on your account to be able to download and play it. You can copy it wherever you want and still be able to play it.
DRM and copy protection can be combined, though, as it is the case in the virtual world of Second Life.

 

[nebostrangla]

What's on DVD or Blu-Ray, I wouldn't call DRM. It's copy protection.
DRM wouldn't even prevent copying, it does prevent using the content in ways not authorized.
Valve's Steam is the best example of DRM. You have to activate a game on your account to be able to download and play it. You can copy it wherever you want and still be able to play it.
DRM and copy protection can be combined, though, as it is the case in the virtual world of Second Life.

Do you even know what DRM stands for if so it should be obvious even it being on a disk falls under that because it's not ANALOG media but yes to your point it is more commonly referred to as being used with files on a computer eg MP3/WMA files of streaming service like iTunes or zune &STEAM games but I bet u streaming video has it as well but I do not subscribe to any.

 

[rik1138]

No... It is STILL legal to make one copy of each disk, for backup purposes...

You may think so but actually no

Actually, it is perfectly legal to make a copy of the disc you own...
What people are doing that is illegal is making an ALTERED copy of the disc (one with the encryption removed/circumvented).

You will never find a case where AACS-LA has any problem with you straight-out copying the files off a Blu-ray onto your computer, making an _exact_ copy of the files on the disc (i.e., still encrypted). That is making a backup for your own use.

Of course, the backup is useless as it's encrypted and unplayable on a computer, but it is a perfect backup, and you are allowed to do that all you want.

You just aren't allowed to remove the encryption in the process... When you remove the DRM, you are no longer making a 'copy' of the disc, you are altering the copied version of the disc. According to the DMCA, you have no legal right to do that.

(Not saying I agree or disagree, just making a statement... )

 

[rdodolak]

Actually, it is perfectly legal to make a copy of the disc you own...
What people are doing that is illegal is making an ALTERED copy of the disc (one with the encryption removed/circumvented).

You will never find a case where AACS-LA has any problem with you straight-out copying the files off a Blu-ray onto your computer, making an _exact_ copy of the files on the disc (i.e., still encrypted). That is making a backup for your own use.

Of course, the backup is useless as it's encrypted and unplayable on a computer, but it is a perfect backup, and you are allowed to do that all you want.

You just aren't allowed to remove the encryption in the process... When you remove the DRM, you are no longer making a 'copy' of the disc, you are altering the copied version of the disc. According to the DMCA, you have no legal right to do that.

(Not saying I agree or disagree, just making a statement... )

Semantics, the reason why the AACS-LA doesn't care is because they know it won't play. The encryption is purely meant to prevent you from making a usable copy.

 

[Cary Grant]

Kaleidescape make high end media servers which copied the owners Blurays onto a closed proprietary NAS system. To do this they bypassed DRM/AACS protection an to get the copy on the server aand then restored the copy protection. Therefore an exact copy with protection was on the server. It was acknowledged by CCS (DVD protection) and AACS-LA that not a single copy of any disc was ever found in the "wild" However they and The CCS won a court case which has stopped this company supplying systems which copy DVD's and Bluray's to servers.

As a sop to the ACCS-LA Kaleidescape had a BD jukebox which held the physical copy of the copied dis s and the system would not play the digital copy if the ohysical copy was not in the jukebox. This was not acceptable to the ACCS-LA


"On June 2, 2014, Kaleidescape and the DVD Copy Control Association reached a settlement in a decade-long court battle over customers' right to import DVDs onto the company's server, and then play the content without inserting a disc. As a result of the agreement, Kaleidescape systems sold after November 14, 2014, will no longer import CSS-protected DVDs." (also applies to blurays)
The remaining terms of the settlement agreement between DVD CCA and Kaleidescape are confidential. The effect of the settlement agreement and the actions by the two California courts is to conclude the lawsuit DVDCCA brought against Kaleidescape to preserve the integrity of the CSS license agreement's anti-copying mandate."

The bottom line is that the powers that be have given you the right to have fair use but the overarching kicker is that if there is any form of drm/copy protection the you cannot copy your DVD/BD.

The rules for other digital media ie software can be different in that a backup can be made but specific "law" apply to Movie bd's/dvd.

Once again various jurisdictions have the concept of fair use but according to te Berne convention for copyright, all signatory counties must respect DMCA or the principles thereof.

As Kaliedescape found as long as you were small and effectively under the radar you were OK but as alternative cheaper systems came into being following their model for the "man on the street" the powers that be fought back as their "cash cow" was now coming under attack"

We the user/customer may believe that we have consumer rights the issue is in how can we realise our rights. But anyway when we buy/licence a bd/dvd the license is actually to view within a restricted framework. It specifically disallows copying

When we buy (licence) software the small print allows the user to make a copy for backup purposes.

This is the definition of consumers rights that ACCS put up at the recent US Librarian DMCA Exemption proposals"

"When consumers buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc, they are not purchasing the motion picture itself, rather they are purchasing access to the motion picture which affords only the right to access the work according to the format’s particular specifications (i.e. through the use of a DVD player), or the Blu-ray Disc format specifications (i.e., through the use of a Blu-ray format player). Consumers are able to purchase the copy at its retail price because it is distributed on a specific medium that will play back on only a licensed player."

We may not like it but this is what we are subject to

 

[PeterInCrosby]

We may not like it but this is what we are subject to

Way too many laws are on the books specifically to enrich a small group of people. As they began to increase the length of copyrights, I gained more sympathy for pirates.

Once the government said that we are REQUIRED to purchase a product from corporations, I really stopped caring about many laws.

I don't download movies illegally. I don't copy movies that I have not paid for. If it comes down to it and I can't backup the movies I paid for any longer, I'll just opt out of movies and go 100% to books. Sure the audio isn't nearly as good, but at some point, I'll want the entire Hollywood empire to collapse while saying, "You destroyed yourself via your own greed and God complex. How much money were you losing to actual pirates if entertainers were becoming billionaires?"

Sorry, just had to vent a little.