Circuit City Ripping DVDs for Users 467
Grooves writes "Circuit City is offering a DVD transfer service that's sure to enrage the MPAA. For $10 for 1 DVD or $30 for 5, Circuit City will violate the DMCA and
rip commercial DVDs for users to put on their mobile players. From the article: 'This should be a viable market. Software and services are losing out to draconian digital rights management philosophies and anti-consumer technologies aimed at increasing revenues stemming from double-dipping--what I call the industry's penchant for charging twice for the same thing.' They note that fair use
backups of DVDs have not been tested in court because all of the attention is focused on the circumvention software itself." Update: 08/04 22:40 GMT by Z : Acererak writes "Red Herring reports that Circuit City isn't offering any DVD-to-DVD copying scheme. The Slashdotted sign was an isolated screwup."
Good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
It will be interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Quote from clerks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone have the numbers on whether or not circuit city can afford to stand its legal ground against the MPAA? I imagine they'll probally settle out of court such that Circuit City can make the copies, provided that they include the same copy-protection stuff on the copied DVD as was on the original. The stakes that Circuit City and the MPAA are gambling are frighteningly high, as they risk setting a legal precident that says that you can't bypass copy protection for your own fair-use rights. On the other hand, a precident the other way would be a deathknell to a lot of the provision of the DMCA.
Yes we will (Score:3, Interesting)
If they kill each other all the better.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Step 1: Rip DVDs, bring in lots of income
Step 2: Get sued by MPAA/Jack Valenti/Sony Pictures/Disney/somebody.
Step 3: Pay lawyers
Step 4: Get lots and lots of FREE publicity, building public empathy and support.
Step 5: ????
Step 6: Profit!
Re:good to see.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an interesting point. Does the DMCA specifically disallow the sale or distribution of tools that provide for a circumvention, or does it disallow the circumvention itself? If it is the former, then Circuit City is just providing a service that enables the fair use rights of the consumer.
Now, if the act of circumvention itself is illegal, then CC is up a creek without a legal paddle.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:5, Interesting)
The average consumer can't afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to get one of those licenses, but Circuit City could...
Oh, and yay for DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink!!!
Circuit City double-dipping too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Best Buy not the best anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahh but Best Buy isn't nearly as good as it used to be, higher prices, smaller selection, worse return policies. I gave up on Best Buy a few years ago anow now use Circuit City almost exclusively for my local (what I don't buy online) needs. Their order-online > store-pickup program is fantastic and their prices alsmost always match those of Best Buy exactly.
Do they actually break the DMCA ? (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, I am not sure I clearly understand the DMCA. If you play a DVD and shoot the tv with a camera, is that violating the DMCA ? If they legally have a CSS key to read dvds and just transfer them to another support, is that against the DMCA ? What does the DMCA precisely states ?
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:2, Interesting)
This is not allowed under our current copyright laws without explicit permission from the copyright holder.
Are current copyright laws f*cked up? You bet. Does that make it legal? Hell no.
Kinko's Rules (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Kinko's Rule" demonstrates how copyright is not transferable, even under fair use. Let's say I have a book I bought. My fair use includes the copyright to photocopy pages, an entire chapter, for my personal consumption. If I'm a teacher, that even includes giving copies of a chapter (though not the whole book) to, say, 30 people in a class I teach. I go to Kinko's; I walk up to a photocopier; I set it to 30 copies; I turn the pages through the chapter on the machine; I collect the 30 copies of the chapter; I pass them out to each person in my class. No problem - I have the copyright to use the book's content fairly that way.
But if I take that book to the Kinko's service desk, ask the Kinko's employee (or even just another customer with extra time on their hands) to copy the book for an otherwise identical usage scenario, I'm not allowed. Because the employee does not have the copyright to fairly use that book for anything (except maybe reading it as borrowed by a "friend"), because they did not obtain any copyrights by buying the book. The fair use copyrights I have on the book I bought are not transferable to another person - they are not contained in the book I physically pass to the employee, they are contained in the transaction of buying (and thereby owning) the book.
This rule is the same when I bring a CD or DVD to Kinko's. I could use their burner to copy them for myself. But not for distribution to other people, though fair use of audio and video recordings does allow me to lend a single copy to a "friend", though I'm not allowed to use my own copy while another copy is loaned out. The rule says I cannot leave my CD or DVD with someone else at Kinko's to copy for me. And of course that rule applies to Circuit City, too.
So how is Circuit City ripping these DVDs for users? In the last five years, several small companies started up to rip CDs for people, violating the Kinko's Rule. They were all told (I heard the warnings personally) by lawyers and copyright owners/"enthusiasts" that they were breaking the law, that their income would be siezed whenever a copyright owner wanted to sue them. That's the main reason why we haven't been able to have our media ripped from the physical media that traps so much value out of play: the small companies that always innovate fast ("entrepreneurs") have been stopped by legal intimidation.
Now Circuit City is doing it anyway. Will they be stopped by the Kinko's Rule, and kill the whole business for everyone, even those who have been getting away serving with the consumer demand "below the radar"? Or will they demonstrate (in court, perhaps) that the Kinko's Rule is out of business? Or will some kind of "big corporation" collusion between the RIAA/MPAA and Circuit City just leave them alone, while enforcing the Kinko's Rule on entrepreneurs, keeping them (us) from competing?
Re:DMCA is irrelevant here (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why isn't CleanFlicks allowed to do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
The legal argument against CleanFlicks and the resulting decision in favor of the movie industry focused more on the right of a artistic creator to see his/her work presented in its intended form, without manipulation by 3rd parties, and NOT an attack on the illegal distribution of movies.
Here are some pertinent quotes from the Defendant:
"Directors put their skill, craft and often years of hard work into the creation of a film," added Apted, whose own repertoire includes the 1999 James Bond adventure The World Is Not Enough and Gorillas in the Mist. "These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work...against unauthorized editing."
And from the case itself:
""[Moviemakers'] objective...is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection. Their business is illegitimate."
The service that Circuit City is providing is not analogous to that of Cleanflicks. They're not selling a modified version of the movie, nor are they selling ANYTHING. Instead, they're charging for the SERVICE of ripping a movie into a format that's capable of being played in a mobile player. Because they are circumventing CSS, they are breaking the DMCA. Therefore, Circuit City is breaking the law, but for different reasons than that of decision in the Cleanflicks case.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, but is Macrovision copy-prevention in meaning of the DMCA? Macrovision doesn't *prevent* copying, it allows low-quality copies to be made.
Does your right to make a copy (if any) depend on the quality of the copy?
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
The "reasonable use" is helping people transfer video from a DVD they own to a portable device. Sure the MPAA would like you to buy that movie again in DRM protected format for use on your portable device but how many people on the street are going to find that reasonable.
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:3, Interesting)
I have not seen a single CD copying program since 1998 which actually does respect these (and that one had a command-line argument to allow you to ignore them). The Disk Utility bundled with OS X (and dd, for that matter) can be used to 'circumvent' this protection, which works exactly as the Macrovision scheme you described.
As I remember from my reading of the DMCA, there is a key word; effective. You are prohibited from circumventing 'effective' copyright protection schemes. Setting a single bit, or putting a text file saying 'do not copy this' in the filesystem, is not effective and so is not protected under the DMCA.
Re:good to see.. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's too naked. What they're doing is illegal. They can't just pay someone off without making it blatantly clear that the DMCA is a tax-generating system for the MPAA et al. And, more basically, they can't just pay someone to break a law. US law doesn't (yet) work that way, even though we treat it as if it does. To the best of my knowledge, they're violating a federal law, which means it's a felony. (I may be wrong: this is just what I've been told.) Either the law goes or they do.
Make no mistake: I think it's a cool idea and if publicized will make a lot of waves when people think "huh, gee, that makes sense: everyone should be able to do that." If it gets publicized before it gets shut down, it's very very bad press for the MPAA. But I don't believe that it will actually happen.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Asbestos removal. You're free to rip out asbestos tiles, insulation, refractories, what have you, in your home, because it's your home and one assumes you'll be doing it once and then it'll be gone. However, you cannot legally hire a service to do it because there are OSHA laws about asbestos removal and companies are not allowed to let their employees have repeated exposure to asbestos-containing products. I know that's an edge case and not what you're talking about, but I've been told that it's actually illegal to write a contract for commercial asbestos removal (and I was told that by a company I called asking if they'd do it, so I figure they'd know.)
Re:countdown (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because I won't let him *do* that, I'm a monopoly?
Wow.
How *does* a band or artist or actor make money in your world? Or should they all just starve?
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:3, Interesting)
It is *illegal* to transform *any* copyrighted work and resell it. It *is* legal to sell the original.
The Copyright Act grants five rights to a copyright owner, which are described in more detail below.
* the right to reproduce the copyrighted work;
* the right to prepare derivative works based upon the work;
* the right to distribute copies of the work to the public;
* the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly; and
* the right to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The rights are not without limit, however, as they are specifically limited by "fair use" and several other specific limitations set forth in the Copyright Act
Here's the clincher:
a derivative work is
a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.
What CC is doing is creating a derivative. Which, as stated above, is the *sole* and *exclusive* right of the copyright holder.
Also, regarding fair use::
four factors are to be considered in order to determine whether a specific action is to be considered a "fair use." These factors are as follows:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Make special note of item #1. Note, it does *not* make any mention regarding 'personal' use.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)