New Ruling Confirms Copying DVDs is Illegal - Page 4

To the folks stating that you will go to jail for ripping “your legally bought DVD/BD movies to your HDD disc array for your own personal use”

Puleeze give me a break – as long as you don’t distribute any of your media no one will go to jail for ripping their own discs. The assumption of the FBI knocking down your door and arresting you and the judicial system sentencing you to a prison term for backing up your discs is just plain silly.

It was right there in the OP . . .

The DVD Copy Control Association was able to argue that when a consumer purchases a DVD, they only have the rights to play that DVD. In essence this ruling shuts down the legal availability of software/hardware devices that allow you to copy a DVD onto hard drives.

They will not go after consumers. But they will go after the companies that make and sell the software and hardware that allows copying.

In effect they are saying you just rent the DVDs in which case they should provide you with free replacements if they ever become damaged.

It will be interesting to see how this ruling can be enforced with the fair use doctrine and associated personal use precedents in place. If the lawyers can't prove that the disc consumer profited at the disc maker's expense then they have nothing.
Edited by vincecooks - 11/3/12 at 3:24am

Yeah, I'd be willing to bet that there will *never* be a test case involving breaking encryption of DVDs/BDs. The MPAA or some other interested party/parties would have to bring suit that could demonstrate they have standing. To have standing, you need to make a plausible argument you have suffered injury. And it's far from clear they would prevail. So what's in it for them? If they lose, a precedent would be established and the provision would be a dead letter. The present uncertainty (deterrent) is probably better from their point of view.

Ha, speeding is illegal only if you are engaged in transportation. If you are traveling however......

Thanks to the guy the cleared up "the law us the law"

Now back on subject. As one poster said they want us to move to where we own nothing. Its a stretch but read up on agenda 21. You can see examples of this when you buy a car. You do NOT get a title but rather a certificate there of. This is why you need to register and inspect and insure it. You are co-owner. Same can be said with a house. You own the trees, the home and a few feet underground. But even after its all paid for it can be taken away if you do not pay your taxes. This folks has a term....and this ruling is just further advancement of that term. Welcome to the new amerika

Please elaborate.
As I understand it. copyrighted material is not included under fair use.
Home movies, yes, but not anything commercial. (again, as I understood it)

To paraphrase an old saying: When decrypting is outlawed, only the outlaws will decrypt.

Except that there's also part of the copyright law that says consumers can legally make backups. So I think these laws are in conflict and this still will need to be worked out in future court rulings. In addition, if we go back to the Sony case when Disney sued Sony for the first Beta VCR, the court ruled that since the VCR also had non-infringing uses (such as recording personal videos), it was a legal device. Disney lost the case and it's a good thing they did because it was home video that saved Disney during those years.

I would make the case that these copying devices also have non-infringing uses which means that the devices themselves are still legal even if the ruling states that copying a DVD is illegal.

Here's one that mentions another, from the Wiki page on the Audio Home Recording Act:

"Similarly, language in the RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia decision suggests a broader reading of the Section 1008 exemptions, providing blanket protection for "all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings" and equating the spaceshifting of audio with the fair use protections afforded home video recordings in Sony v. Universal Studios:

In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose – the facilitation of personal use..."

It's a bit murky but precedent is there, and some other countries are already being less draconian with their interpretation of fair use.

Even more hopeful are the interpretations offered by Fair dealing, which provides "limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, which is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations."
Edited by vincecooks - 11/3/12 at 12:08pm

I say they can kiss my ass. I shall continue to backup ALL my legally bought disc to a harddrive when I damn well please. I paid for them, they are MINE. I will do what I want with them as long as I am not selling them I feel I am not doing anything illegal.

If I want to backup my DVD or bluray because I wish to preserve my purchase that is MY choice.. Not theirs.

What is next with these idiots? Soon they will say NO ONE can buy movies anymore or own them because it's illegal. They will want us to rent them or stream them for a fee and we can't keep them. This seems pretty much where it's going in the future.

There seem to be plenty of folks OK with that.


Djoel

by tricking everyone into streaming services and VOD rentals there may be little opposition for them to do so

Let me remind everyone this is America and when it comes to America and the American way of business and justice that. “Our standards are so high we double them”

Programs like AnyDVD and DVDFab are in essence in the most harms way as software is responsible for the illegal decryption. AnyDVD is from the Virgin islands so probobly hard to prosecute but what about the makers of DVDFab and others?

DVDFab is based in China.

Dunno if it's the name of an individual or a company, but it's by Fengtao.

As we talk about the potential software that will be gone after.......I wonder what will be come of Makemkv? Doesn't that program get around the decryption on DVD's and Blu rays? People with HTPC's are gonna get pi$$ed......

Toys

I haven't read all the responses, but this thread is the usual thing, blaming the victim mostly. If consumers hadn't just almost wholesale taken a huge piss on legality and morality, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. And, if there weren't companies out there making a lot of money aiding that process, we wouldn't be having it either probably. What always happens is that people who make IP try to protect themselves against companies making huge profits off their backs, but then that action gets turned into 'the MPAA/RIAA are evil and hate us and are trying to control our lives." It's the perfect scenario for the companies like Google, Comcast, etc... who have grown immensely at the cost of IP creators. They get protected by almost everyone, because almost everyone either wants to keep stealing, or get incensed because they feel like they are somehow being controlled, most likely both. Look at the comments in so many Youtube videos that have had copyright issues. No one is upset that Google is bringing in huge numbers of eyes that they can sell for profit, because all those people want to keep getting stuff for free. And they react violently against the people who are actually getting ripped off and have both the law and morality on their side.

Honestly, if you are ripping your own legally owned movies, you have no more chance of getting in trouble than of winning the lottery. No one is going to care. This is about companies making money off the backs of IP owners, and setting precendent for the future. We all know that probably the majority of those discs out there full of movies were gotten by ripping Netflix rentals or downloads, not by legal purchases. When lots of people break the law, those of us who feel like we ought to be trusted to do the right thing suffer. It's unfortunate, but the people causing it aren't the MPAA or RIAA, it's all those folks out there who are just stealing by the truckload with zero care for the consequences. It's expensive to protect one's stuff, and if it wasn't a do or die situation, there would be no reason to do it. But it really is that bad. The music industry has suffered horribly, and the movie industry would suffer even more because it costs a lot more to make each movie.

BTW, the standard comments about the cost of DVDs and such is missing the point. The cost of the media never had much to do with it really. The cost is in the contents. The fact that there's no plastic disc involved doesn't mean that it suddenly costs half as much to make a movie or an album. The price of music has dropped dramatically since CDs were released. They haven't tracked inflation at all really, and now are lower than every because a lot of that money was going to the B&M store that no longer exists. And of course Apple now basically takes a third of the revenues of the bulk of digital sales (which you probably listen to on the high margin device they also sold you and none of which goes back into funding new musical acts), but somehow they still get treated like heros.

Anyway, I just can never quite get my head wrapped around the amount of hypocrisy and self-serving theories that always surround this issue. Yeh, it's convenient to rip movies. I do it because I donly have a player that will play off hard drive. But I realize that my convenience isn't more important than insuring the same rights that I would demand for myself if I were in their shoes. IP creators are having their rights pillaged on a wide scale, and it's not just huge multi-national companies who are suffering.


BTW, I doubt seriously that either the music or movie industries is doing this in any way to force people into a streaming model. Streaming models pay almost nothing. They couldn't begin to replace actual sales of music and movies. Every streaming service out there is basically struggling and they pay insanely small amounts to the people who make the IP that gets streamed. The music labels have tried to set up their own service to keep more of it in house, but I don't think it's really doing much better that anyone else's.

Having said that, most people would probably be quite happy with a streaming service, if they tried it. It's not like it's some kind of secret scheme being forced on people. But it suffers the same as legal sales. Why pay someone to download it when you can download it for free? The folks who are making the real money are the people who sell the bandwidth to steal it, the devices to store it after its stolen, or the advertisement dollars gained by having huge numbers of people come to see the stolen content they have available.
Edited by Dean Roddey - 11/4/12 at 6:58pm

I'm sure this ruling will really stop the problem. LoL! I've always looked at any kind of copying/ripping as illegal, just based on how gung-ho the industry is on downloading movies, games, sharing anything, etc...

That said, don't expect to see many people give a **** about this ruling. And don't expect to see decrypter programs disappearing.

I (mostly) sympathize with what Dean Roddey is saying above. IP theft is not regarded as stealing by many people. Many many people.

It's amazing the lengths some people will go to for free stuff. Exhibit A: "Cam" movies. All the annoyance of being there in the theater with none of the visual/audio quality. I can't imagine that results in any revenue loss to the IP holders. More debatable is the effect of "BDRip" torrent downloaders on revenue.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the rental ripper people. Yeah, revenue loss for the studios there, but I don't see how one could offer more than a wild guess as to how much.

For me, streaming is out of the question. There's just not enough bitrate. Maybe it's okay for most people, but I doubt most members here think so.

So I'm stuck with BD. We have 3 HDTVs and 3 standalone BD players in our home, and another TV and player in our future retirement home, just purchased. But that's not why I break encryption and backup my Blu-Rays. No, I despise long load times, forced firmware updates, trailers, and menus. And it's convenient to have most of my movies on external hard drives, which I can play directly on my TV. (BTW, if anyone out there says that makes me lazy, I have a question: Do you use remotes? Lazy bum.)

So here's where we part ways. I think the people who develop decrypters are offering a worthwhile service. A service that I can't categorically condemn, since I use it and feel justified doing so. They don't develop decrypters out of the kindness of their hearts, to be sure.

I'm really surprised that some people didn't already know this. Why do you think companies like Roxio don't make ripping software? Or why when a big movie comes to bluray it can take Slysoft and Fengtao a day or two to update AnyDVD and DVDFab? Even better yet, look where Slysoft and Fengtao are based. Far away from the FBI/CBP/DHS/etc etc.

Real (as in Real Player) tried selling DVD copying software. That didn't work out very well for them.

How is this any different than putting CD music onto an iPod?

A CD has no encryption that needs to be broken first. Thats specifically the problem. You are allowed to make a copy for personal use, but not allowed to break the encryption to do so.

Ok so I was right. non comercial copying is OK.
DVDs and blurays are not covered under this as the law is currently written since you will need to bypass any copy protection and it the bypassing of copy protection that is illegal (in the US)
If a DVD or Bluray did not have copy protection (of any type), it is legal to make copies of them.

OTA or cable signals already decoded by your STB can be DVR'd since that is a copy local to your authorized device.
However, you are not allowed to take that recording outside of the DVR unless the provider "transfers" or "checks out" the content to another authorized device.

By that logic, we should be able to record protected content from the analog outputs of any device in the dvd/blu-ray playback chain, then re-digitize that content onto our personal LAN-attached HDD for playback.

And by logical extension, to our own personal NAS-based cloud for remote viewing on an internet-connected portable playback device. But we all know logic doesn't apply here.

For CDs I think that the whole issue is sort of irrelevant, at least for legally owned media. The RIAA indicates on its web site, or it did for a long time and presumably still does, that they don't have any issues with people ripping their legally owned CDs to their own local home networks for non-shared, local access. No matter what the law, Any IP creator is able to provide for any excemptions they want to provide. LE isn't going to go anything unless the IP owners are complaining (they don't do much even when IP owners do complain for that matter.)

????? How do you figure? I get HD audio just fine from my Dune media player...

This is not a court ruling. It's a ruling from an office which has shown again and again that it can be bought. There will be a court case, then it will be decided one way or the other.

The worry isn't about the feds coming after consumers who don't distribute. That's not going to happen, duh. (Except possibly as an added charge against someone already going down for something else.) However, they will go after the publishers of the software. No they won't be able to go after them in their own countries. BUT, they will be able to go after US assets and bank accounts. They can make it very difficult for them to get payment for their product from anyone in the US. Will they fight in court, or will it not be worth the effort? As soon as the software stops getting updates, no more backups, at least of new movie releases.

The recording industry has fought, clawed, and bled trying to stop technology from moving forward for years. Even though it's driven the bulk of their profits. Sure, there's piracy. But there's also a lot of sales driven by new technology. I own hundreds of Bluray movies. The biggest reason I own these movies is I like having a video jukebox, where I can select movies off a wall of movie posters--and just watch the movie without 15 minutes of ads. Kids--even adult kids--and discs don't mix well. Not a worry for me when all of my $20-$30 discs are safely locked up. And yes, I can watch these movies with the exact same quality video and audio they come with on Bluray. Take this away from me and I am done buying movies. I'm a netflix subscriber as well, I will go back to just renting them from Netflix. I'm paying for that service anyway. I buy lots of CDs mainly because I can transfer them to mp3s and play them in my car. No, I won't be buying new music if you take that away from me. Well, OK, I'll buy some, but only a fraction of what I buy now. I buy many, many ebooks. But only because I can read them on whatever I like. I do not like Apples or Kindles or Nooks. Or their apps. Sorry, I don't. Right now I like Cool Reader. Tomorrow, that may change. Take that away from me and I'll stop buying ebooks too. Technology drives sales, it's amazing how many Ivy League Grads are really too stupid to figure that out after all of these years. Crappy content is what drives sales down. The recording industry needs to figure that out too.

I do not believe in piracy. It is wrong. Artists deserve to be paid for their efforts. Piracy is nothing more than stealing. Period. HOWEVER, I do believe that when I buy content, I should have the right to consume that content however I see fit. So long as I do not distribute that content, it is NOBODY'S business how I use it. In the end, that attitude means INCREASED profits for studios, They're just too stupid to see that crappy content is responsible for declining revenues. Every technological advancement in content consumption has resulted in massive profits for studios. There are simple ways to limit piracy, even though some piracy will always exist. But then, so will shoplifting and burglary and murder. It's not a perfect world.

For better or worse, we have just re-elected a Democrat administration. Will they fight for the rights of the people, or be bought off by stupid, greedy, businessmen? Their record so far is not good. This ruling never would have been issued if it was.

It's not at all clear that new technologies (of the sort we are talking about here) have increased the studio's profits. It's certainly the case that DVDs did up until it became easy to rip and upload them, because it was a vast improvement over the previous delivery format. And of course the studios didn't fight that, they backed it. Same for BluRay.

But the technology you are talking about, ripping software, it's very debatable whether that's been of benefit to them. The fact that you have a hard drive of legally purchased movies isn't really proof, it's just anecdotal and likely is more of the exception, not the rule. It's unfortunate that folks like us get caught in the crossfire, but it is what it is, and I don't think it's a case of the movie industry shooting itself in the foot. For every one of us there are probably a hundred who are using the same tools to steal the content. Even people who could easily afford to purchase the content are likely to just steal it these days.

Clearly a supply side approach would be nice, but that's not very doable, and as more and more P2P type systems proliferate there isn't a supply side anymore. The supply and the demand is all woven together, and the tools are designed as much as possible to obfuscate the illegal activity of the users, and to limit their liability if they get caught.

Actually I think you can do that if there isn't any additional protection used on that analog output.
But is that how you want to watch HD movies on your nice HT system just for the sake of "convenience"?
I don't think it is that much of a stretch to get up to load a disk if it guarantees me the best audio and video quality possible.
Otherwise if I am content with crap why bother with this hobby?

Cinavia seems to be the DRM that will make decryption programs irrelevant anyway.