What happened to the DVD Decryptor Gone thread?

[dblaine2]

I assume they will go after DVD Shrink and others now too.

[malore]

Originally Posted by dblaine2

I assume they will go after DVD Shrink and others now too.

Possibly, but one comment I read seemed to indicate that the crack down on DVD Decryptor was in response to something recently added to DVD Decryptor.

[eobiont]

There are pleanty things that you can't do in your own house with the products you buy. Buying a DVD doesn't give you license to have people over and charge to watch the DVD. I've heard stories of people splitting PPV charges getting in trouble. You can't buy beer and then sell it to your "friends" in your own house.

Of course no one gets busted on these laws unless they get caught, and you don't get caught doing things like this until you are in flagrant violation. The problem is that as technology improves, it is easier and easier to catch scofflaw violations of these laws.

Piracy is a big problem in this country. I'm sure (I hope) when congress votes on these laws they are thinking of tables of pirated DVDs for sale in Times Square. They have to be careful in writing the laws so that the bad guys can't weasle their way out of thier blatent piracy. In doing so they leave the door open to prosecute casual piracy. Which I agree, should be illegal, but not to the degree to which it is currently being pursued. It seems like there is a disconnect between the law's intent and how it is prosecuted. I hate to think that the intention of the DMCA was to put people that copy a CD for a friend in jail or be fined many thousands of dollars, and if it was the intent, those congress people that enacted such a law should be removed from power at the earliest opportunity.

People who sell encrypted "protected works" should be made to have replacment programs that will replace damaged media for a nominal fee. And such replacements should be provided for the expected lifetime of the media on whch the work is delivered. 25-50 years from the time of purchase for DVDs. I'm thinking no more than $5. For me, this would be an entirely reasonable compromise. Unless that is added into the legislation, I don;t think there is any option but to offer some exception for fair use.

ok, I'm rambling.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by eobiont

Piracy is a big problem in this country. I'm sure (I hope) when congress votes on these laws they are thinking of tables of pirated DVDs for sale in Times Square.

The problem is, piracy is already illegal, things like the DMCA, and all this DRM crap, do nothing to stop commercial piracy (like Times Square), it only hurts the legitimate customers.

[eobiont]

Well, depends on which lobby I guess.

When we see gun violence increase, and want to have stricter gun legistlation, congess and the president say that we have enough legislation, and simple need to do a better job of enforcement.

When piracy increases, we need more legislation to enforce copyright law.

Our house representative has actually been quite amiable when I have written him on this issue and the issue of internet radio broadcasts. You should write to him too. Even though he is a republican't, he seems otherwise pretty reasonable on these issues.

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by eobiont

People who sell encrypted "protected works" should be made to have replacment programs that will replace damaged media for a nominal fee. And such replacements should be provided for the expected lifetime of the media on whch the work is delivered. 25-50 years from the time of purchase for DVDs. I'm thinking no more than $5. For me, this would be an entirely reasonable compromise. Unless that is added into the legislation, I don;t think there is any option but to offer some exception for fair use.

I can agree with this to an extent. I would be willing to accept their copy protection if they would be willing to replace the DVD or CD for me for what it would cost me to restore it from a backup myself, so ~ 50 cents. $5 is silly, that's 1/3 the price of the dvd anyway, what's the point?

[silkshadow]

My philosophy is simple. If you want to block me from being able to get full use out of my legally purchased product, then you must provide me with every possible use I can get out of the product an alternate way. For DVDs this would mean the ability to access a version of the DVD i bought which can be compressed to be able to run on my Palm pilot (or whatever) at low resolutions and small file size, the ability to archive my DVD with a high quality compression codec, the ability to cut clips out of the DVD for use in my personal viewing (I love cuting out the best fight scenes from movies and putting them into one big fight movie), etc. Since I am not seeing any of this, then the price for my DVD must be cut in, at least, half or I will choose never to buy a DVD from a distributor again.

Luckly, I have an alternative DVD purchasing option where I live and the DVDs come unencrypted. I haven't had to decrypt a DVD since I moved here (which, ironically, makes my electronic usage of the product legal in the US). This is true in almost all of Asia, I believe. As I have posted previously, its only you who live in the West who are being constantly denied electronic freedom by huge corporations and your governments are helping them because these corporations have paid them handsomely to do so. It has come to the point where even just discussing the software that can do this must be deleted by Opus4. While it doesn't effect me directly anymore, I still send an annual contribution to the EFF, the sole voice of the consumer. Everyone who cares about thess issues should, at the least, be doing so as well.

[mostlyfodder]

i never saw the original dvd decriptor thread, but i think any intelligent discussion should be allowed to flourish. but it's their company, their choice. too bad for everyone...

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mostlyfodder

i never saw the original dvd decriptor thread, but i think any intelligent discussion should be allowed to flourish.

There's a difference between discussing the concept that these programs are being prohibited and closed down (this thread) vs. discussing what to use to break the encryption and where to find them because one app is no longer available (the removed thread).

- Andy

[silkshadow]

Just to be clear, I didn't mean any criticism of SageTV forum's policy on this. I was reffering to the sad fact that such a policy has to be in place to begin with.

[Crazedz]

Wasn't the Home entertainment and protection bill that GW signed into law supposed to address this kind of issue?

What i read in that is that at least once it takes effect it is then legal to copy and edit a legaly owned DVD for content and that as long as it's for your own personal use which would i belive also apply to encrypted DVD's.

That act also makes it ilegal to distribute new releases in theaters over things like the internet as many have done with films that just came out theirby making it easier for the entertainment industry to go after though who do it. Not that they don't have the right to now or that they couldn't before.

But I also agree that the content providers need to if theyre going to prevent people from making backup copies of movies music and such that they own then they should provide additional copies for thoughs things that are so fragile as DVD's, CD's and tapes at a very reasonable cost. For thoughs who say it should be .50$ thats way to unreasonable considering shipping costs and distributers that they may have to go to for the copy to send and such things like that that increase the costs. Otherwise they would end up loosing large sums of money on providing backups to everybody that has these scratched and damaged media. Plus the costs of putting an infrastructure in place to handle and deal with these cases and the people that would be needed to do it. They would also need a way to make sure that the person getting the media replaced did infact legitimately own the item their requesting a new copy of as well as makeing sure they got the scratched bad or defective orriginal media back from them to ensure they aren't using this as a means to get extra copies to give or sell to others.

So this wouldn't be a straightforward cut and dry issue their are several factors involved that would raise the costs of providing such a service to legitimate owners of the media. So a price of $5 is under these conditions very reasonable and may in fact be to low but thats something that would have to be looked into to determine a proper price for this.

A better way of handling content like this would be to develop an affordable storage media that would truely be more indistructable or one that things like scratches and other everyday mormal things wouldn't compromise the content or degrade it in any way. But such a media doesn't seam to be avalible or practical in terms of cost and that at this time.

Their are other options which i won't get into like monthly pay for unlimited access to music and that as well as pay to play services for movies and that which people have their own views on. But for thoughs who have or want to own the actual DVD or CD of the show or music such a service isn't and option for them but content providers would obviously love the pay service route.

Whatever happened though to public domain? It's gotten to be an almost unheard of term in the modern age with copyrights lasting for longer and longer periods. But if it wasn't for public domain thoughs like Disney wouldn't even have become what they are today yet Disney is one of thoughs who keeps trying theyre best to make sure that nothing ever falls into public domain again by constantly paying congress to extend copyright laws just so they can keep some rodent as their maskot.

Sorry had to throw that in but anyway things are much more complicated today than they were years ago and if the content providers and copyright owners want to make sure their copyrights and content are protected then they also have to make sure that they provide a means for the consumer to keep and protect their investments as well instead of trying to use it as a way to bilk more money from them to line their own pockets as they are trying to do now.

Things are definatly more complicated now because of rampent piracy and it does need to be addressed but the way the industry is going about it now is just to over the top and it's the consumers like us who suffer because of it.

[nielm]

There is a big difference between something being legal, and it being a *right* -- there is no *right* to fair use, it just makes home copying (if you manage to do it) legal.

The studios are still able to try their best from preventing you from doing it, and the DCMA makes it an offence to publish tools that allow you to break this prevention! Crazy stupid set of laws

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by dblaine2

I assume they will go after DVD Shrink and others now too.

Development was shut down on DVD Shrink a long time ago I think. The MPAA just can't get it removed from hosting companies that are using servers in India, Russia, and such. Despite what they would like to think US law has little to no impact on foreign nations. The DVD Decryptor developer was required to ask his direct mirrors from hosting it, but there are so many copies out there that it won't just disappear.

I remember seeing a blog post from the guy in Norway (was it norway) who developed DeCSS. The MPAA sent him a letter threatening legal action based on US law. His reply to them was that 'Norway is not a state in the United States of America'.

[Mahoney]

There is a big difference between something being legal, and it being a *right* -- there is no *right* to fair use, it just makes home copying (if you manage to do it) legal.

I'd say there's also a big difference between something being illegal and it being wrong.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Development was shut down on DVD Shrink a long time ago I think. The MPAA just can't get it removed from hosting companies that are using servers in India, Russia, and such. Despite what they would like to think US law has little to no impact on foreign nations. The DVD Decryptor developer was required to ask his direct mirrors from hosting it, but there are so many copies out there that it won't just disappear.

I remember seeing a blog post from the guy in Norway (was it norway) who developed DeCSS. The MPAA sent him a letter threatening legal action based on US law. His reply to them was that 'Norway is not a state in the United States of America'.

As far as the DVD Shrink thing, he actually develops the Nero Recode program now I believe, and that's why DVD Shrink's development stopped.

[Ken C]

Don't forget the old adage ... follow the money ... Yes, there are old laws on the book that protect copyrights, but most required the copyright holder to sue the offender in civil court. The new laws are criminal and get the law enforcement agencies to go after the bad guys. So, in essence, you are paying for it.

Also, civil courts can require the planitiff to prove harm. The movie industry would be hard pressed to do this, how much has Star Wars III made so far ? No such problem in criminal cases.

The polititians will eventually bend to the money.

So, we can have discussions on what's right, but it usually boils down to who has the most money and the movie industry has bunches of it.

It would be interesting to review this thread 10 years from now. Look back 10 years to get an idea how much things have changed.

I asked a friend who is married with 3 daughters what he spent a month on 'entertainment and communications', cable, cell phones, internet, etc. Ten years ago, he had land-line telephone and basic cable, about $25 a month, today, close to $200 a month, almost an order of magnitude.

Where are those rabbit ears ???

Ken C

[Crazedz]

Originally Posted by nielm

There is a big difference between something being legal, and it being a *right* -- there is no *right* to fair use, it just makes home copying (if you manage to do it) legal.

The studios are still able to try their best from preventing you from doing it, and the DCMA makes it an offence to publish tools that allow you to break this prevention! Crazy stupid set of laws

And you know thats the sad thing since it is fair use which makes copyright law constitutional and theirfore legal in the first place.