FCC ruling

[zijital]

Court precedent in the US allows for consumers to space and time shift their media for private use only which means making a back-up copy of a DVD or ripping a CD to put on your iPod is allowed under current copyright laws. It is the DMCA that makes breaking, by-passing, reverse engineering, etc. of DRM illegal. Unfortunately the courts in the US have so far sided w/the DMCA and allowed 20yrs of prior rulings to go up in smoke.

Thanks adkimery to bring this up. I'm surprised that it took until page 4 for this to come up.

In my mind, Sony v Universal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_v._Universal), is a court case that shaped my generation & changed our culture. If this case had gone another way there would be no such thing as VCRs, LDs, DVDs, DVRs, iPods, etc.

I think that copyright holders should protect their property, but I don't think they should be able to infringe on people's ability to "time-shift".

It is a delicate balance & a slippery slope.

-edit-

Reading more about this ruling I'm more apposed to it. We've lost balance & consumers are slipping down the slope. When SOC makes it possible to disable features on a home entertainment system, there should be more alarm bells going off.

There are good ways & bad ways to deal with people breaking the law, & to me, this isn't a good way. If there is a problem with people spitting gum on the ground, fine anyone you catch spitting their gum, don't cut off the tongue of every person purchasing a pack of gum.

 

[hawaj]

I dont know how in analog, but everything what you can see or hear on computer monitor can be directly recorded (ie. without camera and mic). So almost all technologies which are trying to prevent from it makes mostly big problems to the end users who pay for that contet and that is always quite annoying for them.

 

[TwistedLincoln]

You are looking at this backwards. The owner of the IP controls the rights to his/her property. The only rights others have to said property are those granted to them by the IP's owner. When you buy a DVD you aren't giving up any rights because you have no inherent rights to what's on the DVD in the first place.

Wrong. The owner of the physical item has the right to control the property that they just purchased. The person who created it gave up their right to control it when they decided to sell it. If I buy a chair from a craftsman, he has no right to tell me who can sit it in or for how long, despite the fact that he created it. It is no different with other media.

I have no problem with restrictions on distributing copies of software, movies, etc. Because in that case you are going beyond the physical product that you bought and are now dealing with making duplicates of the abstract work itself, not the physical medium. But as far as the physical product is concerned, you should be able to use it as you please as long as you don't distribute copies.

(Of course I am asserting my opinion here, not a legal opinion. Obviously the law currently says otherwise despite my views.)

Books for sale on Amazon don't have fine print related to plagiarism so I guess that means I can copy passages from them and pass them off as my own?

Again, I'm talking about use, not distribution. I'm not saying claiming that you created something that someone else did is okay. I'm saying that buying a CD or movie is no different in my view than buying anything else from a store, either online or offline.

Hmmm. next time you mortgage your house to produce content, I wonder if you'll feel god about people giving away lots of free copies of your content, robbing you of legitimate customers. Do you create content that you expect to make a living from? My guess is no, you don't.

I dare you to find a single post of mine in the five years on this forum (or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter) where I've advocated giving away unauthorized copies of anything. I have never suggested that. What I am saying is that if I do the right thing and legally purchase your content, you have no right to tell me how, when, or for what duration I can USE it. Notice the emphasis on USE. Not distribute. Two totally different issues.

And no, I don't make a living making content alone (although I do that also). I make most of my income selling products and services. And even though it would certainly make me more money, I would never attempt to tell one of my customers that they could only use something I've sold them for non-commerical purposes, otherwise they have to pay extra. Nor would I ever sell anything with a dial-home device that would only operate if the customer called me up first for a security code. Once I sell someone something, it is theirs. I expect no less when I make purchases of my own.

 

[TwistedLincoln]

There are good ways & bad ways to deal with people breaking the law, & to me, this isn't a good way. If there is a problem with people spitting gum on the ground, fine anyone you catch spitting their gum, don't cut off the tongue of every person purchasing a pack of gum.

YES! That's exactly my point. I'm tired of being called the bad guy for not wanting to be punished with DRM because somebody else decided to bootleg something, even though I did the right thing and bought it legally.

To continue your analogy a bit: I'm tired of hearing the sidewalk owner tell me to learn sign language and not whine about my missing tongue because he's tired of picking up other people's gum.

 

[adkimery]

Wrong. The owner of the physical item has the right to control the property that they just purchased. The person who created it gave up their right to control it when they decided to sell it. If I buy a chair from a craftsman, he has no right to tell me who can sit it in or for how long, despite the fact that he created it. It is no different with other media.

No, I'm not wrong and I am talking about the *Intellectual Property* (the music, the movie, the novel, etc.,) not the medium it resides on. If you buy a copy of Green Day's latest CD you do not have the right to use the songs, the intellectual property, on that CD anyway you see fit. If you want to glue the CD itself to your ceiling or burn it w/a lighter knock yourself out as nobody is going to stop you. Well, someone might stop you from burning it depending on where you are doing it (like in the middle of the mall) but that's something different entirely.


-Andrew