Copyright fight heats up Ruling against maker of DVD

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/21/04 | Benny Evangelista

[I_Love_My_Husband]

A San Francisco judge has ruled that a program that makes backup copies of DVD movies violates federal copyright laws, a victory for Hollywood that capped a week of multipronged attempts by record and movie companies to curb digital entertainment piracy.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Judge Susan Illston is a Bill Clinton appointee

[I_Love_My_Husband]

ping

[solitas]

I thought that if I bought a cd or dvd that it was _my_ prerogative to copy it for my own use (i.e. a backup original in case the played copy got damaged). As long as only ONE is played at a particular moment in time (either the original or a copy) no law is being broken. Correct?

[Abcdefg]

I think the judge just over ruled the Supreme Court's BetaMax decision.;^)

[Young Rhino]

The judge has rendered her decision. Now let her enforce it.

[MediaMole]

You can always use the freeware DVDshrink. IT works very well and if you already have Nero installed, will back up DVDs in one step. DVDshrink

[I_Love_My_Husband]

ping

[Terpfen]

"A San Francisco judge has ruled that a program that makes backup copies of DVD movies violates federal copyright laws, a victory for Hollywood that capped a week of multipronged attempts by record and movie companies to curb digital entertainment piracy."

Am I the only person left who knows about fair use laws? You're allowed to have one backup of the media you buy. How you obtain that backup isn't specified. The RIAA and MPAA going after P2P services amounts to the presumption of guilt, not innocence.

[mylife]

Thank god I got mine before they made it illegal
I can and do burn copies of anything I own.

LG super multi DVD drive GSA-4040B Burns anything including Playstation discs $129 at www.newegg.com

[Arkinsaw]

I thought that if I bought a cd or dvd that it was _my_ prerogative to copy it for my own use (i.e. a backup original in case the played copy got damaged). As long as only ONE is played at a particular moment in time (either the original or a copy) no law is being broken. Correct?

Incorrect, our glorious leader, the Grand Princess of California, has issued an imperial decree. The peasants shall not get uppity with the favored California elite and shall fork over for new copies of things they already own whenever the moviemakers shall so deem necessary.

[Salo]

You can get all sorts of great utils here at Doom9.

[Paul C. Jesup]

In other news, CSS dropped it's lawsuit about DeCSS DVD ripping a month ago. They admitted that the code had been free over the web for the last fours and that the secret was out.

[mylife]

Thanks for the link

[Cicero]

I haven't yet tried to get into this, but I gather that DVD X Copy may be the best of the copiers at the moment. In any case, what will happen is predictable. Corrupt judges may throw that company out of business, as they did earlier in the case of music copying, but other programs and other companies will spring up like weeds to take its place. No way that RIAA can block all of it.

And it IS legal to make a copy of a movie DVD for your own use. For instance, I commute, and I make use of three different computers over the course of each week. It would be useful for me to have copies of movies in several locations, and not to have to keep shuffling them around in my suitcase. I have done that in the past with computer games, and I might like to do it with movies. Why not?

[Paul C. Jesup]

Considering this is at the commercial level and not the private level, this case may have some merit. Anyway, DVDDecrypter is the best DVD Ripper I know of, you can download FREE off the web; just search Google for it.

If you're just ripping to copy a DVD, that program should solve your problems. Also, BSPlayer (no jokes please), which is free to download, and PowerDVD (comes with some DVD Readers/Burners) will both play Vob files without a problem.

If you want to compress it, I suggest you use GordianKnot bundled programs, VirtualDubMPEG2, LAME MP3 Codex, AC3 Codex (these are free to download) and convert them to Divx 5.1 codex (Divx Pro is $30.00 and there is a Spyware version and a just decoder version) with LAME MP3 audio. Divx Video can give you a near DVD quality are one fourth the file size. But if you want a free video codex, I recommend Xvid.

[Henrietta]

ping

[Prodigal Son]

Hollywood and the music industry are fighting a rear-guard action here. They have no hope of winning in the long run.

I've bought the same albums on LP, 8 Track, Cassette and now CD. The same thing- over and over. At some point, it's all going to be just data and there isn't going to be one physical medium through which the data is sold.

Same with DVDs. Everybody's done this. Created a video library with VHS. Now with DVD. Soon, there'll be a different standard. People are sick of this. Instead of replacing my library every few years because the tech changes, I would like to buy the DATA. Not the medium. The data. I could care less about little plastic discs. I want to purchase the data. That's what I'm paying for.

Hollywood and the music industry can try to go down this road of protecting the medium if they want- but they're going to lose in the end.

[gaijin]

marking.

[camas]

watch out they will be going after people that buy DVD+/-R OR RW dics next.

[giotto]

Now that computers come with DVD burners as standard equipment, perhaps it's time for Hollywood to consider changing their delivery method. Instead of selling movies for $20, they should sell the download for $.99. Then if someone makes an additional copy, it's a copyright violation and the laws could then be enforced. If someone wants a backup copy, it's another $.99, but the user can just pay for that copy and use the original download version. If he wants to sell his copy, he can sell it for $20 if he can find someone who will pay it, but he's already paid Hollywood the $.99 for that copy. He can then go back, using the original purchase record, and buy any number of additional copies at $.99 each, and turn it into a cottage industry. Each DVD or CD he creates will have a serial number tied to his purchase.

This way, everybody wins. Hollywood or RIAA gets paid, people get cheap movies, DVDR manufacturers make lots of money, and an entire industry of DVD-CD distributors, artists and manufacturers is born. People could get special artwork made for the labels and jewel cases. Stay at home moms could make a few bucks to pay some bills. It's the American way, which is why Hollywood and RIAA will never do it.