Notice that he's also saying that it's legal to jailbreak a phone (it isn't, anymore,) and that the reason it was legal was an exemption to the DMCA (which is completely incorrect.)
Notice that the thing he's claiming is illegal is a link to a thing that's actually about a completely different topic - space shifting, ie they claim, taking the DVD, decoding it, then transferring that decoded version to another device.
Oh, and that place he's citing is also wrong. This isn't what the problem is in the eyes of the copyright office. Space shifting is perfectly legal, and is done on large consumer devices all the time. iTunes can do it, your Archos can do it, the SlingBox can do it, the high end TiVo can do it, I think the Hopper might be able to, et cetera.
Quoting the source he claims said this was illegal:
> "And the RIAA and the MPAA agree with you. In
> 2005, their lawyer (now the Solicitor General of
> the United States) assured the Supreme Court that
> “The record companies, my clients, have said, for
> some time now, and it’s been on their Website for
> some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a
> CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your
> computer, put it onto your iPod."
>
> Movie executives agree as well. Mitch Singer, the
> Chief Technology Officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment
> explained to author Robert Levine that the idea for
> the movie industry’s UltraViolet program evolved out
> of Singer’s own frustration with transferring movies
> between PCs in his home.
And, of course, the Fair Use clause of the copyright act makes it perfectly clear that you're allowed to do this as long as you aren't transmitting it to other people. Have fun. Go nuts.
There was a point at which it was, briefly, illegal to decode DVDs under Linux, but it had nothing to do with any of this, and it's long since undone. What was actually going on was that the MP3 decoder is under patent by Fraunhofer AG, and back in the mid-1990s, before most people understood what Linux was, but when MP3 players were starting to become popular, Fraunhofer started to assert their patent to take money from device manufacturers.
A few MP3 makers protested that they were using the MP3 stuff built into Linux, and as such they weren't the ones using the tech, Linux was, and Fraunhofer ought to go after Linux. Fraunhofer fell for this, and in response, the community removed MP3 stuff to insulate itself from legal nonsense. A couple months later Fraunhofer figured out what Linux was, and issued a free use license like decent people, but the community was so long since neckbearded out over the topic that they never put any of it back in.
And then the legends of what was going on began.
This is why you don't take legal advice from random programmers on the internet.
This is a bunch of moral panic over a misunderstanding of the copyright system. There's absolutely no reason that it's illegal to watch a DVD in America. This just isn't true at all.
> The court decided that RealDVD is primarily designed or produced to circumvent CSS technology. In particular, the court found that the removal of crucial CSS technology in DVD drive-locking, secure storage of content keys on DVD, CSS authentication and CSS bus encryption during the playback of copied DVD content from the hard dive is a circumvention of CSS, even though they are not needed when playback from the hard drive. The court further explained that even though RealNetworks is a licensee of CSS technology, it does not shield RealNetworks from DMCA claim because the removal of CSS technology is a violation of DMCA.
> what made that software product illegal was that the court
No. Some laws are not enforced, but that doesn't make the regulated activity legal.
Someone who owns the original DVD and who wants to play it back (with no storage or format shifting) is breaking the law, because there's no authority from the copyrights holders.
> “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
Doesn't the authority of the copyright owner to descramble, decrypt, or otherwise bypass a technological measure extend to those who own a legal copy of the copyrighted work? That is, the rightsholder implicitly transfers the authority to decrypt the work when he issues a license to view the decrypted material, even if the medium of transfer stores the work in an encrypted format.
Under this interpretation, the authority would extend to viewing the material on any platform or player, but it wouldn't extend to saving a permanently decrypted copy (as you had a license to view the decrypted material, but not to keep a permanent decrypted copy) as in a rip of the DVD to one's hard drive.
I think that was unintentional. What a I read from DanBC's comment was that it was referring to the fact you stated the court found that it was for breaking the DVD, not for playing it back.. Just because the court said that the problem was something else, and not the playback, does not make the playback legal.
There is no authorised method to do this on Linux. Thus, anyone watching a DVD on Linux is circumventing an effective rights protection measure without authorisation. That's a crime in the US. (And similar actions are crimes in other countries too.)
No, you don't. You just need to decode it. What's illegal is leaving it decoded and redistributing it to others.
.
"There is no authorised method to do this on Linux."
One, there doesn't need to be.
Two, of course there is. Have you ever even tried to look?
.
"Thus, anyone watching a DVD on Linux is circumventing an effective rights protection"
Luckily, the Supreme Court, the RIAA, the MPAA, and the current Attorney General of the United States disagree with you, as does a casual familiarity with the law.
This is baffling. I really don't understand what you don't get about this.
To watch a DVD you need to decode the CSS.
You either have authorisation to do this, or you don't.
On Linux there is no authorised method to do this, and thus it is illegal.
Whether anyone is interested in prosecuting that illegal use is irrelevant to this discussion; and it's not been what you've claimed.
> What's illegal is leaving it decoded and redistributing it to others.
Let's examine this sentence.
i) circumventing the rights protection without authorisation is illegal.
ii) distributing copy right material without permissions is illegal
Thus, your sentence "What's illegal is leaving it decoded and redistributing it to others" covers 2 illegalities, the circumvention and the distribution.
> Two, of course there is. Have you ever even tried to look?
Yes, I have tried to look. I can't show you what I have not found. Have you tried to look? Feel free to provide a link to any rights holder anywhere giving authorisation.
"This is baffling. I really don't understand what you don't get about this."
The part where the Supreme Court and the US Attorney General say you're wrong is probably your first hint.
.
"To watch a DVD you need to decode the CSS."
Yep.
.
"You either have authorisation to do this, or you don't."
Authorization is a function of whether you paid for it.
.
"On Linux there is no authorised method to do this, and thus it is illegal."
1) There doesn't need to be. Authorization is not about what technology is in use.
2) There are actually Linux DVD players which have paid for their Fraunhofer license; I don't know why you keep claiming otherwise, when a simple Google search can straighten this out.
3) Again, authorization has nothing to do with what software you're using, and everything to do with whether you plonked five dollars on the till at Walmart. It's called the First Sale Doctrine.
.
"Whether anyone is interested in prosecuting that illegal use is irrelevant to this discussion"
Why do you keep bringing up something nobody else is talking about, then saying "but that's irrelevant?"
.
"i) circumventing the rights protection without authorisation is illegal."
Yes, this is the piece you keep repeating, like just saying it a bunch of extra times will change what authorization is.
.
"Thus, your sentence "What's illegal is leaving it decoded and redistributing it to others" covers 2 illegalities"
(sigh)
.
"Yes, I have tried to look"
Try harder. There's Fluendo, LinDVD, the codecs in Ubuntu have been licensed from Cyberlink since 2008, Boxee is legal, your TiVo (which is Linux) can give you a legal remote viewer as a .deb, et cetera.
You're too busy feeling correct to check the things being said to you.
.
"I really don't understand what you don't get about this."
Which is commonly the case for people who don't consider what it means that they think someone citing the Supreme Court and the US Attorney General is wrong about the law.
> Authorization is a function of whether you paid for it.
No it isn't. Authorisation is a function of whatever rights you're given, normally at the point of purchase but not necessarily.
> 2) There are actually Linux DVD players which have paid for their Fraunhofer license; I don't know why you keep claiming otherwise
I have never said that there are no Linux distributions that do not have a valid Fraunhofer licence. This is not about patent restrictions. We agreed that earlier in the thread, and I thought that you understood that point, but perhaps I was mistaken.
Taking just one example from your list: Boxee uses libdvdcss to circumvent the CSS encryption on DVDs and thus it's possibly breaking the DMCA. Again, just because no-one is going to prosecute doesn't make it lawful.
> someone citing the
None of the cites you've made have supported your various changing positions.
"What the DMCA says is that you can't strip and redistribute the content, not that you can't strip and watch it."
I don't think that's right. The DMCA forbids circumventing access controls, which would include decrypting a DVD; you have to decrypt a DVD to watch it as well as to copy it, so both potentially infringe the DMCA. At least, that seems to be confirmed by the FAQ at Chilling Effects[1], which is an advocacy site, but one run by lawyers. What's the source for your understanding of the DMCA?
"I don't think that's right. The DMCA forbids circumventing access controls, which would include decrypting a DVD"
I'm not sure where you get the idea that decoding a DVD is a form of circumventing access controls, since as an owner, access is controlled not for you, but for others.
This means you can't redistribute it, not that you can't watch it. Access control means keeping unauthorized people out, not keeping legitimate purchasers out.
Maybe you should ask a lawyer.
.
"At least, that seems to be confirmed by the FAQ at Chilling Effects[1]"
And dis-confirmed by the Supreme Court, the US Attorney General, the RIAA, the MPAA, et cetera.
I bet you can guess who I believe.
.
"an advocacy site, but one run by lawyers"
Lawyers who are ignoring black letter law to make their advocacy site seem important.
.
"What's the source for your understanding of the DMCA?"
> I'm not sure where you get the idea that decoding a DVD is a form of circumventing access controls, since as an owner, access is controlled not for you, but for others.
> This means you can't redistribute it, not that you can't watch it. Access control means keeping unauthorized people out, not keeping legitimate purchasers out.
DVDs are sometimes region encoded. Bob visits EU (from US) and buys a region-encoded DVD. He goes home, and tries to view this DVD, but it doesn't work on his machine. He looks online, and finds a hack to turn his machine from a region X machine into a region 0 ("all regions") machine.
Do you agree that Bob is breaking the law here? Specifically, the DMCA anti-circumvention bits of the law?
>"What's the source for your understanding of the DMCA?"
> Already cited.
I've tried to find it in the thread but I'm having trouble. Please, would you mind citing it again? Thanks.
>Notice that he's also saying that it's legal to jailbreak a phone (it isn't, anymore,) and that the reason it was legal was an exemption to the DMCA (which is completely incorrect.)
Jailbreaking != phone unlocking. Phone unlocking means unlocking the SIM to be able to use different carriers. The DMCA, strangely, doesn't let people unlock their SIM slot to use it with different carriers. (FWIW, this seems like a strange thing to make illegal, but it's what happened.)
Jailbreaking still is legal, and is unrelated to this DMCA exception.
The only citation you gave regards unlocking phones.
There is no jailbreaking exemption under DMCA. There doesn't need to be; it was never illegal in the first place, thanks to the first sale doctrine (in some states reinforced under the name "doctrine of first ownership.")
Don't stop reading at the first half of the sentence, please.
What that actually is about is the Copyright office saying "yes, you can edit your own phone to remove the restrictions that allow you to take it to another carrier, then take it to another carrier."
The decision is not about jailbreaking; it's about editing the software then putting it on a network. The issue was whether that was seen as a form of sharing of the edited contents. The decision says "of course it isn't, but we're going to put it in black letter law, so that Apple can't take this to some podunk court in Texas, and spin them until they don't understand the issue."
Jailbreaking has never been illegal in the United States.
If you just make it to the middle of that same paragraph: "Apple's request to define copyright law to include jailbreaking as a violation was denied as part of the 2009 DMCA rulemaking."
Please actually read the links you give when arguing. It's especially important because the links you're giving should be your first hints that you're wrong. However, you're so certain that you're right that you aren't even checking.
>If you just make it to the middle of that same paragraph: "Apple's request to define copyright law to include jailbreaking as a violation was denied as part of the 2009 DMCA rulemaking."
Wikipedia's wording isn't very clear (although it would be clearer if you didn't quote a single sentence out of context), but that sentence is talking about a DMCA exemption, not saying the Library of Congress made a statement that jailbreaking was never a violation. Here's the EFF discussing the jailbreaking exemption created by the 2009 DMCA rulemaking: https://www.eff.org/cases/2009-dmca-rulemaking
> but that sentence is talking about a DMCA exemption
No, that sentence, which talks about things that happened while the DMCA was being written, before it was a law at all, is not in fact talking about an exemption.
Apple tried to have this made illegal; they got laughed at.
And now you've posted a third link which agrees with me as evidence that you're right.
I think I'm going to stop responding now, because you're pretty obviously on auto-pilot.
What part of "the DMCA was passed in 1998" is a personal attack?
It's not like he said:
"Please actually read the links you give when arguing. It's especially important because the links you're giving should be your first hints that you're wrong. However, you're so certain that you're right that you aren't even checking."
OR
"I think I'm going to stop responding now, because you're pretty obviously on auto-pilot."
"What part of "the DMCA was passed in 1998" is a personal attack?"
The part where he says projecting or trolling. I guess I have a pretty similar reaction to you, where when I say I'm walking away because he's not listening to me, you infer mental illness.
Sometimes it's best to keep it a little calmer. Someone doesn't have to be mentally ill to walk away from someone accusing them of being a troll.
I hope you'll consider whether that phrasing was actually appropriate. Please have a good day.
> Notice that he's also saying that it's legal to jailbreak a phone (it isn't, anymore,)
Except that it is (in the US at least, the country that is the subject of this article). Carrier unlocking on newly purchased locked phones is no longer legal in the US, which may be what you were thinking of, but he addresses this in the paragraph following the one you cited:
"As of January, it’s not legal to unlock your phone without the permission of the carrier that you bought it from, assuming they locked it in the first place."
> and that the reason it was legal was an exemption to the DMCA (which is completely incorrect.)
"the U.S. Copyright Office explicitly recognized an exemption to the DMCA to permit jailbreaking in order to allow iPhone owners to use their phones with applications that are not available from Apple's store"[1]
> This is why you don't take legal advice from random programmers on the internet.
> And, of course, the Fair Use clause of the copyright act makes it perfectly clear that you're allowed to do this as long as you aren't transmitting it to other people. Have fun. Go nuts.
Absolutely wrong. Nothing about fair use is perfectly clear. Fair use is a guide for courts to determine if the individual case fits within fair use.
The whole outrage over the DMCA is that it can prevent fair use, because fair use doesn't allow circumventing the DMCA.
The carriers claim it is illegal, and there is no longer a DMCA exemption stating that it is not a violation of the DMCA.
That does not make it illegal to unlock a phone. Is there any case law supporting the notion that unlocking a phone actually is a DMCA violation, or just the carriers claiming that it is (possibly in settled lawsuits)?
This EFF article on the state of DMCA and cell phone unlocking does not mention any case law validating the idea that unlocking is actually a violation: https://www.eff.org/is-it-illegal-to-unlock-a-phone
It does cite case law that points in the direction that the DMCA is only triggered when the lock protects a creative work, which cell phone access may not be. Considering how carefully the EFF tracks these things, if there was case law supporting the carriers' (and possibly executive branch's) position, they would mention it.
What the DMCA says is that you can't strip and redistribute the content, not that you can't strip and watch it. This is an old false stalking horse.
And even if this is correct, this wouldn't make you a criminal; since nobody knows, this does not rise to the level of intent.
Notice how if this was true, people would be making a fortune going after TiVo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Panic
Notice that he's also saying that it's legal to jailbreak a phone (it isn't, anymore,) and that the reason it was legal was an exemption to the DMCA (which is completely incorrect.)
Notice that the thing he's claiming is illegal is a link to a thing that's actually about a completely different topic - space shifting, ie they claim, taking the DVD, decoding it, then transferring that decoded version to another device.
Oh, and that place he's citing is also wrong. This isn't what the problem is in the eyes of the copyright office. Space shifting is perfectly legal, and is done on large consumer devices all the time. iTunes can do it, your Archos can do it, the SlingBox can do it, the high end TiVo can do it, I think the Hopper might be able to, et cetera.
Quoting the source he claims said this was illegal:
> "And the RIAA and the MPAA agree with you. In > 2005, their lawyer (now the Solicitor General of > the United States) assured the Supreme Court that > “The record companies, my clients, have said, for > some time now, and it’s been on their Website for > some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a > CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your > computer, put it onto your iPod." > > Movie executives agree as well. Mitch Singer, the > Chief Technology Officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment > explained to author Robert Levine that the idea for > the movie industry’s UltraViolet program evolved out > of Singer’s own frustration with transferring movies > between PCs in his home.
And, of course, the Fair Use clause of the copyright act makes it perfectly clear that you're allowed to do this as long as you aren't transmitting it to other people. Have fun. Go nuts.
There was a point at which it was, briefly, illegal to decode DVDs under Linux, but it had nothing to do with any of this, and it's long since undone. What was actually going on was that the MP3 decoder is under patent by Fraunhofer AG, and back in the mid-1990s, before most people understood what Linux was, but when MP3 players were starting to become popular, Fraunhofer started to assert their patent to take money from device manufacturers.
A few MP3 makers protested that they were using the MP3 stuff built into Linux, and as such they weren't the ones using the tech, Linux was, and Fraunhofer ought to go after Linux. Fraunhofer fell for this, and in response, the community removed MP3 stuff to insulate itself from legal nonsense. A couple months later Fraunhofer figured out what Linux was, and issued a free use license like decent people, but the community was so long since neckbearded out over the topic that they never put any of it back in.
And then the legends of what was going on began.
This is why you don't take legal advice from random programmers on the internet.
This is a bunch of moral panic over a misunderstanding of the copyright system. There's absolutely no reason that it's illegal to watch a DVD in America. This just isn't true at all.