[POLL] In your opinion is it stealing to back up licensed material for personal use?

[RightHere]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
RightHere, you and people like you are, seemingly, brainwashed by a socio-economic system which puts profit above anything else.

I haven't been brainwashed. Do you feel that people that produce copyrighted works should or should not be fairly compensated for them?

The philosophy you are using is the perfect embodiment of Marshall McLuhan's "The Media Is The Message" concept, taken to extreme by postmodern capitalists, who see everything as a product - i.e. films are considered a product, like furniture.

Well, I got news for you. Films are also ART. And so is music. Art is more than a product. Art needs to be disseminated among the masses, because the masses need culture and education. And these things, my friend, should always be free and accessible by everyone.

Most of the crap I've seen in theaters or on TV over the last few years can hardly be called "art". But I guess I can play along. Art does not need to be disseminated. It's up to the person that created the art to decide what they want to do with it. They can leave it in their basement, share it with friends, or sell it to someone. At the last point, it becomes a product. I don't see what's wrong with thinking of it this way. That doesn't change the content. You can still call it art if you want to. I still do.

These laws you frantically defend are crooked and in any case (like the DMCA,) resumed to your country's political system, and are a by-product of the industry lobbying the politicians.

And if you don't like the law, go do something to get it changed. Stealing art isn't justified. I'm not a fan of the DMCA either. But right now it's the law, so I respect it.

You ever hang a reproduction of a painting on your wall? If the artist is still alive, you are, actually, breaching copyright.

I don't believe that to be true. These reproductions are typically licensed from the artist. But I don't care, since that's not what I was discussing.

If your dog eats the cover of a CD, and you want to photocopy the cover from a friend, the people at Kinko's will give you hell, because you're violating copyright. As absurd at it seems, that's the case. So why is backing up a DVD or CD any "more" illegal?

I think you just switched sides of the argument. This is exactly what I'm saying.

If you have a rare book, out of print and very expensive, do you still read it, or prefer to make a copy and read it instead? These "degrees" of law applicability are just as morally vague and disgusting as the practices they pretend to fight against.

I don't pretend to know all of the ins and outs of copyright law. I know a few specific things because I've done some investigation. I believe in this case that you would still be violating the copyright since you are not authorized to make a copy of the book. But again I don't really care. I'm talking about copying DVD's, and you have agreed that this is illegal. Thanks for the support!

And remember one more thing: the argument according to which "artists lose money and are not encoraged to produce anymore" is a fallacy. In the States, movies cover their expenses and make nice profits during the theatrical run. There are very few cases when they don't break even, at least, and that's extreme (when they are really crappy). Home video is a mere afterthought, and it's pure profit, icing on the cake. It's Europe and the rest of the world who should be worried about not making enough profits, and yet these countries are not adopting laws as stupid as the DMCA.

Right. There are no costs associated with creating the DVD, putting the special features together, producing the cover art or creating an ad campaign around the release of the DVD. Sure. Let's hear from the experts on this. I'm sure I'll be crucified for posting a quote from the MPAA, but here goes:
"Contrary to popular belief that moviemaking is always profitable, in actuality, only one in ten films ever retrieves its investment from domestic exhibition. In fact, four out of ten movies never recoup the original investment. In 2000, the average major studio film cost $55 million to produce with an extra $27 million to advertise and market, a total cost of over $80 million per film."Linky
Not really just icing on the cake.

*edit* DeCSS was a response to DVD copy protection's inability to work on Linux, open-source and freeware - which, in the end, amounts to a nice case of double-standards, when competition and creativity are stifled by big money. I'm sure Microsoft was very happy with the whole affair.

I'm not going to change this into a discussion on Linux.

 

[The Sauce]

Oh this is so pointless. You are clearly still in the "concrete" (5-7 year old) stage of reasoning. Everything is black and white to you eh? Ever go over the speed limit? How come you didn't stop at the nearest police station and turn yourself in and demand a ticket and points? I guess that makes you as bad as a drug dealer too then. You filthy LAW BREAKER!

 

[RightHere]

Originally posted by: Snatchface
Oh this is so pointless. You are clearly still in the "concrete" (5-7 year old) stage of reasoning. Everything is black and white to you eh? Ever go over the speed limit? How come you didn't stop at the nearest police station and turn yourself in and demand a ticket and points? I guess that makes you as bad as a drug dealer too then. You filthy LAW BREAKER!

It's pointless because you keep changing the freaking discussion topic! I'm not talking about the speed limit, or making copies of songs on CD's. You have failed to successfully argue why you feel you have the right to make copies of your DVD's. "Because I don't think it's illegal" is the best you can muster. You claim that the majority of American's don't believe this law. In reality, an incredibly small number of people on AT don't believe in this law. Then again, this poll has been so flawed from the start that it's hardly foolproof data. Don't get me wrong...I believe the poll would still go against me even if you did it right from the start. But it wouldn't have been such a big difference of opinion.

It's "pointless" because you have nothing to stand on. You admitted that most people obey the law. So you know I'm right.

 

[sxr7171]

I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue.

I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

 

[Kaervak]

Originally posted by: sxr7171
I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue.

I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

It's legal with a CD, for the time being anyway

, unfortunately it's not legal with DVD's. And that needs to be changed. I make backup copies of my CD's so I can let the CD-R get trashed and keep the original in prefect condition, if I had a DVD burner, I'd do the same with my DVD's. All it would take to make it legal would be five little words, "Unless for personal archival purposes" That's all it would take and the studios can still go after the pirates and not criminilize their customers.

 

[sxr7171]

Well, according to this article: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33716-2,00.html, basically we are in a transition phase where the DMCA has taken away fair use rights in some cases. Fair use was a compromise between first amendment rights to free speech and the rights of copyright holders to be rewarded for their creative and valuable work. Both side of that balance have been respected and need to be respected, and the courts and congress have already seen that. With DMCA, we have not balanced the rights of both stakeholders, and as the article says a correction is needed and will happen naturally sooner or later.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Kaervak

Originally posted by: sxr7171
I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue.

I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

It's legal with a CD, for the time being anyway

, unfortunately it's not legal with DVD's. And that needs to be changed. I make backup copies of my CD's so I can let the CD-R get trashed and keep the original in prefect condition, if I had a DVD burner, I'd do the same with my DVD's. All it would take to make it legal would be five little words, "Unless for personal archival purposes" That's all it would take and the studios can still go after the pirates and not criminilize their customers.

it is legal with a DVD to just you can't do it. If you copy the DVD with out removing the encryption then you didn't break any law. But you can't do that because you can't buy blank DVD's because a the key comes set already. Oh and you can't decrepty the DVD or you run into the DMCA.

 

[Kaervak]

Originally posted by: Spencer278
it is legal with a DVD to just you can't do it. If you copy the DVD with out removing the encryption then you didn't break any law. But you can't do that because you can't buy blank DVD's because a the key comes set already. Oh and you can't decrepty the DVD or you run into the DMCA.

Very true. I Just haven't seen a way to copy a DVD unless you decrypt it, so it's essentially illegal regardless. Now if somehow a program came out that could copy a DVD without decrypting it, I'm sure hollowood would go apesh!t.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: Kaervak

Originally posted by: sxr7171 I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue. I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

It's legal with a CD, for the time being anyway

, unfortunately it's not legal with DVD's. And that needs to be changed. I make backup copies of my CD's so I can let the CD-R get trashed and keep the original in prefect condition, if I had a DVD burner, I'd do the same with my DVD's. All it would take to make it legal would be five little words, "Unless for personal archival purposes" That's all it would take and the studios can still go after the pirates and not criminilize their customers.

it is legal with a DVD to just you can't do it. If you copy the DVD with out removing the encryption then you didn't break any law. But you can't do that because you can't buy blank DVD's because a the key comes set already. Oh and you can't decrepty the DVD or you run into the DMCA.

In other words the DMCA has gone way too far and has not properly taken into consideration how to preserve rights on both sides that previously existed. In other words the DMCA has gone too far and a correction is due soon.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: Kaervak

Originally posted by: sxr7171 I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue. I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

It's legal with a CD, for the time being anyway

, unfortunately it's not legal with DVD's. And that needs to be changed. I make backup copies of my CD's so I can let the CD-R get trashed and keep the original in prefect condition, if I had a DVD burner, I'd do the same with my DVD's. All it would take to make it legal would be five little words, "Unless for personal archival purposes" That's all it would take and the studios can still go after the pirates and not criminilize their customers.

it is legal with a DVD to just you can't do it. If you copy the DVD with out removing the encryption then you didn't break any law. But you can't do that because you can't buy blank DVD's because a the key comes set already. Oh and you can't decrepty the DVD or you run into the DMCA.

In other words the DMCA has gone way too far and has not properly taken into consideration how to preserve rights on both sides that previously existed. In other words the DMCA has gone too far and a correction is due soon.

If you ask the other side they will say it didn't go far enough because for most part it DMCA hasn't done anything to reduce copying of DVD's.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: Spencer278

Originally posted by: Kaervak

Originally posted by: sxr7171 I think anybody with industry afilliations should disclose that fact, so we know which arguments are coming from people with interests in how people percieve this issue. I always thought that copying a CD for personal use was legal under fair use laws.

It's legal with a CD, for the time being anyway

, unfortunately it's not legal with DVD's. And that needs to be changed. I make backup copies of my CD's so I can let the CD-R get trashed and keep the original in prefect condition, if I had a DVD burner, I'd do the same with my DVD's. All it would take to make it legal would be five little words, "Unless for personal archival purposes" That's all it would take and the studios can still go after the pirates and not criminilize their customers.

it is legal with a DVD to just you can't do it. If you copy the DVD with out removing the encryption then you didn't break any law. But you can't do that because you can't buy blank DVD's because a the key comes set already. Oh and you can't decrepty the DVD or you run into the DMCA.

In other words the DMCA has gone way too far and has not properly taken into consideration how to preserve rights on both sides that previously existed. In other words the DMCA has gone too far and a correction is due soon.

If you ask the other side they will say it didn't go far enough because for most part it DMCA hasn't done anything to reduce copying of DVD's.

The thing is that it still made circumventing CSS illegal. The rest is up to enforcement. I don't think there's anything more you can put on the books to stop the copying of DVDs other than maybe scare people with death sentence penalties. Even though blatant file sharing has been illegal for years there hasn't been any reduction of the file sharing until the recent enforcement strategy by the RIAA. Even that effect was very small.


The cost effective way of enforcing these laws is to go after the big fish first and then see if the money it takes to go after the small fries is worth it.
I see a time when there will be electronic systems in place to allow for cheap built in enforcement which allows copying for personal use but not for sharing. The DRM stuff like in MS Reader is one step towards that goal, but it still fails to allow rights that were previously held by the user such as the ability to lend a book to someone. If they made it so I couldn't access a copy of a book while I lend it to someone, and then regain my access when my friend relinquishes that access it would allow us the same rights we currently hold. Similarly libraries could lend only the number of books they purchased out at a single time. We are getting towards that balance but right now we're not there yet.


The way I see it - the spririt of the law would allow for DVD copying for personal use, but the current letter of the law does not allow it. It is too late for there to be any form of new electronic protection on the DVD format so it is as open as VHS for those who go through the trouble of copying them. I think newer formats like HD-DVD will have to come out before enforcement becomes cost effective once again. It is important that this new standard be fair to everyone involved be if it shuts out fair use rights or the ability of linux users to use the programming for example, then someone will want to find a "crack" and sooner or later they will. The high handed stance that media companies currently take be always get them into trouble. If they offered a medium that preserved fair use rights I'm sure 95% of users will have no need to circumvent any electronic protections. The current situation is because they got greedy with the amount of control they wanted (taking away fair use) and it backfired.


There will always be greedy people who will want to cheat the owners of content, but these usually be large scale thieves since the average common person will be satisfied with the rights they have. The big fish will easy to catch.



Even now with CSS cracked, the barriers to stealing a DVD are pretty high for the average person (even myself):
1. It involves a procedure that takes hours.
2. It involves paying for a rental video and a blank disc (Maybe $5)
3. It involves recompression of the data and quality loss. (major killer for me - DVD compression is bad as it is any more would be horrible)
4. It does not get you the case and the artwork.
With DVDs costing around $15 it honestly isn't worth saving $10 to lose all the benefits of a real DVD.


There is no excuse to steal a DVD these days and we can't say that the studios are being high handed because the $15 price point is really a fair number for a DVD. It used cost anywhere from $30 -$80 to buy a VHS tape back in the day, they have leveled with us and we should level with them.


The problem is that is that some of same problems apply even to fair use copying (reduced quality to fit a single layer writable disc). Going forward I think something like Blu-Ray can solve some of these problems. Since Blu-ray is being designed from the ground up as a writable format the capacities for prerecorded and blank discs should be the same. Together with advanced copy protection that preserves current rights it should allow legal copying to be done easily while thwarting illegal copying.


All this won't save the world, but it will make things a lot better than they are.