DMCA Sidebar
This appeared in Byte.com as a sidebar
The DCMA, MPAA, Your DVDs, and Ethics
Traditionally, copyright law in the United States has been fairly liberal in what it allows a consumer to do with a purchased work protected by copyright. Some of these freedoms are written down, others are the result of various legal decisions. Collectively they are known as fair use.
In the US we have usually felt that fair use included the right to copy materials for one’s own use. For example, back in the analog era I would copy my LPs to casette tape, allowing me to listen to my music in my car. Under the aegis of fair use, I’ve always presumed it was legal for me to copy my CDs and DVDs to my hard drive.
All this was fine until the US Congress passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. This act effectively made it illegal to circument copy protection mechanisms in order to access copyrighted material. This has been widely interpreted to mean that it is illegal to use programs such as DVD Decrypter to read DVDs that are your own personal property.
DMCA protest imagery
Well-known court cases over the past few years have shown that the DCMA is going to be used to prevent people from selling software that circumvents copy protection. But does that mean it’s illegal for me to use that software to copy my DVDs to my hard drive jukebox?
I don’t think so. The DMCA clearly says:
Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
To me, that’s a slam dunk: I have the right to make copies of my CDs and movies for personal use. And I’m going to proceed with that thinking until Congress or the courts clearly demonstrate otherwise. (No, I’m not going to go to jail for the right to watch Lethal Weapon 4 on my laptop.) So in my personal, non-warranted, uneducated opinion, the personal copying described in this article should not give you even a twinge of guilt.
More DMCA protest imagery
Where is the line?
The thing that worries the MPAA and other advocates for copying restrictions is a simple thing. Once we make it easy to copy DVDs for personal use, it’s just as easy to do so for illegal use. Once I have a 1GB copy of a classic move like Lost In Space, it’s an easy matter for me to give a copy to my son Joey as a really crummy birthday present. Or I could just send a copy of the original DVD to Joey, and he could watch the movie from his hard drive jukebox.
So let’s be clear about the lines. As long as you own the DVD, I believe it’s fine to keep a copy on your hard drive. If you don’t own the DVD, having a copy is theft. It’s theft just as clearly as if you went and pulled $20 out of Jack Valenti’s pocket. Just because it’s easy and hard to detect doesn’t make it okay.
Of course, I am not a lawyer, so my beliefs are not opinions you should stake your future one.
Doom9.net has a fairly interesting article discussing just this topic. And of course, the Electronic Freedom Foundation is all over the issue. Go to these sources for more information.
5 users commented in " Building Your Home Video Jukebox "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI disagree on your use of a pc jukebox- see a film once, how long b4 you want to see it again -most likly years . The best material for a VJB is music – Rip that into individual tracks from DVD’s videos, TV, or download it from the net. Store your tracks on a massive hard drive (1TB HD= 20,000 tracks) linked directly to a pc via say winamp . Press the shuffle and suddenly your music video collection come alive . Its far superior to the original formats when you are expected to listern to 90 minutes by 1 artist . Many videos have never been released on dvd and can now be picked up and converted for next to nothing.
However are you looking at your own VJB or is it really your own music video channel that only plays what you want without interferance from VJs, DJ’s and adverts
@record collector:
I’m with you on the movie watching habits, most people video along the lines of a Tivo – strictly for time shifting.
However, people with kids can tell you a different story about repreat viewings!
Great info, DVD Decrypter is a great program, thos it takes a good 90-100 minutes for the complete process to finish, which isn’t a problem when you have a 2nd machine to work on. Also try AutoGK Assistant http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AutoGK.htm
which works in unison with Decrypter. The time of storing music/video on plastic disks is over. I will oneday have a HDTV connected to a PC with a huge hardrive and internet capabilities, thus also getting rid of my cable companies forced programming that i dont watch or ever wanted, so i can surf the net for tv programs “I” want without commercials as well.
I can’t see going through all that crap just to make a low quality version of your DVD files. There’s no good reason to use Wi-Fi to distribute your movies. You’d be better off using something like Powerline Networking or a spare (new or used) PC/notebook to connect directly to your TV with. I bought two WD 500 GB external HDDs for a lot less than $200.00 a piece back in 2008.
@AllFractUp:
Dude, the article is from 2004.
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