DVD Creation Station

[dbminter]

I had to laugh when I saw this bundle advertised and demonstrated on ShopAtHome!

 

 

For $199, they send you a Sony External DVD burner, no model listed, 50 HP DVD+R discs, and ICopyDVD's2 software. First, they showed a "Hollywood produced DVD" with numerous fingerprints on the data surface. Oh no! It must be repaired! BUT, the funny part? When the guy inserts the DVD in the drive for reading... it has a silver matte top! Hollywood produced? Yeah! Right! It's Then, this guy fires up ICopyDVD's2 and points out the screen that warns you against copying copyrighted movies. And he actually says, "Now, the software cannot tell the difference between copyrighted DVD's and those that aren't!" While he doesn't know it he openly admits that the software has a ripper in it, even if it doesn't. He's not going to know, because, he doesn't know the different between copyrighted DVD's and content protected DVD's! Most DVD's are content protected, but, not all are copyrighted. e.g. silent movies made in the 1920's and earlier have long since fallen out of copyright but may still be protected from copying. They usually aren't, because the company doesn't want to pay the licensing fee to whoever owns CSS to protect something that isn't copyrighted. e.g. public domain means that anyone can get a piece of the pie, so, the cost of protecting the disc from copying utilities with measures that always fail is more than the cost of the few people who would copy such material as it is a niche market to begin with.

 

 

This next part, though, was what made me laugh out loud! This amazing "Hollywood produced DVD" was read in from the drive in a miraculous time of under 1 minute and 30 seconds! e.g. this disc was just a dummy disc created with less than a 1 GB of data, probably. Anyway, the copy burns... well, it starts to burn because, interestingly enough, you never actually SEE the burn finish nor the guy demonstrating the whole thing ever insert the new disc into any player and show that it copied. But, he did kindly point out some friendly advice: to use the bundle to make copies of your purchased Hollywood produced DVD's! That he does it all the time, so the kids can damage the copies, and he still has the new versions he bought. Yet, will the M AA go after ShopAtHome for SELLING something that not only can, in theory, copy DVD's BUT that the network FREELY recommends you do?

[polopony]

They're all a bunch of hypocrites.The only thing that would have made it more hillarious is if it had been bundled with a certain program we've heard about

[dbminter]

Well, who's to say that it isn't? Renamed to something else, run in the background with switches...

[lfcrule1972]

I have to admit I am a little confused by the your situation in the US fella's.

 

I thought that you were legally permitted to copy DVDs that you have purchased and own ? Have I mis-read this somewhere ? If not, then surely altho the adverts are not being truthful they are not breaking any laws ?

[dbminter]

Try and wrap your brain around this one, because, it makes no sense, and, that's what the businesses and the judges want.

 

 

Is it legal to copy a DVD you purchased and own, for your own backup purposes and use? For one copy, yes, US law makes that legally expressed. But, guess what? Anything that has to break CSS to do it IS illegal because it gets around a digital protection method, and this is covered as illegal because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So, the copies are legal, but, USING the tools to make the copies aren't! Thus, you can have 10,000 pirated DVD's made by someone else, but, what's illegal is certain applications made them. BUT how can you tell? The copies aren't illegal, making the copies is not illegal, but, using the tools that make the copies of CSS protected discs (Or any future protections.) are illegal.

 

 

Now, here's the funny part... it is therefore, according to this legal wrangling, apparently possible to do this: use a tool to make a copy of a protected disc you own, so that the copy has no protection on it, then copy the non-protected CSS disc again with a program that will not copy protected discs, such as Nero Burning ROM, just make a 1:1 copy, and burn that copy. Then, totally remove the decryption tool from your PC. Because the copies in this case aren't illegal, because the copying in this case is not illegal, only using the decrypting tool is illegal, they can't prove you used anything that gets around the DMCA.

 

 

What this means in the end is a total goddamn mess! No one knows a thing about what is legal and what isn't. Because creating a decryption tool is not illegal. Possessing a decryption tool is not illegal. Merely using it is. But, you have to use to get around the protection on discs you own. The real challenge is going to be someday if someone could be used with "proof" of use of a decryption tool on a copy with the use of Implementation ID's and the like. The problem there is a person could just clam up and say they have no idea what an application might add to any such fields. Or that they have no idea of anything!

 

 

In the end, there is no real legal or illegal definition of what you can do with what you own. Thus, the studios are using the ambiguity as a strong arm to push around the public and convince judges to agree with them by the mere word of the law to get around the intent of the law. All to control the selling scheme of where, how, and when people can buy DVD's. Because, as Jack Valenti openly said once, if people want a backup copy, just buy a 2nd damn DVD. And that's what the studios want, a license to steal via double dipping.

[lfcrule1972]

Thanks db - I see what you mean now - it really is a mess.....