Circuit City Ripping DVDs for Users 467
Grooves writes "Circuit City is offering a DVD transfer service that's sure to enrage the MPAA. For $10 for 1 DVD or $30 for 5, Circuit City will violate the DMCA and
rip commercial DVDs for users to put on their mobile players. From the article: 'This should be a viable market. Software and services are losing out to draconian digital rights management philosophies and anti-consumer technologies aimed at increasing revenues stemming from double-dipping--what I call the industry's penchant for charging twice for the same thing.' They note that fair use
backups of DVDs have not been tested in court because all of the attention is focused on the circumvention software itself." Update: 08/04 22:40 GMT by Z : Acererak writes "Red Herring reports that Circuit City isn't offering any DVD-to-DVD copying scheme. The Slashdotted sign was an isolated screwup."
countdown (Score:4, Insightful)
That is, unless Circuit City is giving a cut of the money to the MPAA. Thankfully Circuit City has deep pockets and good lawyers, it should be interesting to see the MPAA go up against them instead of picking on little kids.
Re:countdown (Score:5, Interesting)
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The MPAA have alreay had their money out of this deal. The consumer in question has already paid for their DVD and it's licence to use the content, so all CC are doing is taking the effort out of the consumer's choice to exercise their right to fair use of their legally licenced content. Of course the MPAA don't see this.
This service is almost identical in nature to the services where you cn ship off a box of your CDs and get them sent back to you all ripped as MP3s to
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The consumer by and large should be able to fully appreciate the benefits of being able to copy material for their own personal and private use, and so one might argue that Circuit City is only doing for the customer what the customer could do for himself.
If Circuit City was not charging for that service, that argument might hold some water. But they are, making this a commercial endeavor. Show me where any sort of commercial activity is permitted in the "Fair Use" exemptions to copyright infringement.
Re:countdown (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:countdown (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of commercial uses are permitted under the "Fair Use" doctrine. Excerpts used for a commercial review site for example. Show me where commercial use is specifically omitted from Fair Use.
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission. The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported." Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission. When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of "fair use" would clearly apply to the situation. The Copyright Office can neither determine if a certain use may be considered "fair" nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney. FL-102, Revised July 2006
copyright.gov's formatting is nicer... [copyright.gov]
Re:countdown (Score:5, Informative)
good to see.. (Score:2)
Re:good to see.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:good to see.. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's too naked. What they're doing is illegal. They can't just pay someone off without making it blatantly clear that the DMCA is a tax-generating system for the MPAA et al. And, more basically, they can't just pay someone to break a law. US law doesn't (yet) work that way, even though we treat it as if it does. To the best of my knowledge, they're violating a federal law, which means it's a felony. (I may be wrong: this is just what I've been told.) Either the law goes or they do.
Make no mistake: I think it's a cool idea and if publicized will make a lot of waves when people think "huh, gee, that makes sense: everyone should be able to do that." If it gets publicized before it gets shut down, it's very very bad press for the MPAA. But I don't believe that it will actually happen.
Re:good to see.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing that I thought of when I read the blurb on the main
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Step 1: Rip DVDs, bring in lots of income
Step 2: Get sued by MPAA/Jack Valenti/Sony Pictures/Disney/somebody.
Step 3: Pay lawyers
Step 4: Get lots and lots of FREE publicity, building public empathy and support.
Step 5: ????
Step 6: Profit!
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's an exaggeration. First, you can be certain any corporation the size of Circuit City already has a sizable legal department. It's unlikely this action hasn't already been vetted. To the extent there are issues, and dealing with those issues gets beyond the abilities or capabilities of their legal department to handle (an unlikely scenario), they're already set up for using outside counsel when appropriate and such costs are typically budgetted well in advance.
The big question here is, given the possible legal issues, What Was Circuit City's reasoning? The article provides no real insight on that question, and the Circuit City website offers no press releases or information on the subject. In fact the article is a scoop from another website (which, in turn contains a photograph and similar speculation), so it's anybody's guess as to what's going on and why.
Re:Why isn't CleanFlicks allowed to do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
The legal argument against CleanFlicks and the resulting decision in favor of the movie industry focused more on the right of a artistic creator to see his/her work presented in its intended form, without manipulation by 3rd parties, and NOT an attack on the illegal distribution of movies.
Here are some pertinent quotes from the Defendant:
"Directors put their skill, craft and often years of hard work into the creation of a film," added Apted, whose own repertoire includes the 1999 James Bond adventure The World Is Not Enough and Gorillas in the Mist. "These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work...against unauthorized editing."
And from the case itself:
""[Moviemakers'] objective...is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection. Their business is illegitimate."
The service that Circuit City is providing is not analogous to that of Cleanflicks. They're not selling a modified version of the movie, nor are they selling ANYTHING. Instead, they're charging for the SERVICE of ripping a movie into a format that's capable of being played in a mobile player. Because they are circumventing CSS, they are breaking the DMCA. Therefore, Circuit City is breaking the law, but for different reasons than that of decision in the Cleanflicks case.
Re:Why isn't CleanFlicks allowed to do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright law is fairly vague, particularly in relation to fair use. It's difficult to look at something like CleanFlicks and say "this action right here, this is what was illegal" within the scope of their entire business practices. It was the whole procedure that was found to be infringing. If they had done the editing without reproduction (e.g. VHS splices, or the timecode based systems now in use) they probably would have been okay. But the combination of things they were doing precluded a fair use defense, and thus they lost.
Anyway, I agree with your ultimate point: Circuit City isn't going to have nearly the problem with copyright law as they're going to have with the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Frankly if they do end up in court, I think this could end up being a much more significant and interesting case than CleanFlicks was. On the scale of "bad laws," the DMCA is orders of magnitude worse than copyright law even in its current state, since it has no exemption for fair use. In the CleanFlicks case I could at least see the situation from the perspective of the studios or a copyright holder who didn't want edits being made to their stuff, but I don't think that they have any such right to dictate the format in which a viewer watches the Work. Except wherein the format it's watched in has a real impact on the artistic merits of the movie, and where the prohibition is enforced against (say) all portable players because it was designed to only be seen in IMAX theaters, that's not something that a rightsholder should be able to claim control over.
I think we're only starting to see the very beginning of the battles over the DMCA: the number of future services that are going to run afoul of it are just mind boggling; ultimately I think the consumer demand for these services is going to be so great, that if the law is not modified it's just going to be flouted by the public, leading to some Prohibition-like state where the law is so disconnected from reality that it's bordering on irrelevance.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Insightful)
They will likely get a Cease & Desist letter before there is a lawsuit, if CC complies with this (they almost certianly will) there probably won't be a lawsuit.
The MPAA stands to lose a decent amount of their already declining public support if they try to lay the smackdown here to stop CC from doing something that practially every joe sixpack and their senator will think is a reasonable use. If they make a big deal of this now they may have a harder time fighting the inevitble tools that will come o
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
The "reasonable use" is helping people transfer video from a DVD they own to a portable device. Sure the MPAA would like you to buy that movie again in DRM protected format for use on your portable device but how many people on the street are going to find that reasonable.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow.
So an artist deserves to make *nothing* from their works, eh?
Nice.
Me making a COPY of his novel is not wrong,
Sure, so long as you legally own a copy and are not *selling* the copy you made.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:4, Insightful)
This would be like paying the neighbor kid to set your VCR to record, or rip your CDs to your computer. Except the neighbor kid works at Circuit City.
If it's legal for me to do something, why would it be illegal for me to pay someone to do something for me?
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:5, Funny)
I have to chime in on this one, sorry. It's legal to masturbate (well, in most states), but it's illegal to pay someone else to masturbate you. I know, not the same thing at all, but I thought it was funny.
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Asbestos removal. You're free to rip out asbestos tiles, insulation, refractories, what have you, in your home, because it's your home and one assumes you'll be doing it once and then it'll be gone. However, you cannot legally hire a service to do it because there are OSHA laws about asbestos removal and companies are not allowed to let their employees have repeated exposure to asbestos-containin
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your analogy is flawed. Nobody is preventing you from making your own movie, paying for the videotape, the equipment, and the labor. If you can produce a better product than Hollywood for less, good for you. By your logic, however, you could buy a master print from the first movie theater to release the cool movie of the moment and undersell the distributor. The creators of the movie get nothing, and you make pure profit for doing nothing. I'm sure you'd like that a lot, but honestly, how long do you think that would last before movies stopped getting made?
Incidentally, the same logic works for patents. It's nice that we have all this wonderful medical equipment and drugs to keep you alive, but who will pay the researchers if somebody else can easily come along and trivially steal the knowledge that was accumulated through substantial financial investments?
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Benefit Analysis Is Flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because I won't let him *do* that, I'm a monopoly?
Wow.
How *does* a band or artist or actor make money in your world? Or should they all just starve?
Good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypter"? (Score:5, Informative)
S
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, you are more than 1 year behind the times with this post. DVD Decrypter has been dead since early 2005 when Macrovision gave a cease and desist letter to the creator of DVD Decrypter. The reason? DVD Decrypter can be used to remove Macrovision, which is a violation of the DCMA. The creator was forced to stop developing DVD Decrypter and give all source code to Macrovision. I don't know if he was forced to pay a fine to them or not, but he was threatened with legal action and facing the prospect of jail time and/or fines, he accepted their "offer" and gave them the code and removed the software from his website. In fact, the formerly official website now goes straight to Macromedia.
I have read that certain video forums are regularly monitored by Macromedia to see if the developer ever posts anything that in any way can be said to talk about decrypting DVDs or removing Macrovision and if they ever find him saying anything on those topics, they are going to take him to court and try to get him convicted for breaking the DCMA. Given the legal rulings on the subject to date, this is a very realistic possibility. I think he does still participate to a limited extent in video forums, but only on topics that have nothing to do with decrypting DVDs.
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the DMCA, not the DCMA. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Not "Copyright Millennium". And, young man, it doesn't fit the music [userfriendly.org] as well. "It's fun to violate the D-M-C-A!"
Finally, he didn't "give all source code to Macrovision." Ignoring the grammatical ambiguity therein, he gave rights to the code, and unfortunately had not previously licensed it under a perpetual redistribution license. If he had simply GPL'd it (or CC-SA or anything), Macrovision would've had all the source code they wanted and couldn't've done a thing about it.
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [wikipedia.org]. DVDs contain a single bit indicating to the player whether to enable analog copy-protection on the video output (in the same manner VHS tapes are protected, in both cases to prevent people from dubbing DVDs onto tapes). DVD Decrypter simply set the bit to off, which was technically a form of circumventing the copy-protection.
Re:They charge that much for running "DVD Decrypte (Score:3, Interesting)
I have not seen a single CD copying program since 1998 which actually does respect these (and that one had a command-line argument to allow you to ignore them). The Disk Utility bundled
Re:They charge that much for running... (Score:2, Informative)
So now it takes 2 minutes of googling to find it, rather than 30 seconds...
Re:They charge that much for running... (Score:4, Informative)
It will be interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes we will (Score:3, Interesting)
If they kill each other all the better.
Re:It will be interesting (Score:2)
In a word, YES!
You go guys. Kudos to Circuit City. (Score:4, Insightful)
WOW (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WOW (Score:4, Insightful)
They must have talked to a lawyer and have A) a loophole
Fair use is not "a loophole". It's an intended part of copyright. As customers have bought a DVD, part of their fair use rights include space-shifting - moving the film from the DVD to another device. Circuit City are employed by the customer to do this on their behalf.
It's not like Circuit City are simply giving people illegal copies, they are doing something perfectly legal on behalf of the owner of that property.
violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Circuit City has the software and tools to do the copy and would presumably not be handing them out to customers the standard "providing tools to circumvent copyright" issue wouldn't apply. Since backups for play on another device are fair use and legal I don't see the issue.
Obviously, since companies don't like getting sued into non-existence I suspect Circuit City feels they are on sold legal ground as well.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:4, Informative)
In what way would this violate the DMCA?
"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A).
Legally, a corporation is a 'person,' and movies on DVD are almost all protected by copyright.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:5, Interesting)
The average consumer can't afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to get one of those licenses, but Circuit City could...
Oh, and yay for DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink!!!
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:2)
First, they aren't saying 'certain DVDs'
Second, the law doesn't allow circumvention exception for specific reasons. Even if the copyright holder says it's okay to copy the movie, you still cannot legally break the encryption. They'd have to be provided masters without encryption for this to be legal.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who says they're doing it digitally? Maybe they've just connected a DVD player to a video capture card. No circumvention, because the DVD player is licensed by the DVD-CCA. No infringement, because format-shifting is protected by fair use. A small loss in quality, but if you're watching it on an iPod will you really notice the difference?
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:3, Informative)
CSS encryption isn't remotely effective at controlling access to films.
Spurious argument, legally. It's already been tried and defeated. See, e.g., Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 346 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:5, Informative)
They're defeating encryption without permission. Same as if you or I use deCSS to do the same thing. It's illegal whether or not we commit infringement. Dumb Law, needs to go.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:2, Insightful)
The DMCA is an unenforcible, ridiculous law that serves no purpose other than to make most honest Americans into lawbreakers.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an interesting point. Does the DMCA specifically disallow the sale or distribution of tools that provide for a circumvention, or does it disallow the circumvention itself? If it is the former, then Circuit City is just providing a service that enables the fair use rights of the consumer.
Now, if the act of circumvention itself is illegal, then CC is up a creek without a legal paddle.
Re:violate the DMCA? In what way? (Score:2)
Reversal of Fortune (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a shame that only Circuit City is challenging the MPAA. Their offering is commercially viable. But I don't think Circuit City has the financial wherewithall to take this to its conclusion.
I would love it if some large corporations would gang up against the MPAA and RIAA. Power without challenge is a dangerous thing -- evidenced by DRM, and the litigious nature of these two agencies.
Many years ago Circuit City bravely (but foolishly) pursued the DivX versus DVD issue (the betamax vs. VHS of its time). That battle, which, if it had gone Circuit City's way, would have hurt the consumer. It's ironic now, because DivX was a kind of DRM back then. You bought a movie at a lower price but had to renew via a special player that connected to a site over a phoneline to renew your ability to watch that movie. Or, you could spend more and get "unlimited viewing" -- assuming, of course, the movie studio even offered it. From the initial releases there were only a handful of movies that could be had for "unlimited viewing."
There was a grass-roots effort to thwart this nonsense (DRM over the phone) and DVD as we know it now won the battle; only to be replaced by another DRM years later. A much more pervasive and restrictive DRM. The irony of Circuit City's current stand is thick.
This time, however, I'd back 'em up... Is someone up to the cause? Does the grass even have roots anymore? In spite of all of the podders out there, I don't think most of them have the mental fortitude to stand against the MPAA/RIAA. Are they even aware?
(objectively speaking: this could be a bad idea because you can bring in any number of iPods and copy a single movie to each of them. This, I believe, it's ethically reprehensible; it's also a major flaw behind this service.)
Re:Reversal of Fortune (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Reversal of Fortune (Score:5, Insightful)
You hit the nail on the head. The Circuit City/DivX fiasco should be the textbook business case that we push to the public and Congress whenever the **AA's start trotting out the "piracy is killing us" line.
There is nothing like pain as a negative reinforcement, and Circuit City took it up the ass (no lube, either) directly due to the overly restrictive controls on their product. They KNOW how much it hurt business, and can point straight to the balance sheet. So I'm not surprised they are looking in the other direction.
As for pissing off the **AA's, I seem to recall that Disney was their partner in the DivX fiasco, and once things started going sour, Disney hung them out to dry. Maybe that's why Disney never learned from it - they never experiencede teh pain, and so are still in love with DRM. I can't see any love lost between Circuit City and the content producers.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Bastards!!! (Score:2)
Esoteric doesn't describe it. I'm a long time Tull, ELP and Zep fan, and *I* didn't get it. Clearly I missed a memo.
Re: (Score:2)
They could make a fortune doing this... (Score:4, Insightful)
As people find more and more of their disks failing, these services could become seriously mainstream. And at 10bucks a pop, a lucrative source of cash.
Re:They could make a fortune doing this... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They could make a fortune doing this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it remarkable how it flips back and forth between a "license" and "a disc with media on it" depending on which one sticks it to consumers more?
Unexpected edginess (Score:2, Insightful)
Quote from clerks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone have the numbers on whether or not circuit city can afford to stand its legal ground against the MPAA? I imagine they'll probally settle out of court such that Circuit City can make the copies, provided that they include the same copy-protection stuff on the copied DVD as was on the original. The stakes that Circuit City and the MPAA are gambling are frighteningly high, as they risk setting a legal precident that says that you can't bypass copy protection for your own fair-use rights. On the other hand, a precident the other way would be a deathknell to a lot of the provision of the DMCA.
Odd, this from the outfit behind DIVX... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Odd, this from the outfit behind DIVX... (Score:3, Funny)
What's in it for Circuit City? (Score:2, Insightful)
Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)
Circuit City double-dipping too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now wait just a minute (Score:5, Insightful)
Has anyone checked with Circuit City to see if the speculation is grounded in reality?
I thought not.
Re:Now wait just a minute (Score:3, Funny)
Watch THIS happen... (Score:2)
I'll bet you $20.
This is the plan (Score:5, Funny)
* Cash in on DVD copy service for all it's worth while waiting for the inevitable lawsuit
* Use lawyers already on retainer to string out the suit against DVD copy service as long as possible.
* Pay 10% of DVD copy earnings in settlement, promise never to do a DVD copy service ever again.
* Start unrelated DVD duplication service using equipment already conveniently at hand.()
() Remember to trademark "DVD Duplication service", "DVD Backup service", "Disc copy service", "Disc Duplication service", "Disk Kopy DudeZ", "Dupe It Man!"
Do they actually break the DMCA ? (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, I am not sure I clearly understand the DMCA. If you play a DVD and shoot the tv with a camera, is that violating the DMCA ? If they legally have a CSS key to read dvds and just transfer them to another support, is that against the DMCA ? What does the DMCA precisely states ?
I think you guys have it wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Best course of action (Score:4, Insightful)
You want a bunch of bigwig companies to gang up on the MPAA? I think this is the best way to accomplish that.
Circuit City Policy (Score:5, Informative)
Can copy-protected CDs be encoded?
Encoding copy-protected discs is a violation of the record company's copyright protection. Get Digital will not encode any copyrighted discs. Instead Get Digital will notify you of any discs with copyright protection. These discs will be set aside and returned to you with the rest of your collection--without charge.
Can a DVD-Audio or SACD disc be encoded?
Both SACD and DVD-Audio discs feature the same copy protection that regular DVDs do. Any SACD, DVD-Audio or standard DVDs will be set aside and returned to you with the rest of your collection without charge.
Sounds to me like they already know about the DMCA, and that this would violate it. I am now more than a little dubious that this is actually being done with corporate's knowledge.
Kinko's Rules (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Kinko's Rule" demonstrates how copyright is not transferable, even under fair use. Let's say I have a book I bought. My fair use includes the copyright to photocopy pages, an entire chapter, for my personal consumption. If I'm a teacher, that even includes giving copies of a chapter (though not the whole book) to, say, 30 people in a class I teach. I go to Kinko's; I walk up to a photocopier; I set it to 30 copies; I turn the pages through the chapter on the machine; I collect the 30 copies of the chapter; I pass them out to each person in my class. No problem - I have the copyright to use the book's content fairly that way.
But if I take that book to the Kinko's service desk, ask the Kinko's employee (or even just another customer with extra time on their hands) to copy the book for an otherwise identical usage scenario, I'm not allowed. Because the employee does not have the copyright to fairly use that book for anything (except maybe reading it as borrowed by a "friend"), because they did not obtain any copyrights by buying the book. The fair use copyrights I have on the book I bought are not transferable to another person - they are not contained in the book I physically pass to the employee, they are contained in the transaction of buying (and thereby owning) the book.
This rule is the same when I bring a CD or DVD to Kinko's. I could use their burner to copy them for myself. But not for distribution to other people, though fair use of audio and video recordings does allow me to lend a single copy to a "friend", though I'm not allowed to use my own copy while another copy is loaned out. The rule says I cannot leave my CD or DVD with someone else at Kinko's to copy for me. And of course that rule applies to Circuit City, too.
So how is Circuit City ripping these DVDs for users? In the last five years, several small companies started up to rip CDs for people, violating the Kinko's Rule. They were all told (I heard the warnings personally) by lawyers and copyright owners/"enthusiasts" that they were breaking the law, that their income would be siezed whenever a copyright owner wanted to sue them. That's the main reason why we haven't been able to have our media ripped from the physical media that traps so much value out of play: the small companies that always innovate fast ("entrepreneurs") have been stopped by legal intimidation.
Now Circuit City is doing it anyway. Will they be stopped by the Kinko's Rule, and kill the whole business for everyone, even those who have been getting away serving with the consumer demand "below the radar"? Or will they demonstrate (in court, perhaps) that the Kinko's Rule is out of business? Or will some kind of "big corporation" collusion between the RIAA/MPAA and Circuit City just leave them alone, while enforcing the Kinko's Rule on entrepreneurs, keeping them (us) from competing?
Re:Bzzzt... but thanks for playing (Score:3, Informative)
IANAL, and you most obviously are NAL. However I have in fact read almost the entirety of US Code Title 17 copyright law and I have in fact studied many Supreme Court and Federal District court rulings on copyright law and Fair Use. You clearly do not understand the legal doctrine of Fair Use. Just about the only point you didn't get wrong was that "You, as purchaser of a text, do not get copyright to it" - and even while being technically correct on that point you
Has anyone considered.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The sole evidence Ars Technica has for this service is a photograph of a flyer! There is nothing on the Circuit City Web site about the service, nor does it look like the company issued a press release touting the new service.
More probably, this "service" was devised by some store manager too ignorant of the ways of the DMCA to understand what he was offering. S/He was just looking to bring in a few more bucks (on the other side of the same display case is another advert on a free in-house PC clinic. I bet that's not a Circuit City wide service either, just a local store initiative). I'm sure DVD ripping service will be discontinued as the minute corporate headquarters gets wind of this. Which, thanks to Slashdot, should be right about
I wouldn't blame the ill-informed Circuit City Manager, nor even Consumerist, which first posted the photo (but wouldn't provide a location interestingly enough). Ars Technica should know better though. That's just sloppy journalism.
joab
It's just a store or mabe a district (Score:3, Insightful)
Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:5, Insightful)
At its heart this is about a company profiting off of the removal of DRM and re-extending fair use to a product that really shouldn't have DRM on it (or so sayeth most slashdotters). What if this is discovered to be the next business model? Cripple things with DRM, and then for additional money they'll take them off?
Shutter...If only Circuit City were doing this for free.
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:4, Insightful)
Therein lies the problem. If they were doing this for free, it *might* fall under fair use. They aren't. They are making a profit. This comes down to selling a copy in adifferent format without protections, and without any royalties.
Circuit City is going to lose their asses on this one.
If they did it for free, it would be a value-added service. No royalties to be paid. Instead, they've turned it into a money-making operation with no compensation to the copyright owners.
I agree 100% that *we* should be allowed to do this, and that CC should be allowed to do it as a value-added service, but they should *not* be able to charge for it.
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:3, Insightful)
We keep thinking like this, and soon we're going to start shutting down independent automobile repair garages, computer repair shops, plumbers, electricians, etc... everyone else who "makes money off of someone else's product without the [explicit] permission of the copyright (can we fit patents in here too?) holder.
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:4, Insightful)
repair.
Not transform. And while you are talking *physical* property one actually owns, we're talking about *intellectual* property you've only purchased the right to personal use.
Re:Circuit City has cash for the fight (Score:3, Interesting)
It is *illegal* to transform *any* copyrighted work and resell it. It *is* legal to sell the original.
The Copyright Act grants five rights to a copyright owner, which are described in more detail below.
* the right to reproduce the copyrighted work;
* the right to prepare derivative works based upon the work;
Best Buy not the best anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahh but Best Buy isn't nearly as good as it used to be, higher prices, smaller selection, worse return policies. I gave up on Best Buy a few years ago anow now use Circuit City almost exclusively for my local (what I don't buy online) needs. Their order-online > store-pickup program is fantastic and their prices alsmost always match those of Best Buy exactly.
Re:Best Buy not the best anymore (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Best Buy not the best anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree Newegg rules, but sometimes you need something right away, which is why I specifically pointed out in my original post that CC is my choice for the stuff I don't buy online.
To expand on that, I probably enjoy more choice than the average person, I have a Circuit City, a Best Buy, a CompUSA and a Frys all less than 2 miles from my hourse and all within a half mile of each other (there used to be a Good Guys too before they bit the dust). Circuit City is definitely my best choice for local needs.
We can help the cause without using our $. (Score:4, Funny)
By them promoting the transfer option they have not actually done anything illegal yet. But they have done a couple things. They have made their image better in the eyes of the public and they are going to provide a service that their competitors can not match. (Best Buy, Frys, Wal-mart, Target, etc.)
So how do we (the consumer) get the rest of their competition to join in? Simple, we go to each Circuit City competitor (Best Buy, Frys, Wal-mart, Target, etc.) and we ask about their "new ripping service". I am sure that the first 1000 people that do this across the country will cause some confusion since none of their competitors have this service. But the more people that do this, it will cause their management to question, "Why can Circuit City provide this but we can not?" Even before Circuit City actually starts ripping.
I plan on going down to the local BB and talking to the person in the iPod Video department.
The conversation with the clerk should go like this...
-----------
Clerk: Welcome to Best Buy, Can I help you find something today?
Me: Sure, I was looking at getting an iPod video that you have over here.
Clerk: Were you looking at the 20GB or the 40GB? (Blah blah blah)
Me: Well I was interested in the 40GB and I wanted to bring in my DVD movies for you to put on there. I have them in the car.
Clerk: Sir, we are unable to put your DVD movies on the iPod at this time. blah blah blah
Me: Oh, I was just over at Circuit City and they were willing to do it for $10 a movie. What would you charge?
Clerk: Sir, we don't offer that service
Me: Ok. Thanks for your help.
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That's it! That is all we have to do. Remember two main things!
1. DO NOT insult them or their company.
2. Be polite and DO NOT act knowledgable.
By doing these two things they will put you into their "Clueless consumer" category. Which is exactly the market they would sell this service to. THE MORE CLUELESS THE BETTER! Good luck and I hope we have sucess.
-flipsoft
The Circuit City Anti Massacre Movement (Score:4, Funny)
"And walk out.
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Circuit City Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.
Re:DMCA is irrelevant here (Score:2, Insightful)