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Written by mikee
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Friday, 17 November 2006 16:16
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Techdirt: It really was just a few days ago that the entertainment industry folks were claiming
that it was the consumer electronics industry that was trying to
pervert "fair use," right? Somehow, it seems like it's the
entertainment industry that's the one pushing the boundaries. Almost
exactly a year ago, we had a post about a new service that would sell
you a video iPod and DVDs... and would load the video from the DVDs
onto the iPod (and then ship you both the iPod and the DVD).
This should be perfectly legal. After all, the owner has legally
purchased both the iPod and the DVD, and the company is simply making
the process easier by transferring the video to the iPod as well -- and
it's well established that you can make a personal backup of content
you have legally purchased. However, knowing how the industry views fair use, Carlo titled his post "Sue Me, I Dare You"
and noted in the text: "the clock's ticking on the first lawsuit."
Well, it turns out the clock ticked a little longer than we expected,
but it did happen eventually. The EFF is noting that the MPAA has sued a company for doing exactly this.
They are, of course, claiming that ripping the DVDs is a DMCA
violation, because the DVDs have copy protection, and circumventing
that is against the DMCA -- even though physically copying content you
own to another format is legal fair use.
As the EFF notes in the post, while the MPAA is focusing on
this company that does the ripping for you, the meaning is clear: they
do not believe that making a personal copy of a DVD is legal -- despite
all of the historical precedent set with CDs and software. The only
"difference" here is that the DVD has some weak copy protection, and
therefore the DMCA applies. In other words, they're not saying that
it's illegal to make a copy -- because it's not. They're saying it's
illegal to get around the copy protection. And, of course, they're
doing this because they want to force you to buy the same content over and over and over again. And, yet, they still claim that it's folks like us who are changing the meaning of "fair use."
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