Perhaps a new business venture for you? You can probably charge a nice fee...like $8-$10 per DVD due to the tremendous time it takes to rip a reasonably good copy.
Nah... I would just do it for free. It gets sticky as soon as money becomes involved. I want to make sure that I never do anything even close to this for any fee... even if it is legal to charge money, it puts me in a whole different playing field.
Nope. CDs are legal precisely because they aren\'t encrypted, so the DMCA doesn\'t apply.
How about VCDs? Encryption is nothing more than a layer of abstraction in a (vain) attempt to detere copying. I don\'t understand why whether the deterant is \"encryption\" or not should matter for the lawmakers. It wouldn\'t be hard for them to pervert that law and say that VCDs are \"encrypted\" since they\'re \"encoded\". In fact, almost everything in computers is encrypted to one layer or another. I can\'t play my RealVideo and Quicktime videos on my Zaurus because my Zaurus doesn\'t yet have the \"decryption\" to \"decrypt\" the code into a series of plain bitmaps for the screen to use. Now, \"encryption\" is not the purpose of a codec... it is only a side-effect.
When I worked at RealNetworks, I created a temporary TCPIP Network Proxy for their multicast video streams. I learned about the headers of the video files and the handshaking that goes on inbetween the player and the server before the video gets streamed. One of the things the server asks for from the player in a secret key to verify the player is authentic. This key was just a simple static string, but the video wasn\'t available without it. Does this qualify as encryption? In short I believe that any compression, or anything that requires a layer of code to translate the data back into a form that is usable, is a form of encryption. That then bleeds into almost any file format out there... whether it compresses or not. My Word documents require a program that can \"decrypt\" the Word format. Otherwise the data is useless to me.
\"Encyption\", as we use it, changes from year to year. I\'m sure people would have considered Microsoft Word formats \"encrypted\" when they first came out, because if you transmitted the data, noone could read it or make sense of it unless they had the needed program to \"decrypt\" it. We don\'t general consider Word documents \"encrypted files\" because our standards for what is \"encryption\" have gone up. Now it isn\'t considered \"encrypted\" unless there are secret keys involved (like a Word program that changes on the fly for different formats depending on the key that is given). I imagine that in the future, when an even better encryption is invented, that people will look back at 128-bit encryption and not think of it as \"true\" encryption.
In fact... if you look at the DVD encryption, I wouldn\'t even call it \"encryption\" anymore when based on today\'s standards. It isn\'t a variable decryption key... it\'s only a single static (never changing) key that all DVD players have hardcoded into their program... similar to the RealPlayer \"hand shaking\" key from many years ago?
So... what is encryption?
Is it wise to make a law based on such a loose term? Either it won\'t be held up in court very well or else the RIAA might try to \"bleed\" it into other areas to increase their power? Would they make Open-Office illegal becasue it \"cracks\" the \"Microsoft Word\" encryption?
Finally, you DO have the right to backup a DVD (as per Sony vs Universal), but you do NOT have the right to decrypt it. The 1st right is useless without the 2nd.
Everytime I play a DVD using a DVD player, I\'m \"decrypting\" it on the fly. So.. it\'s okay to \"decrypt\" it.. just not to save that data anywhere? It\'s okay for the \"decrypted\" data to be in memory, but not on the harddrive? Most players today read ahead in the file and decrypt parts of the video a few seconds before they are actually used. With swap files, how do you know that that information never touches the harddrive?... expecially if I rewind from my current position, and the data decrypted never actually gets used. Windows will see that that memory space hasn\'t been used for a while and will automatically put it on the harddrive in the swap file.
Saying that we can\'t decrypt files is as ridiculous as saying that we can\'t download pictures from a website. By simply viewing a site, the site\'s pictures are already stored on your computer in your cache directory (even the Zaurus has one)... so how can they say that downloading pictures is illegal without making going to a website illegal? Likewise, how can they make decrypting a file illegal without making the playing of an encrypted file illegal?
All this does it strengthen the point that laws against copyright infringement are not sound. They aren\'t logical. The whole premise of the copyright with today\'s technology is an oxymoron. It conflicts with common sense. The old copyright should go away and a new one should replace it. The new one would provide for the artists (perhaps not the record label, though... :twisted: ) to get paid, while also allowing the technology to work as designed and let the information flow freely.
a tool or device whose primary use was to aid in circumventing protection of a copyrighted work.
A toast to all of those circumventing protection software!
However, what I think is truely chilling, is that the website owners claimed a defense based on the 1st amendment (or freedom of speech), where they had a right to post links to information on DeCSS. The judge struck this down as a defense. This is where I thought they would have had the greatest defense... Perhaps they would have been more successful under the 9th circuit (a much more liberal district).
Its scary where our country is heading.
Yes, that\'s very scary. 1st ammendment is, I think, exactly what all of this is all about. Note this it is the \"First Ammendment\", and NOT the 2nd, 3rd, or 9th ammendment... It was the most important thing our forefathers could think of as a law. The freedom of information, verbal, visual, written or otherwise. The modern copyright in its very nature wishes to constrict the 1st ammendment. The fact that the 1st ammendment wasn\'t upheld in court here only shows how the corporate world (especially the RIAA) has de-emphasized it, in favor of corporate greed. Our rights are sliping away as corporations find more \"legal\" ways to steal our money.
The original concept of copyright (as corrupt as it was) DIDN\'T infringe the 1st ammendment as much as today. It was ONLY directed at businesses and selling. Free exchange was honored, as it should be today.
\"Fair Use\"... why does it need to be spelled out? Isn\'t is clear as a basic freedom? ...or have people been \"brainwashed\" by the RIAA for too long. It cracks me up to hear people calling \"copyright infingement\" stealing, especially when nothing is missing. \"Yes, officer, I was robbed. They took everything in my house. .. *pause* ... well, yes, I know that you can still see everything here, but you have to believe me that they STOLE everything in my house\". I think some people are confusing \"Cut-And-Paste\" with \"Copy-And-Paste\". Wake up from your slumber... realize the aweful state our laws are in. REalize the corruption that is growing all around us... we need to be more consious of this and make our elected officials more consious of this. They need to do a better job of representing the people.
In Iraq some people were scared to speak publically against the regime for fear of torture and death (or decapitation). Speaking to americans: We \"think\" we are free, but we are under a similar tyranical rule in our homeland. It is just as devious and sneaky. Some people here are scared to make certain information public (like the bits that comprise the DIVX video of a movie) for fear of the RIAA regime and what they can do to us. Thankfully they can\'t kill us... but I do see a lot of torture out there.
Do any other nations want to volunteer to invade the USA, destroy the greedy corporate regimes (especially the RIAA) and leave us with as truly \"free\" nation?
