Posted 07/30/09 at 06:54:21 PM by Pulkit Chandna

DRM protection has been a bone of contention between content owners and anti-DRM activists. The latter party’s contentions seem to be becoming quite popular with content providers, with many music download services, including the august iTunes, opting for DRM-free music. However, DRM hasn’t been eliminated as a lot of downloadable content, including streaming/downloadable videos and streaming music, is still fettered by DRM protection.

The Copyright Office is currently deliberating upon allowing fresh exemptions to its rules that forbid DRM cracking – enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Steven Metalitz, a DC-based lawyer, who represents Big Content – a collective term for DRM-loving individual content owners and their organizations like MPAA and RIAA, reckons users should not be allowed to crack DRM protection even if an online store shuts down its authentication servers.

“We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so,” he wrote in a missive addressed to the Copyright Office’s top legal advisor.

It is quite unrealistic to expect online stores to perpetually maintain their DRM servers. But it is ludicrous to assume that shutting down of an authentication server or the whole online store is reason enough for the user to surrender his ownership rights.

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Posted 06/05/09 at 09:39:13 AM by Paul Lilly

Underscoring just how out of touch the Motion Picture Association of America is with its consumer base, the MPAA has spoken out regarding a buyer's (lack of) rights in making a single backup copy of a DVD. The comment came in response to a question raised bu U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel, who during the RealDVD case, asked the MPAA if whether or not it believes it's legal for consumers to make backup copies of legally purchased DVDs for personal use.

"Not for the purposes under the DMCA," said Bart Williams, an attorney for the MPAA. "One copy is a violation of the DMCA."

And technically, he's right, at least in terms of circumventing copyright mechanisms to make said copy. But what's startling about the comment is that the MPAA has traditionally hid behind the threat of mass software piracy and the resulting lost sales in supporting the DMCA, but apparently you're no better than pirates for profit if you make a single backup copy of a DVD you already paid for.

"We believe the buyer has that right to play a DVD as many times as they want,"  Don Scott, one of RealDVD's attorneys, told Patel. "We think he also has the right to make a copy, this fair use copy."

So do we, Scott.

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Posted 02/09/09 at 10:34:08 AM by Paul Lilly

Citing an un-named studio source, CNet says the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has gone through a "significant" round layoffs. Significant in this case means over 10 percent, with even more layoffs on the way, according to the source.

The MPAA apparently confirmed the layoffs to CNet, but wasn't as forthcoming on the exact number. Nor did the company say how the staff reduction would affect its antipiracy efforts, including its current legal battle against RealDVD over alleged copyright infringement, which is scheduled to go to court again on April 1. But an MPAA spokeswoman did say that its leadership is mostly unaffected, perhaps suggesting that the trade group has no plans of letting up its copyright crusade on behalf of the six largest film studios it represents.

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Posted 12/11/08 at 10:40:14 AM by Paul Lilly

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to officially take office, but the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has already begun briefing him with its political wish list, which is available for all to see. New transition team policies means that the Obama transition team is publicizing its meetings with interest groups and making all materials provided by those groups available on the change.gov website.

In the one-page MPAA document, Canada and Spain are singled out for "priority trade policy attention," and a call is made for more pressure on other countries to curb camcording in theaters, which the MPAA claims "remains the major source of pirated motion pictures." But the most interesting part of the document is a section titled Fighting Internet Piracy.

"One of the MPAA's top priorities is attacking internet piracy, through vigorous investigation and enforcement worldwide, as well as working with governmens to ensure that their laws provide adequate remedies to stop internet piracyand are in full compliance with the WIPO Treaties," the MPAA writes.

The MPAA goes on to point out recent efforts by the governments of France and the UK as having useful models, which is a reference to the controversial 'three-strikes' rule (officially dubbed 'graduated response') the music industry has been pushing in Europe, according to ArsTechnica.

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Posted 10/21/08 at 03:25:28 PM by Alex Castle

Monday, the MPAA posted an open letter to the EFF titled “Hollywood isn’t Living in the Past, EFF Shouldn’t Either.” The testily-titled missive contains the association’s responses to claims that its actions against the RealDVD DVD burning software are an attempt to maintain control over technology and innovation.

In the most pointed paragraph of the letter, the MPAA’s Jeff Williams writes:

“Forgive us if we take offense when the EFF and other activist organizations that continually take the side of those who profit from widespread copyright infringement attack our industry as one that stifles innovation. It's a desperate throw-back to the Napster days of old when they pull out this tired and weathered playbook. It's not 2001 anymore.”

The letter also argues that Hollywood and the internet are no longer at odds, and that legal services like iTunes and Hulu represent ways in which the industry is embracing innovation.

What do you think? Is the MPAA right to say that “The days of Hollywood being from Mars and Silicon Valley being from Venus are simply over?” Hit the jump and let us know.

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Posted 10/01/08 at 06:10:53 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Although RealNetworks downplayed any legal perils while announcing its DVD copying software last month, the major film studios have acted in the most obvious manner possible by suing the software company.

In the eye of the storm lies RealNetworks’ DVD copying tool called ReadDVD that allows users to make digital copies of their DVDs on their internal or external hard drives. However, the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) hasn’t taken a liking to the tool. The MPAA has dragged RealNetworks to court over RealDVD and is praying for a temporary restraining order against the sale of the software.

Greg Goeckner, executive vice president of MPAA, quipped that the software be called StealDVD instead of RealDVD. However, RealNetworks feels that the software can not be used for piracy as it encrypts the digital copies in such a manner that they can’t be shared.

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Posted 07/29/08 at 08:50:03 AM by Chris Moody

You have to love the spin doctors. No not the band, the group of people that are try to put a certain angle on a viewpoint. Specifically the MPAA’s latest claim that The Dark Knight had such a smash opening weekend was because of their efforts against piracy. It couldn’t possibly be because the movie was actually good, could it?

TechDirt.com points out that the MPAA would have us ignore the awesome reviews, that the movie was available in IMAX (which you can't replicate at home), or that the movie was available online right after it was released in their claims.

In the LA Times article that spawned this debate, the MPAA’s argument cites the original Hulk movie. They argue that a rough, early version of the movie by Ang Lee made its way to the internet about two weeks before the film's scheduled premiere which provoked negative reactions from the comic-book’s devoted fans.

Make the jump to see what else the article had to say.

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Posted 07/13/08 at 12:36:40 AM by Justin Kerr

Making copies of protected DVD media is complicated process conducted over dark fiber and only by the hacker elite, or is it? A new survey conducted by Futuresource Consulting shows that in reality, more than one in three US & UK residents have owned up to making copies of content they didn’t own. These numbers are up sharply from the one in four self proclaimed pirates surveyed during the previous year. The results tell the true story of what keeps Hollywood executives up at night. Is the movie industry doomed to suffer the same collapse facing music labels?

 Click the jump to find out.

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