Dane who ripped his DVDs demands to be arrested under DRM law | Hacker News Reader

Dane who ripped his DVDs demands to be arrested under DRM law

boingboing.net

94 pointsThomPete30 comments

I do think this is silly; the risk is that it gets upheld and sparks a spate of "arresting normal people".

I dont see the problem with laws like this TBH: getting it questioned in court doesn't get to the root of the copyright issue in any meaningful way...

I thought there existed something of a gentleman's agreement in respect to this area: copying DVD's is that legal grey area that is probably against the law. But the rules aren't enforced for "everyman" and are there to help prosecute the big time bootleggers :) (DVD's out the back of vans).

I cant see how this would help at all - it's a non-issue, right?

If the law is there to help prosecute bootleggers, then why aren't the laws against bootlegging enough? The law against making copies of DVDs is superfluous, by your own reasoning. Why isn't a good idea to challenge laws like this?

Sorry to have not been clear but I meant the laws around breaking the DRM/encryption - not the act of making the copy.

Bootlegging is one example of it's practical use.

You don't need to break any encryption to make a bitwise copy of a DVD.

Except he's circumventing the DRM in order to make fair-use backups.

Challenge everything. That is the basis of our legal system (not to be confused with EA who's motto is "Rip-off Everyone".) So if you feel something is unjust challenge it. And sometimes you just have no way around it other than to be taken to court or to go to court.

The problem is it isn't just a grey area. Its a grey area that large corporations are using to push around the "little guys" with.

As for helping, its one guy doing the most he can. Its certainly more than I would be willing to do.

I dont buy it: which "little guy" has been prosecuted for breaking DRM encryption for personal use? (as this is what it amounts to).

I cant agree this would help: it's not really a contentious issue at the moment and this risks a) giving copyright apologists something to distract people with and b) risks a crackdown on people making personal backups...

I think there are better areas to challenge initially; that's all.

Me. I was not prosecuted, but bullied by repeated DMCA infringement notices and ridiculous copyright infringement claims. I ran a company that produced a library to allow use of Fairplay DRM (used in iTunes) content on unsupported platforms, and despite not allowing users to strip DRM off of their files (just play them back), we were bludgeoned out of business by claim on claim from Apple.

You don't need to take someone to court to harm them with a law, simply make it so that they have no choice but to stop doing whatever it is that they're doing. In all likelihood, we would've won if we went to court, and we could've easily won a countersuit for the copyright infringement claims (they actually said later that they didn't say such a thing, despite us having it in black and white), but none of that matters if you can't take on an expensive and drawn out lawsuit.

That sucks and I agree you have a big grievance.

However it's not an example like I talked about. Even if this guy wins through I don't see how it would affect the broad DRM laws such as hounded you. As I see it it would be a test case for personal use being allowed?

A test case could make it clear(er) whether using drm-cracking software for personal use is allowed. Writing drm-cracking software would still be in a grey area as you say, but putting a primary use-case for the software firmly in the white must help.

Ran into this same situation with a previous employer filing suit against me for allegedly violating a ridiculously overreaching non-compete agreement. In the end, we had to shut down and agree to some ridiculous settlement because we couldn't afford to fight them.

DMCA laws damage the economy, help create a police state, and are unnecessary.

The fact that format shifting DVD's is illegal harms the billion dollar market for digital video products. If format shifting CD's was illegal digital music products like the iPod may never have been the success they are today.

Making ordinary people criminals, but prosecuting them inconsistently gives arbitrary power to the state. This can create a climate of fear and lead in the direction of a police state.

Commercial bootlegging of CD's is a violation of existing copyright law, and nothing new needed to be made illegal to address it.

I value and respect the contribution of the great Dane.

But "arresting normal people" would be a great outcome for this (at least from the philosophical perspective I think he's coming from): it would make it a lot harder for Joe Random to push off a law as "stupid, but doesn't affect me, so whatever". If "normal people" start getting arrested and irritated, the law will be fixed.

There are two laws. They seem to conflict with each other. They both speak to acts that many, many normal people (as well as bootleggers) engage in and/or wish to engage in. Several people have tried to get clarification, but to no avail.

Thus, the only way to test the laws is to break one of them, and see what happens.

You may argue that it's not important, because only egregious violators are ever prosecuted. But that's the same as a government making a law which says "nobody is allowed to speak loudly" and then saying "but don't worry, we'll only arrest people who say dangerous things loudly".

They'll arrest him decades later, when he least expects it, like that Polish filmmaker.

Hey, his lawyer has the same last name as me (though pre-americanized). Neat.

This stunt is lame as he is not violating any Danish laws, so why would Danish police arrest him?

If he had done it on US soil though (perhaps in front of the US embassy) there could have been an actual dilemma.

According to the article: "It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs."

I think it's a worthwhile attempt to resolve a contradiction of a stupid law.

I don't understand how the laws are contradictory. Commercial disk does not necessarily mean DRM right?

I think most DVD movies have a DRM that you must break to backup the disk.

Yea, no doubt most. But most is not all. So in my opinion it's not ambiguous, and not contradictory. It's still stupid, but it's not really ambiguous. It just means if it has DRM and it's commercial, you'll have to find another way to rip a copy, or go rip a commercial disk without DRM.

Commercial disk doesn't necessarily mean DRM, but major movie studio does.

Yes but the law doesn't specifically say major studio films right? I'm just saying the law itself is not exactly contradictory.

True, there is probably an interpretation of the laws in which they are not contradictory. If the intent of the home backup law was to allow copying of any video/dvd at home, and the intent of the drm law was to stop any copying of videos/dvds, then it really depends what exactly the laws are, and whether a court case about intent can lead to those laws being changed/clarified.

Unfortunately we only have uninformed guesses, so I say wait on it for 3 months and see if the guy gets his day in court. I shall set a date in my calendar to google it :-)

No. Like someone else said, you can make a perfect bitwise copy of a DVD without running afoul of anticircumvention laws--just copy it with the DRM intact.

99% of DVDs use CSS encryption, trivially breakable but encryption still.

I'm confused. Unless the article is wrong, "It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs" seems to state that he did break a law.

It makes quite a bit of sense to do a stunt like this, although I certainly would not be willing to be the person to risk it. The way most of the anti-piracy outfits work is to make vague claims about the legality of various actions, and demand a settlement. Sure, its cheaper to do that for both parties, but if they're just waving about a threat that has never been upheld (or not upheld) in court, it creates problems.

The article is at least simplifying the issue.

IANAL but the license for the product you bought has to specifically mention, that you are not allowed to break the DRM, but there are exceptions, for example you are allowed to break it for interoperability and last I read about this it specifically mentioned “to play on another OS” as a reason.

Even if the license does prevent you from breaking the DRM you can seek to get it removed if you have a reason for needing to copy the material (non-commercially). The vendor has 4 weeks to reply to such request, after which you are free to break it yourself, if the vendor does not reply.

But as said, IANAL — maybe some of all those who down-voted my original comment can help? ;)

I can't tell if you're referring to the US position here (as you did originally), or the Danish implementation of the EU's Directive 2001/29/EC. If it's the former, I'm afraid you're wrong.

Per DMCA, every three years the Register of Copyrights solicits written appeals and holds a series of public hearings to consider which classes of works should be exempted. The Librarian of Congress makes a determination about the exemptions for the following three year period. The 2009 rulemaking process is ongoing, but so far this has been done in 2000, 2003, and 2006.

In those appeals, the public asked for exemptions for circumvention of DVDs for non-infringing use. The Librarian of Congress asked for them to fuck off.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/anticirc.html

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