Since When Is Driving With Infringing DVDs A Crime?

from the this-is-a-good-question dept

Last year, we pointed out that the RIAA was going around telling district attorneys and other law enforcement folks that they should start looking to see if they could use "piracy" charges as a front to get search warrants of suspected drug houses when there wasn't enough evidence to get a warrant having to do with drugs. It seems that some in law enforcement are following through on that. Michael Scott points us to a troubling lawsuit involving just such a situation. Apparently, narcotics officers were told to try to pull over a certain vehicle on any sort of traffic infraction, on the belief that there were drugs in the vehicle. While there was a tiny amount of marijuana, it wasn't enough to do anything. However... there was a big box of what turned out to be counterfeit DVDs. The guy was arrested and a warrant was issued to search his house -- and eventually he was charged with copyright infringement for the DVDs. The guy argued that the search of his car and house were a violation, but the link above includes an important point by Shourin Sen:

Mere possession of infringing DVDs isn't illegal. You can drive around with a truck full of them. You just can't reproduce or distribute ten or more infringing copies of a copyrighted work which have a total retail value of more than $2,500. If it wasn't the marijuana, what in fact was the Defendant arrested for? And was there probable cause to search the defendants house based only on the possession of material he was legally allowed to carry?

These are all good questions...

Filed Under: copyright, drugs, dvds, infringement

Film Studios Can 'Cannibalize' Their DVD Sales, Or Lose Them Completely

from the time-warp dept

"Like music before it, and lately the book industry, major film studios are grappling with the transition from distribution of physical DVDs to electronic delivery. It is a change the studios need to make, to cut costs and curtail piracy." You'd be forgiven for thinking that line was from a story about the film business from several years ago, but it's from a piece over the weekend in the WSJ laying out that movie studios still haven't figured out this internet thing. Of course, with guys like Michael Lynton in charge, that doesn't seem too surprising. Anyway, the main point of the WSJ piece is that studios have been slow to move because they're afraid of killing off DVD sales, which still account for 43 percent of film revenues. Here's the rub, though: DVD sales are already slipping, and efforts to boost them by pushing new kinds of plastic discs on consumers aren't helping. The studios seem to believe that their content is valuable enough that they can dictate how people purchase and enjoy it, and that they'll keep on buying, regardless of how their preferences and desires change. This attitude has already shown up in the studios thinking of yanking their movies from Netflix and trying to hamper the Redbox rental service. Clearly, the idea that studios can protect DVD sales by hamstringing downloads and online services isn't working. Using the fear of cannibalizing DVD revenues with online services isn't particularly smart. Studios face the choice of perhaps cannibalizing their own sales, or losing the revenues to somebody else completely.

Filed Under: business, dvds

MPAA Points Out That Real Once Argued Against Fair Use Exceptions To The DMCA

from the flip-flop dept

The MPAA's suit to block Real Networks' RealDVD software rolls on, with some twists and turns. The latest is that the MPAA says that about 10 years ago, Real made the same argument that the MPAA is making in this case, saying that there is no fair use exception to the DMCA. Real used the argument in a case against Streambox, which created software that let people record Real streams. It prevailed in the Streambox case, so the MPAA asked the judge for an estoppel ruling, which would preclude it from arguing for fair use in the current case, since the argument contradicts its earlier position. Closing arguments in the case have wrapped up, and there's no indication when the judge will issue a ruling -- nor whether Real's apparent change of heart on fair use and the DMCA will hamper its efforts.

Filed Under: copyright, dvds, fair use
Companies: mpaa, realnetworks

Fox Makes 24 DVDs Available As Soon As The Season Ends

from the about-time... dept

I have to admit that, for all the insistence from movie industry folks about the importance of "windows" between releases in different formats, it's never made any sense to me that movies aren't released in multiple formats at the same time. In fact, I still can't figure out why the movie studios don't have DVDs of the movie you just saw for sale as you walk out of the theater. Offer up the DVDs with a discount if you have a ticket from the showing, and if the movie was really good, the DVD has lots of extras, and the price is reasonable, plenty of people would buy it right up -- rather than needing to remember months later. So consider me surprised and impressed that Fox made sure that the DVD for the latest season of the show 24 was available the day after the season ended. It's not quite the same as having DVDs of movies available, but it's close. Of course, the studio also decided not to do much marketing for the DVD release, fearing that people wouldn't watch the finale if they knew they could buy it on DVD the next day. Of course, they could also just record it with their DVR, but who's counting?

Filed Under: 24, dvds, tv shows

RealNetworks Ups The Ante; Wants To Add Antitrust Charges Against The MPAA

from the your-move dept

With the lawsuit between the movie studios and RealNetworks off to an inauspicious start, it looks like RealNetworks decided to pull out the nuclear option: it's trying to add anti-trust charges against the movie studios to the case. The company claims it's come across evidence that the studios colluded to boycott RealNetworks and its attempt to let people back up their legally obtained movies. It would be interesting to know the details behind the evidence, as it could make the case a lot more exciting pretty quickly.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, dvds, mpaa
Companies: mpaa, realnetworks

Real DVD Copying Case Gets Off To An Inauspicious Start

from the not-a-good-sign dept

The latest joke of a lawsuit from Hollywood, over Real Networks' RealDVD software, began today. The movie studios were actually able to get the judge to close the courtroom and kick out the press, despite not following the normal procedures to request such a move. If you haven't followed the case at all, basically Hollywood is suing RealNetworks for making software that allows you to back up your own DVDs, though it places significant limitations on them. What's really odd about this is that there are tons of free DVD rippers out there that put no restrictions whatsoever. In Real's case, it puts significant limitations on the backup copies -- and courts have shown in the past that making a backup of a digital good is accepted as fair use. Taking Real's product off the market makes almost no sense at all.

However, it seems like Hollywood's argument is based on the claim that Real somehow is using "hacker" technology in its product that violates the DMCA. It's not clear why using hacker technology should make the situation any different than having built your own. The MPAA is also claiming that there is no fair use defense to backing up a DVD, which is difficult to believe, given that fair use covers backups of music and software. What makes a movie so different? Well, the MPAA, of course, will claim (as it did in a previous case, against 321 Studios) that the encryption makes it illegal.

And that's where the problems come in. Thanks to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA, an action that is clearly fair use (backing up a movie) becomes illegal not because of the backup, but because of the circumvention of the DRM. That should go against all common sense: if the action itself is legal fair use, why should it matter how it's done (or who made the software)? Unfortunately, we don't often see common sense win out in these cases... and the early reports from the court room suggest that the judge is siding with the MPAA. Perhaps this isn't a surprise. Marilyn Hall Patel is the same judge who declared Napster illegal as well, despite a strong safe harbor defense. In this case, she told RealNetworks:

"They have the copyright. That's the issue here right? They have the copyright. They have the right to exclude."

That's actually a somewhat scary quote from the judge who should know better. Copyright does give them a right to exclude, but a limited right, which is supposed to be weighed against the rights of consumers, including their rights to fair use for things like (drum roll....) making a backup.

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, backups, copyright, dmca, dvds, fair use, movies
Companies: mpaa, real networks

Obama's Gift To British Prime Minister Rendered Useless By DRM

from the learning-process dept

A few years back, it emerged that US Senator Ted Stevens had been given an iPod by his daughter, and it had changed the way he saw the RIAA and the measures for which it lobbied. It's always seemed to me that once politicians -- at least those not beholden to the entertainment industry -- experienced the stupidity and frustration of the locks and controls that groups like the RIAA and MPAA put on content and want backed up by law, they'd realize they were little more than attempts to frustrate consumers and prop up outmoded business models. Maybe the UK is prepared for a similar political inflection point: its Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was recently given a gift of 25 DVDs of classic American movies by US President Barack Obama. When Brown sat down to watch one of them, he found he couldn't -- because Obama had given him Region 1 DVDs, unplayable in Brown's Region 2 DVD player. The pointless DRM didn't stop any piracy, it prevented an absolutely reasonable use of legitimately purchased content. Maybe this experience will help the British government understand how many of the entertainment industry's efforts to strengthen intellectual property controls do little more than irritate legitimate consumers in the name of supporting failing business models.

Filed Under: barack obama, drm, dvds, gordon brown, regional encoding

If Your Business Model Revolves Around Taking Some Feature Away From People, You're Doing It Wrong

from the add-value,-not-diminish-it... dept

I'm always amazed when companies think that they can take features away from users and then charge more for re-accessing those features. Taking features away from people to charge them for them almost never works. It just pisses off people who quickly go looking for alternatives. The latest company getting set to discover this for themselves appears to be 20th Century Fox studios, who wants to remove all the special features from rental DVDs in the hopes that people will buy those DVDs instead. Of course, what might happen is that fewer people rent their movies and fewer people buy the movies. I'm a fan of various DVD extras -- and it's part of the reason why I rent movies. If a DVD doesn't have them, I'm a lot less likely to rent the film -- and I'm unlikely to buy a DVD if I haven't first seen it as a rental. So, for me, Fox's strategy will certainly backfire, and I'd imagine the same is true for many others as well.

Filed Under: dvds, extras, rentals
Companies: fox

Redbox Gets Bought: Another Success For Good Service At A Good Price

from the doing-things-the-right-way dept

Redbox, the company that rents DVDs out of automated kiosks for $1 per night, has been bought for up to $176 million by its biggest investor, Coinstar. It was hard to dislike Redbox: the company was having a lot of success in a space where other companies hadn't, by creating a convenient and easy to use service that delivered at a great price. Plus, anything that gets Hollywood's knickers in an enormous twist generally is pretty good. Universal Studios, in particular, tried to hamper Redbox through threats leading to lawsuits (update: clarified that Redbox filed the lawsuit... in response to a threat from Universal), perhaps hoping to kill the company off before launching rental kiosks of its own. But rather than try to destroy Redbox, Hollywood (and plenty of other people) should learn from it: the way to success isn't by putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of your customers' happiness, it's by providing them a service they want, delivered in an easy way, with a lot of value.

Filed Under: dvds, good service, mergers
Companies: coinstar, redbox

Should DVD Counterfeiters Fear Police Or The Internet More?

from the just-saying... dept

A bunch of people have sent in this story about UK Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy claiming that by the 2012 Olympics, London will be a "fake-free zone" as he begins to crackdown on counterfeit DVD sellers. Not surprisingly, this move involved a variety of public and private parties, including the Motion Picture Association, UK Film Council, UK Intellectual Property Office, Federation Against Copyright Theft, London Councils, Trading Standards and the London police. Of course, the whole thing seems sort of yawn inducing. For a few years now, there have been stories noting that internet file sharing has been putting the counterfeit street sellers out of business. And, over the course of the next four years, you have to imagine that pace is only going to accelerate. So, congrats, David Lammy, for spending taxpayer money on stomping out something that was naturally dying out anyway.

Filed Under: counterfeiting, dvds, london, olympics, piracy