MPAA Wants Filmmakers To Pay Licenses, Not Rip Blu-rays (torrentfreak.com) 81
An anonymous reader writes: Late last year several filmmaker groups asked the US Copyright Office to lift some of the current DMCA circumvention restrictions, so they can rip and use clips from Blu-rays and other videos without repercussions. In the US, people risk bypassing DMCA's anti-circumvention when they rip a DVD or Blu-ray disc. (There are some exemptions, such as educational and other types of fair use, but the line between legal and illegal is not always clear, some argue.) Not everyone agrees with this assessment though. A group of "joint creators and copyright owners" which includes Hollywood's MPAA, the RIAA, and ESA don't think this is a good idea and point out that filmmakers have plenty of other options. The MPAA and the other groups point out that the exemption could be used by filmmakers to avoid paying licensing fees, which can be quite expensive.
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Re: A great listen. RIAA? No! (Score:2)
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I get it - everyone has different standards. But the streaming formats have surpassed OTA TV now, and really aren't half bad. Sure, a HD 4k Blu-Ray is really gorgeous on a nice TV... but shows on Amazon and Netflix in 4k HD also look really nice. Maybe not as nice, but still better than anything available 5 years ago in any format. We just watched Planet Earth 2 on Netflix and it was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
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So now documentaries are not a valid form of entertainment? Amazing.
Re:A great listen. RIAA? No! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwidth isn't the issue here, dude.
Regardless of how much bandwidth you have, streaming sites, digital storefronts, and the free "digital downloads" included with many movies are shit in terms of quality when you compare them to the physical release.
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The "physical release" for theatres is now most often digital video. Film is going away. Nothing physical anymore.
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What the fuck are you talking about?
A physical BR has much higher quality than anything you can get via Netflix/iTunes/Amazon/UltraViolet/etc. I was responding to someone who mentioned bandwidth being a problem (and that person was responding to some clown who referred to BRs as coasters).
This has nothing to do with what movie theaters get, nor does it have anything to do with film.
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You aren't getting the same bits. The stream on a BD and the stream for Amazon or Netflix often have different quantizer settings, even if they are made from the same pixels. A higher quantizer reduces bitrate but adds more noise to the picture to make it easier to compress.
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Streaming 4k video is far more compressed than UHD Blu-ray. Likewise, streaming HD video is far more compressed than Blu-ray. You're not getting the "exact same bits", and you're not getting the same quality.
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WTF are your smoking?
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There are some really nice Blu-Ray rips up on usenet, though.
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But honestly, does anyone actually care anymore? I was a DVD early adopter (I'm in the UK and bought all my DVDs from Canada to play on my region free DVD player - I really cared). Now? I just couldn't give two fucks. I don't even pick the HD stream when I'm given the choice. 4k explosions and 7.1 bullet noises really don't add much to my enjoyment of the story.
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I care. If I'm going to take the time to sit through a movie, I'm not going to fucking deal with shitty quality. When I can go to RedBox on my way home / to get food/gas/blow and get a superior version of something for a dollar (there's always free rental codes to be had, so you just pay the upcharge for the BR version), why wouldn't I? There's also the option of downloading a BR rip from TPB (and you can typically get it earlier than street date this way) if you just want shit for free or demand maximum
Re:A great listen. RIAA? No! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you shitting me?
For movies I want to keep and watch whenever I want, I still buy them on BluRay.
No download to worry about, no asking permission from some asshole movie studio to validate my license, no 'content no longer available' after I paid for it, nobody's goddamned business how many times I watch it, and I don't have to give my contact information to anybody like you do with Ultraviolet.
I have no interest in a digital only copy which is controlled by someone else, because those people are assholes.
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You should have posted under your own name. Everything you said is true and it applies to CD's too. No monthly fee, and if I want my music in FLAC instead of mp3, I can just rerip it. For all the complaining people do about RIAA and MPAA, they are amazingly trusting about having their content remain available.
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Are you shitting me?
No, I concur. I bu a lot of DVDs still by many standards, but I get the majority second hand from a UK chain called CEX, where they sell them from between 50p and about a tenner.
They do also sell BluRay, but I never buy any because I don't have a player. I don't have a player because they have one half-height shelf devoted to Blu-rays and an entire floor for DVDs. DVDs it seems are still vastly more popular and I'd imagine the availability of second hand ones has some relation to the ava
Fuck the MPAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fuck the MPAA (Score:5, Funny)
But why do film makers need to lift so much footage from other films?
For things like the Transformers movies. I think there's only been two actual movies filmed and all the other ones are clipped together from them.
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It's not a question of the amount of footage. Even taking one frame from a Blu-Ray movie to use in a review of that movie is a violation of the DMCA because you have to break the encryption to get hat frame.
The group is asking for an exception to allow decryption for clips that would be legally usable under fair use laws if they weren't encrypted.
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Not on proper Blu-Ray player software - which requires a secure content path from the decoder to the screen, including HDCP. If you're saying you can get a screen grab, you are probably issuing a player that already breaks the encryption.
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Not on proper Blu-Ray player software - which requires a secure content path from the decoder to the screen, including HDCP. If you're saying you can get a screen grab, you are probably issuing a player that already breaks the encryption.
I usually just lay a 14 inch HDMI monitor on my flatbed scanner for a quick screen grab. If I need a higher quality one, I'll make a bunch of scans off of my 55 in TV and stitch them together. So far my Blu-ray software hasn't complained about it. ;-)
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Not on proper Blu-Ray player software - which requires a secure content path from the decoder to the screen, including HDCP. If you're saying you can get a screen grab, you are probably issuing a player that already breaks the encryption.
Or pointing a camera at the screen? I bet that's probably covered too actually.
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I've actually tried to legally use a single frame still from a movie as part of a talk, to illustrate a particular point. In other words, something that's obviously fair use, but for some reason I thought I'd try and do it the right way and actually get official permission.
It was basically impossible. After several hours of effort to try and Do The Right Thing, I had to give up, it was potentially going to take days of effort spread over weeks or even months of time just to get to use one stinking lousy f
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Secure content path. HDCP. No screen capture.
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It would be the same as taking a screenshot on the local machine. You'd get nothing. What do you think 'passthrough' means and what do you think that's bypassing?
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"But why do film makers need to lift so much footage from other films? Does this happen a lot outside of stock footage situations? Documentaries sure but there's an exemption for that it seems."
An exemption that cannot be used without ripping a Blu-ray, that's sort of the point of this article.
Where else could you get a scene in high quality for free?
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There can be a lot of uses.
1. An other movie is an element of the plot. Think Home alone, where Dirty Harry (or some gangster movie) was shown, and replayed to scare the bad guys into thinking they were being shot at.
2. A movie at the time was shot on site, Now it is decades later and such landscape isn't available anymore. Pre-2001 New York City, Las Vegas nearly every year... A movie clip could help set the scene for the period of the movie.
3. Having to reuse the same effect. The Wilhelm scream comes to
Angels With Filthy Souls (Score:4, Insightful)
1 is probably not fair use, as the production could instead produce an original film and have the characters watch that film. In fact, "Angels With Filthy Souls" in Home Alone is exactly that.
2. The production can instead build a replica set. That's how it'd have to be done anyway for movies set before color motion picture film became widespread.
3. Star Trek Generations and Star Trek VI share a distributor. Licensing is a doddle in such cases.
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No, such an exemption is what they're asking for.
Also, the amount of footage is 0% relevant. Accessing two seconds of video, or even a still, is just as illegal under DMCA as accessing two minutes.
That all fair uses are illegal unless explicitly exempted, and the tools are illegal regardless of whether the use is legal or exempted or not, are among of the reasons DMCA should be repealed.
Entertainment Software Association (Score:2)
Why does the European Space Agency have something to say on this matter?
It doesn't, except to the extent that games published by members of the Entertainment Software Association use data sets published by the European Space Agency.
Fair use, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little shocked, shocked! the film makers want to be exempted from copyright they rely on to derive revenue from their work, so they can apparently use other film makers' work for free.
Why could this be wrong? Well, first, fair use is the proper exemption. Of course it could apply, unless of course there is profit involved. I'm guessing they want to use clips in place of stock footage, or perhaps real world event clips to fit plot, or even steal outright clever stuff.
Let them eat cake.
Re:Fair use, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the fair use rights (which you admit are the proper exemption here) are blocked by movie studios using encryption on released video. The use of the clip may be legal, but the decrypting the video to get the clip is illegal under the DMCA.
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What the DMCA has done is make creation and distribution of the tools needed decrypt the video illegal.
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Fair use is fair use even with a profit motive. As long as you're making your actual profit from the commentary and not as a way to see the copyrighted content, it's legal fair use.
My guess is they want to use the clips (Score:2)
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Why does film critique require displaying an excerpt of the original motion picture in a quality greater than that achievable by camcording a licensed TV connected to a licensed player? Reviews in newspapers get away with not displaying the motion picture at all.
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unless of course there is profit involved.
This is not a problem. Modern movies use accounting practices that ensure they do not make a profit.
Really don't need to read (Score:1)
Kiwi ingenuity (Score:3)
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/201... [gizmodo.com.au]