Man Turns Self In For Ripping Own DVDs

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How far would you go to make a point? Would you go down to the police department and demand to be arrested for ripping your own movies?

In order to force a change in the law, last month a man reported himself for breaching copyright more than a hundred times, hoping an anti-piracy group would take him to court. The group’s lawyer said they would respond by today – they haven’t – so the Danish copyfighter is now reporting himself to the police.
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He could sell a ripped copy to his brother/mother/sister and film the transaction. Then claim that it cost the studios $1.7billion for that one sale.
 
Jakalwarrior said:
Making a stand in place of us sissies.
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If sissy means being smart and not jeopardize your job, life, family, and finances, then yes I'm a sissy :-P

If I had nothing to lose, then yeah I'd do it.

I've been broke for so long before I got this IT job 5 years ago. For the first time in decades I'm getting it made, have a new car, and I'm happy with my job. There's just no way I'd throw it all away because you and I and everybody else knows what bunch of assholes the RIAA is, and how corrupted governments in the world are accepting handouts from conglomerates and industry giants.
 
If only this guy had a brain the size of his balls. Genius...or not?
 
Why go after this small fry? He isn't even the target the laws were designed to fight. The MPAA is after large scale online distributors. If this dude had said he had uploaded his 100movies to numerous torrents then yeah, he would be eyeball deep in doodoo and be looking at a multi million dollar lawsuit.
 
This just seems like the equivelent of stabbing one's leg with a knife in order to prove that one has to be careful while handling sharp objects.

Or to put it another way, yes it's good to try to change a confusing and unfair law with regards to DRM. But not at the expense of oneself, there's I'm sure many other ways to do so.

But then again, publicity stunts to prove one's point never impressed me, even when I agreed with the cause. Even if I was a militant vegan (which I am not) I could never support a group like PeTA. So, what he's doing IMO amounts to a publicity stunt when I think his effort could be much better used if he wants the laws changed in his home country.
 
Seems like the fastest and most efficient way is to confront the issue head on like this. Alternative methods would prob take months/years longer and the blind/deaf voting public probably won't even hear about it.
 
JUSTJOEL73 said:
Why go after this small fry? He isn't even the target the laws were designed to fight. The MPAA is after large scale online distributors. If this dude had said he had uploaded his 100movies to numerous torrents then yeah, he would be eyeball deep in doodoo and be looking at a multi million dollar lawsuit.
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The point of this is to show that these laws are to general and far to open for interpitation that even something that can be harmless to society and have no effect on the real world should not illegal.
 
mavalpha said:
Or spelling. :p

I also can't figure out from the article if he owns any of the copyrights himself. If he does, it's even more of a gray area.
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My interpretation is that he Owns the 100+ DVDs, and made copies to his Computer/Media-PC thereby circumventing the Protection Scheme, and thus breaking their DMCA law in the process. Thus, the gray area is that he exercised his right to copy media he owns, but also broke the Danish DMCA law.

I brought this up at lunch as a thought experiment. Thanks to some grad-students iPhone, we found that the civil and criminal penalties apply for 'willfull' infringement. We all wondered what would happen if on some specific day several thousand people turned themselves into the police for 'willfully' violating the DMCA and insisted on a jury trial if charges ensued. It would take one stupid DA and a Jury Nullification to piss of much of Hollywood. And if charges were not filled would that then nullify the whole law to begin with, seeing how how it isn't enforced? Luckily we had an Attorney who gleefully reminded us that our ramblings were pointless and that a good lawyer would "smash" us.

Personally, I'm hoping Congress will finally pass one of the oft-proposed DMCA amendments that allows circumvention for NON COMMERCIAL, archival use.
 
CraftyChicken said:
My interpretation is that he Owns the 100+ DVDs, and made copies to his Computer/Media-PC thereby circumventing the Protection Scheme, and thus breaking their DMCA law in the process. Thus, the gray area is that he exercised his right to copy media he owns, but also broke the Danish DMCA law.

I brought this up at lunch as a thought experiment. Thanks to some grad-students iPhone, we found that the civil and criminal penalties apply for 'willfull' infringement. We all wondered what would happen if on some specific day several thousand people turned themselves into the police for 'willfully' violating the DMCA and insisted on a jury trial if charges ensued. It would take one stupid DA and a Jury Nullification to piss of much of Hollywood. And if charges were not filled would that then nullify the whole law to begin with, seeing how how it isn't enforced? Luckily we had an Attorney who gleefully reminded us that our ramblings were pointless and that a good lawyer would "smash" us.

Personally, I'm hoping Congress will finally pass one of the oft-proposed DMCA amendments that allows circumvention for NON COMMERCIAL, archival use.
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Yes a fix to the DMCA is needed to clarify it, but I don't think anyone is going to be hauled in front of a federal court for making digital copies of movies they own, even though it is in a gray area of the law right now.
 
Ok, he'll go to court, loose. Appeal will be denied and nothing will change. Laws that say you can't generally win over laws that say you can.

If he had a legal copy of something, say an MP3 from Amazon, he could back it up (he still can't sell it, as he doesn't own the copyright to the song.) If he buys some DRM'd file from Apple, he's totally screwed and the file won't work in a few years anyways (reformats computer to often, etc.)
 
This should be the link. Drunken Steve has an errant right parenthesis. About the story, nice for him to stand up to make a point about the asinine copyright laws, but it may very well cost him his future.
 
CraftyChicken said:
My interpretation is that he Owns the 100+ DVDs, and made copies to his Computer/Media-PC thereby circumventing the Protection Scheme, and thus breaking their DMCA law in the process. Thus, the gray area is that he exercised his right to copy media he owns, but also broke the Danish DMCA law.

I brought this up at lunch as a thought experiment. Thanks to some grad-students iPhone, we found that the civil and criminal penalties apply for 'willfull' infringement. We all wondered what would happen if on some specific day several thousand people turned themselves into the police for 'willfully' violating the DMCA and insisted on a jury trial if charges ensued. It would take one stupid DA and a Jury Nullification to piss of much of Hollywood. And if charges were not filled would that then nullify the whole law to begin with, seeing how how it isn't enforced? Luckily we had an Attorney who gleefully reminded us that our ramblings were pointless and that a good lawyer would "smash" us.

Personally, I'm hoping Congress will finally pass one of the oft-proposed DMCA amendments that allows circumvention for NON COMMERCIAL, archival use.
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" "USE LOGIC:
1) users have right to make personal copy
AND
2) users cannot legally copy because of blocks
IMPLIES
The blocks are illegal. And companies are outlaws!!!!
It’s logic and it is Soooooo simple :)
Any impediment to a user right is illegal, by definition of “right”. If I have the right to do it, and you stop me, it is a violation to my right. It is not the DRM that is illegal, it is the use of a block to enforce it.
The funny thing is that it was not so, before the majors had the DRM law approved. I could legally, with some skill and effort, make personal copies, so their blocks were still “almost” legal. They were an obstacle to my right to copy, but not an impediment. But now, with their fantastic DRM law, they wanted so bad, copy protections are a legal impediment to my right to copy and thus may become illegal and THEY (the majors) should be prosecuted.
So there is NO CONTRAST between the two laws, together they just render the protections illegal. Funny. Logic. HE should sue THEM.""

Couldn't have said it any better.
 
If everyone who's ever ripped a DVD or otherwise violated DMCA were to do this, the court system would not be able to handle the load, and unable to dismiss one without dismissing all of them (for that would violate equal treatment), judges would have no choice but to overturn the law.
 
HOCP4ME said:
If everyone who's ever ripped a DVD or otherwise violated DMCA were to do this, the court system would not be able to handle the load, and unable to dismiss one without dismissing all of them (for that would violate equal treatment), judges would have no choice but to overturn the law.
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Or turn the military on us! Long live Tienanmen Square! :eek:
 
Uncle said:
" "USE LOGIC:
1) users have right to make personal copy
AND
2) users cannot legally copy because of blocks
IMPLIES
The blocks are illegal. And companies are outlaws!!!!
It’s logic and it is Soooooo simple :)
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Playing devil's advocate, one can have the right to do something, but to actually perform it, they may not be able.

Let's say I sell steel blocks on a market. I sell them in pairs and do not want them to be separated. however, there is a user-base out there that wants to separate them and there is legislation out there that says they can do that. Is it wrong for me to sell them with bars welded to them to keep them together? If someone was industrious enough, they could separate the bars by grinding/sawing/torching them apart. I know it's a bad example and someone will find a "yeah but...", but in generic terms, it explains what I'm trying to say.

That's how I see this whole situation. They are protecting an investment on their part. Legally speaking, we are protecting our investment.
 
Right, I think the question isn't the enforcement of DMCA laws against personal use like this, but rather it's consequences FOR personal use.

For example:
-Any program someone tries to sell that allows you to copy DVDs into a movie library is instantly squashed, and said company sued. Because it is a violation of the DMCA to circumvent copy protection.
-Windows does not have GOOD support for HDTV because it requires a proprietary CableCard that basically doesn't work unless you are really lucky and don't' have Satellite TV, because breaking the HDCP encryption would be a Violation of DMCA.

Simply, the Content Providers and Content Distributors do not want to loose control over how you watch the Media (music, movies, television, and probably books soon). Hence why every amendment that sought to make it legal to circumvent copy-protection schemes for personal and public archival use has never made it out of committee.

The subject is just upping the ante by turning himself in, and also making it easier for a future defense Attorney to say "Look, they didn't go after this guy even though he admitted guilt." Now, that probably isn't a strong defense, but you never know with juries (as I can attest to having spent 3 weeks on one). I don't know how Danish laws work, but I know that here in the States a successful defense like that could lead to a nullification, Hollywood's worst fear since it would essentially demolish the whole thing. But, as I said earlier, the the odd-ball attorney told us no lawyer worth he's salt would let that happen.

I agree it's not we, the people, who copy our movies for personal use that are the criminals. I think that is this Danish dude's whole point.
 
Azhar said:
If sissy means being smart and not jeopardize your job, life, family, and finances, then yes I'm a sissy :-P

If I had nothing to lose, then yeah I'd do it.

I've been broke for so long before I got this IT job 5 years ago. For the first time in decades I'm getting it made, have a new car, and I'm happy with my job. There's just no way I'd throw it all away because you and I and everybody else knows what bunch of assholes the RIAA is, and how corrupted governments in the world are accepting handouts from conglomerates and industry giants.
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Under they all take it away from you. Again.
 
Fark_Maniac said:
Playing devil's advocate, one can have the right to do something, but to actually perform it, they may not be able.

Let's say I sell steel blocks on a market. I sell them in pairs and do not want them to be separated. however, there is a user-base out there that wants to separate them and there is legislation out there that says they can do that. Is it wrong for me to sell them with bars welded to them to keep them together? If someone was industrious enough, they could separate the bars by grinding/sawing/torching them apart. I know it's a bad example and someone will find a "yeah but...", but in generic terms, it explains what I'm trying to say.

That's how I see this whole situation. They are protecting an investment on their part. Legally speaking, we are protecting our investment.
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That is the way it used to be. Now imagine, you, the retailer, lobbied and had laws passed to where the removal of the steel bar by any means was illegal! Because, that is what we are talking about here. The law says you have the personal right to backup your content, and it says that if you use any method to defeat the thing that is stopping you from backing up, you are a criminal.

WTF kind of sense does that make? It doesn't, and certainly not in the context of steel blocks.
 
Is there a Dane in the house? We went through the same procedure trying to assume US procedure at a Swedish Thing. How does the Danish system work and can they overturn illegal laws without great danger to our Hero?
 
JUSTJOEL73 said:
Why go after this small fry? He isn't even the target the laws were designed to fight. The MPAA is after large scale online distributors. If this dude had said he had uploaded his 100movies to numerous torrents then yeah, he would be eyeball deep in doodoo and be looking at a multi million dollar lawsuit.
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Why are you talking about the MPAA? The guy is Danish, and he's turning himself in in Denmark.

But while we're talking about the MPAA, their targets are the same as the RIAA's: single mothers and students.
 
Cannot speak about Denmark, but in the US when you buy a CD or DVD/BR you are only buying the physical transport medium and the right to view the contents of that medium. You are NOT buying the rights to the movie.

You are allowed to make a fair use backup copy of the media on which the movie resides, but you cannot alter the movie contained on said media. This means you can copy the contents as long as you copy the copy protection as well (with many other caveats involved). If you try to copy the contents without copying the protection, you have violated the law.

Even as such, if you try to view the contents of the media from a different media than the one you purchased, you are again violating the law, for you did not buy the rights to view the contents from the new media, just the old media.


This is why it is so confusing. People commonly say they bought a movie. This is completely wrong, buying a movie would cost in the millions of dollars (for Hollywood style movies). People are simply buying the right to view the movie contained on a specific piece of media.
 
CraftyChicken said:
-Windows does not have GOOD support for HDTV because it requires a proprietary CableCard that basically doesn't work unless you are really lucky and don't' have Satellite TV, because breaking the HDCP encryption would be a Violation of DMCA.
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Untrue. Windows, with the approval of CableCard, is now only encrypting the shows which are listed as Copy Once. This means you can only view them from the machine you copied them onto and via any extenders you may have (since they are not copying the show, but simply displaying the show from the location to which it was originally copied).

The update is not that old, so it is not a surprise you may not have heard of it.
 
cybrsage said:
Untrue. Windows, with the approval of CableCard, is now only encrypting the shows which are listed as Copy Once. This means you can only view them from the machine you copied them onto and via any extenders you may have (since they are not copying the show, but simply displaying the show from the location to which it was originally copied).

The update is not that old, so it is not a surprise you may not have heard of it.
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But can I go an buy a CableCard PCI adapter from newegg, install it in my own box and add my cable provider's cable card? Last I heard that was not possible, i.e I had to buy a box from a 'licensed' supporter like Dell. If I'm wrong, Hallelujah!
 
cybrsage said:
Cannot speak about Denmark, but in the US when you buy a CD or DVD/BR you are only buying the physical transport medium and the right to view the contents of that medium. You are NOT buying the rights to the movie.
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Sorry for the double post, but I think this is important. At a place I do work at, they got busted for writing a program that tried to take the raw data file from a very expensive instrument and convert it into plain text for direct maniuplation outside of the junk software the instruments maker provided. The reason being, it violated the DMCA clause because the .RAW format was 'encrypted.' Attorneys battled, and an NDA agreement was reached, allowing it to go forward, because apparently our attorneys were able to show them how fast they'd lose this case, as there were multiple precedents for use like this. (Plus the threat of just doing it anyway and publishing it on the net) In the end, they didn't instrument maker want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, as you really don't want to piss off the academic community who has the choice between 2 other competitors for those $2,000,000 machines.

My point...Almost always the courts held that any copying of information you own is not illegal, and does not violate the DMCA even if you break the encryption. But, because it is still such a gray area, there are no application developers out there making software that will move things forward.

What the attorney's did find was that distribution of software that crack encryption IS illegal, hence the NDA and agreement to disagree.

The problem is the MBA weenies in New York and California are so freaking worried about the flood of 'casual' sharing they are totally missing the fact that those same people have and always will steal their stuff, and all they are doing is hurting their own sales. In this case, we don't have our choice between 2 alternate competitors. But the paradigm shift is coming, and I bet some of the best new movies and programs will be little independent studios who publish their stuff solely on the web. THAT will change everything.
 
CraftyChicken said:
But can I go an buy a CableCard PCI adapter from newegg, install it in my own box and add my cable provider's cable card? Last I heard that was not possible, i.e I had to buy a box from a 'licensed' supporter like Dell. If I'm wrong, Hallelujah!
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This was true until November 6, 2009. CableLabs and Microsoft announced that any computer running Windows 7 will be able to use DCT tuners and CableCARDs. Vista computers will need require technician installation.

http://thegreenbutton.com/blogs/win...1/06/digital-cable-advisor-now-available.aspx
 
Azhar said:
If sissy means being smart and not jeopardize your job, life, family, and finances, then yes I'm a sissy :-P

If I had nothing to lose, then yeah I'd do it.

I've been broke for so long before I got this IT job 5 years ago. For the first time in decades I'm getting it made, have a new car, and I'm happy with my job. There's just no way I'd throw it all away because you and I and everybody else knows what bunch of assholes the RIAA is, and how corrupted governments in the world are accepting handouts from conglomerates and industry giants.
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Actually sissies usually rationalize just like that! I think you're on to something :p
 
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