Re: [dvd-discuss] Implied License to Watch the Movie

["patentbuster" <patentbuster(at)home.com>]

The DVD (and prior VHS) licensing terms are only meant as a limitation:  the
DVD is for private home use only.  It expressly disavows any implied license
for the copyright holders' public display, public performance, or public
distribution rights.  (in other words, no napster for you.)

That said, once you own a copy of a DVD, you can privately display,
privately perform or privately distribute the work since those aren't rights
of the copyright holder.  This is going to be the next big fights on digital
media rights.  You just can't copy it again, although fair use says you can
for purely private time-shifting (Sony v. Universal) or space-shifting
(Diamond RIO case) purposes.

That's one of the fundamental problems with the DVD access control schemes,
and why the industry is fighting so hard to control all uses at the "access"
level. This in effect allows them to make any breach of shrink-wrap contract
enforceable as a copyright violation, while not providing any of the
limitations or fair use rights inherent in copyright law.

It is a religious doctrine, where "intellectual property rights" are
absolute, and first amendment rights are not.  IP rights, though, are
creatures of statute with express limitations: there are limits to the
enforcement of valid patents and copyrights, and there are defenses to
patent, copyright and trademark infringement.  Intellectual property rights
are an entitlement right, which Congress was granted the right to create
within the limits of Art. I, cl. 8, sec. 8.  Adobe has no more an absolute
right to intellectual property rights than a person has an absolute property
right to welfare payments.  Once granted by statute, intellectual property
rights should be enforced to the fullest extent permissible, to reimburse
the inventor for investment and author for creative work, but that
reimbursement can go no further than allowed by the statute and by the
constitution.  Attempts to tether fair use rights to licenses, when the
license still looks, smells and acts like first sale, are dangerous not just
to the public but to the companies that try it:  they risk losing their
contract rights and copyrights in the process.

That said, the Effects opinion is pretty funny, but not as funny as the
actual exploding frozen yogurt factory in the movie, which looks like a toy
model exploding on the screen.