[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[dvd-discuss] Correction: ReplayTV: Some Citizens Consumers, Some Not




(This is about ReplayTV, not the BPDG.  I just blindly
associated Tom Poe, who posted the original news bit, with
the BPDG issue.  See Seth Schoen's comments below, from the
DVD discussion list, dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu  --
Seth Johnson)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] BPDG: Some Citizens Consumers,
Some Not
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 18:00:28 -0700
From: Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org>

Seth Johnson writes:

> > http://www.studioforrecording.org/mt/archive/000032.html#000032
> 
> DVR's Illegal For All But Hollywood . . . .

The BPDG compliance and robustness rules do not say anything
about contributory copyright liability, and do not (so far)
propose a contributory liability safe harbor for
organizations which comply with them.  Much as the DMCA
created a new kind of liability for "circumvention devices",
the BPDG rules could create a new kind of liability for
"non-compliant covered products" which provide a
"demodulation function".

They also do not propose to make PVRs/DVRs illegal for use
by ordinary people.  They do propose to restrict, severely,
what features such equipment can have.  But the restrictions
are generally not restrictions on the ability to record;
they're restrictions on the ability to interoperate using
open standards and open formats.  The studios seem to
suggest that they have no problem with a PVR which uses DRM
(even if the DRM does not prevent repeat viewing and even if
it does not force recordings to expire over time).

I don't know how the BPDG proposal interacts with the
ReplayTV litigation.  My guess is that the studios and the
CE vendors have fairly different views on that.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> | Reading is a right,
not a feature!
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   |                 --
Kathryn Myronuk
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |