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RE: [dvd-discuss] Movie Downloads, automatically illegal?



On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Richard Hartman wrote:

> The downloads _aren't_ legal unless the distributor
> has the right to distribute, which they don't.  You're
> still too focussed on the end result and not the process.

Not to nitpick, but if I connect to my Gnutilla server at home to download
a song so I can play it at work, that would be a legal download even by
the strictest argument proposed here.  I don't need the right to
distribute, cause it's my song from my CD.

The court might weigh the intententions of someone using gnutilla for
this purpose vs something with authentication differently, but that
wouldn't affect the legality of that particular download.

> > Maybe we need a modern day Dred Scott decision _for_ the copyright
> > industry in order to piss people off enough to care...  In
> > some ways, I
> > think the 2600 appeal might have helped in that department, even if we
> > had lost.
>
> Unfortunately since 2600 is "the Hacker's magazine" it might
> not really have had enough public appeal to serve as a
> rallying point.

I don't know if that would matter.  I would agree that the pain has got to
get to the average, ordinary person before things would change, and that
might require more than 2600 shut down.  However, with encouragement in
the supreme court that copyrights trump free speech, etc, the MPAA & RIAA
may build up their confidence until they do something that does provoke a
backlash.  If we ever get to this point, I think we will win, eventually.

If the bill passes giving them immunity for DoS attacks, there might be
public outcry.  I would imagine the first thing the gnutilla folks will do
(if they're smart) will be to technilogically trick the "Movie Cops"
into thinking that the New York Times public website is stealing their
movies.  ;-)  Or perhaps a few of the fortune 500 corporate sites!

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