[dvd-discuss] Macrovision and DMCA

["Dean Sanchez" <DSanchez(at)fcci-group.com>]

I was trying to repair a Disney VHS that was partially eaten by the tape
player yesterday.  Actually, I was copying the good sections from the
original to a better quality new tape to make a tape that was viewable
because I don't have a tape splicer to cut out the damaged sections.  If
you have young children and allow them to watch Disney movies, you will
know that Disney VHS tapes are notorious for being low quality.  I've
had to do this a number of times for different Disney tapes.  After 10
plays or so, the quality of the video starts deteriorating quickly.
While I was doing it, it made me think about an issue that I that I had
questions about during the 2600 trial and kept meaning to ask about but
never got around to doing.  The issue is this:

One of the arguments made during the trail either by the plaintiffs or
Jack Valenti was if someone needed to exercise fair use and extract
excerpts or make a backup copy, they could do so from VHS.  However,
that statement was blatantly false, but no one (that I'm aware of) ever
called them on it.  Macrovision protection is used on most retail VHS
tapes and, since all VHS recorder/players manufactured in the last
couple of years (I'm not sure of the date) are required to have
Macrovision circuitry, without special equipment, it is impossible to
make a quality reproduction.  I would assume that the equipment needed
to by-pass the Macrovision is (or will soon) be illegal to manufacture
and purchase.  So making a copy or excerpt of a VHS tape would also be a
violation of the DMCA, wouldn't it?

Now, I know we didn't want to go down the road of allowing the industry
to win on the argument that to substitute a lower quality product (VHS)
for DVD would constitute fair use; however, shouldn't we have pointed
out the misinformation?  Or was it raised?