“Well, that didn’t take long. One day after RealNetworks releases its DVD copying software, lawsuits are filed. Who’s right, who’s wrong, and where do movie fans fit in?” And are movie industry lawyers going to replace RIAA’s as a target at the center of customers’ dartboards? (Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld, Oct. 1). More: Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing on the peculiar press-anonymity of some of the lawyers (h/t commenter Orval).
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Check out BoingBoing’s coverage: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/30/mpaa-spokeslawyers-i.html. It is very surreal: the first coverage in the press depicted RealNetworks’ software as DRM breaking ripping software. It is nothing of the sort, while it does indeed rip a DVD to hard disk, it then applies its own crappy DRM.
But the weirdest bit is the MPAA lawyers, in a press conference, asked that their names not be used. And the media complied.
Lawyers who don’t want their names in the press?
A request for anonymity by the lawyers should be interpreted by the court as a request for section 11 sanctions.
Oops. Of course I meant “Rule 11 sanctions”. Need more coffee.
CloneCD has been for sale for years. It’s also supposed to clone DVDs. Here’s the ad.
Backup your music, data or navigation CDs with the famous CloneCD – regardless if they are copy protected or not!
http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonecd.html
It seriously annoys me that the media companies can make it illegal to make a duplicate DVD of my movies to play while the commercial one stays on the shelf were the DVD player (or little hands/fingers) can’t damage it.
There needs to be some extension of the fare use that says if you have a legal copy in your possession, you can convert it to whatever format you want to for your own personal use. Of course, just try to convince someone in congress to pass that little modification.