The language of film may be universal, but don’t tell that to the Motion Picture Association of America—you might end up in court. Just ask Norwegian teen-ager Jon Johansen, who, after police raided his bedroom in December 1999, found himself being indicted for the crime of attempting to watch a DVD. Johansen had wanted to watch DVDs on his computer, which… return to article
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Reader Comments (3)Page 1 of 1 pagesThis is ridiculous. A bit for bit copy of the DVD will play just like the original. MPAA does not want peopel in Europe to be able to play DVD’s they can buy in the USA. I think some company should start importing USA region DVD players to the rest of the world.
Imagine if we could all buy DVD’s when they go on special in the USA. No need to buy the overpriced rubbish items we normally have to wait for here. It’s a pity courts allow lawyers to lie outright like this and get awat with it. And where is the WTO when some greedy bunch of corporations are practicing price discrimination like this and organisations operating like cartels. And the world has a problem with OPEC.
Posted by Maynard on Jan 20, 2003 at 2:25 PM This Touretzky nut also has instructions on how to make BOMBS on his university website as well! A bit crazy for a “Professor” to be giving out this type of information don’t you think? You can see the bomb-making instructions at his website link: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/exit/fertilizer.html
Posted by Pete on Jan 27, 2003 at 9:53 PM Claiming that CSS has anything to do with copyright protection is really absurd, if people made illegal copies of DVDs, they wouldn’t have to worry about scrambling, at all, anyone who can play the original DVD could play the pirated version, as well. It’s very strange that lawsuits based on such an absurd and obviously wrong claim can go on for such a long time.
Indeed, it must be assumed that all this fuss is not about copyright, but about the region codes, and here it’s the MPAA that should be afraid of suits because of attempts to prevent free trade.
Luckily, this idea of region codes is so ill-conceived that it only has a limited effect. At least in Europe DVD players that play all DVDs are available, and on the computer it usually isn’t a problem to watch DVDs with different region codes as long as you use Windows or MacOS (the real problem for Linux users like me is that because of these nonsensical legal threats standard Linux distributions don’t include DVD players that work). Until last August, code 1 DVDs could be bought everywhere in Switzerland. Now, like other European countries before, Switzerland has restricted free trade, and shops aren’t allowed to sell these DVDs any more, but ordering them on the Internet is still possible and perfectly legal, of course.
I think it’s about time for the MPAA to see that their protectionist policies are a failure, and trying to disguise their defense of dubious trade practices as a fight against illegal copying, with which it does not have anything to do, is ridiculous.
Posted by Adrian on Feb 5, 2003 at 1:36 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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