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French Courts Ban DRM on DVDs 605
blamanj writes "According to a story on Boing-Boing, the French courts have banned DRM copy-protection on DVDs, because it is a consumer right to make a backup or to change formats (in this case, to VHS). Original story (in French) is also available."
for once... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:for once... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:for once... (Score:3, Funny)
Q: Why did the French give us the Statue of Liberty instead of putting it up in Paris?
A: It's not really their style. The statue only has ONE hand in the air.
Re:for once... (Score:5, Informative)
They have the original scale model in Paris.
It's the size of an ordinary statue, but it's exactly the same otherwise.
Re:for once... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The term "Maginot Line" has been used as a metaphor for something that is confidently relied upon despite being ineffectual. In fact, it did exactly what it was intended to do, sealing off a section of France, and forcing an aggressor around it (and the few forts of the Maginot line which were directly attacked by German armoured troops held very well)."
I gues it just depends on if you need something to bash or not.
Maginot Line? (Score:4, Funny)
Wow! That sounds remarkably like DRM!
Re:for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure I agree with the French courts on this case. Though i strongly disagree with the US courts WRT the DMCA. I think government should just "not be involved" to this extent and let existing laws stand.
I don't see why everybody is clamoring for government interference.
Re:for once... (Score:3, Funny)
well you know (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, while we make a big deal of our sacrifices in WWI, we did it from the safety of distance; soldiers went over, but the threat to North America was never there. Meanwhile, the horror of war was literally in the backyards at best of the countries in Europe. The French especially had a rough time of it, and just in general Europe was pretty much experiencing [wikipedia.org] post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The German forces just overwhelmed them; the military might was just too much to bear (and, it would be quite some time before American production and conscription raised enough military force to be able to help even if it had been the popular opinion). No, France, though admittedly acting with much defeatism, was outmatched, outgunned, and outmaneuvered [wikipedia.org]. The strategic reserve, which had saved France in the First World War, was nonexistent. General de Gaulle managed to forestall the fate of Paris for quite some time, but eventually the crushing weight of German reinforcements.
And if we're going to berate France, then berate Britain at the same time; great friends that they are, they hastily pulled their forces out of the continent as France was being overrun (of course, this was strategically the only sane option at the time, but since when did logic and historical accuracy have anything to do with these kinds of accusations?).
The bottom line is that the causes aren't so straightforward [wikipedia.org] as to just be "oh, those French pansies". It seems to me almost as if the current trend of "belittle the French" might stem more from modern annoyance in the States with France's political opposition to current administrative doctrine than any historical accuracy or fairness. This whole meme is quite suspect.
Re:I blame Europe in general (Score:5, Insightful)
We haven't been isolationist since WWII. We have troops in over 100 countries and have had them there for decades.
There's not much we can do about the world problems we get dragged into. The problem is all the world problems we create ourselves.
For example, 50 years before 9/11 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected President of Iran and installed that secular puppet dictator the Shah. 25 years ago he in turn was overthrown by an anti-American religious fanatic Ayatollah. That in turn gave Osama bin Laden his "base" to pull off 9/11.
Connect the dots.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB126/
Re:for once... (Score:3, Interesting)
That is exactly what most courts do - let the existing law stand. Typically, only constitutional courts can change (well, invalidate) laws. What the court decided was that copy protection on DVDs violates current French law.
Eith
Re:for once... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:for once... (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a double-agent in the government, it both protects and abuses us. Our only hope going forward is we can swing them our way. Forbidding DRM makes things like the DMCA irrelevant. This also levels the field for a lot of hardware manufacturers. They no longer have to pay a fee to make DVD players.
The end result may be that DVDs won't be sold in France but there's this little thing called the European Union...if they refuse to sell DVDs to France, they cannot do business in the Union. So no DVDs for Europe? Doubt it.
Re:for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:for once... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's illegal to sell the same product for different prices in different markets and attempt to prevent enterprising individuals from reselling the product if the price difference is sufficient to make it profitable.
Like selling discs in the east for a buck, selling them in North America for 20 and using region coding to prevent us from ordering discs from overseas. Or selling them in North America and preventing them from being resold in Europe.
CSS and region coding aren't about copy protection at all. Copy protection is just the excuse they use to justify their price fixing measures.
It's not really that different from that RAM price fixing story that ran the last couple of days, and if there was any justice, the perps would be dealt with the same way. But, of course, there isn't any justice, just goons in government uniforms acting on behalf of the highest bidder.
Re:for once... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:for once... (Score:4, Informative)
Here in Canada conspiring to isolate Canada from foreign markets so you can jack up the Canadian prices without competition is definately illegal. I would imagine most countries have some means of protecting themselves from this sort of activity.
The whole dodge is, make the discs region coded and encrypted with css to make them useless when played in the wrong player and make it illegal to sell multiregion drives because they circumvent copy protection and most countries are receptive to that sort of thing these days. Just like that, you've got your price fixing in effect, but you're doing it all to "protect against piracy". Selling DVDs for a $1 in Asia and not being vulnerable to competition from your distribution chain when you sell them for $20 in other countries is just a side benefit....
Re:for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
So you want the courts and legislation to keep out of the way and just let everybody copy everthing as they please?
Please keep in mind that all that copyright-stuff is upheld by - and only by - courts and legislation. Some people even argue that copyright is a rather late invention by those institutions, AFAIK there was no copyright about 300 years ago and earlier.
Therefore, OF COURSE they will have a say in the matter.
Re:for once... (Score:3, Insightful)
They already do. People don't got to Sony or Warner jails for breaking DRM. The goverment dictates, at the behest of corporations, how we - the real 'we', the we who elect supposed representatives to political positons - what can be done with content. Now if you're arguing to remove both interventions and return to no government intrusion I'm right behind you.
Great, fair use copy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great, fair use copy! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great, fair use copy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:5, Funny)
Would they?
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:3, Insightful)
N.
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the MPAA would stop selling DVD's in France... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this is part of the hidden agenda with the ruling. The French do not like U.S cultural imperialism as embodied by Hollywood movies. If Hollywood's movie distributors stop selling into the French market, will the French be that upset? And if France becomes a center for the distribution of non-DRM DVDs that hurts Hollywood's profits, will the French be that upset?
It sou
The French hate the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know it sounds stupid, but you guys here on
And by the way, even though you almost never see them in the US, there is actually a lot of movies produced in France. This ruling is going mostly to piss off the french movie producers. And there is absolutely no need for a "hidden agenda" to explain it.
Re:The French hate the US (Score:3, Funny)
=)
Legitimate rule and a test of DRM arguments (Score:5, Interesting)
If I offended you, then I apologize.
What I said was not meant to imply that the French spend all their time cooking up schemes to annoy the U.S. As you say, the French have their own laws for their own reasons. I saw the court ruling as a legitimate way to change the economics of imported American movies with an eye toward preserving French culture.
And by the way, even though you almost never see them in the US, there is actually a lot of movies produced in France.
Absolutely! The local university has an excellent International Film Series [internatio...series.com] where I have seen some very enjoyable French movies.
If this ruling stands, it might be a very interesting test of the validity of arguments about DRM. If DRM really is essential to the economics of the motion picture industry, then the ruling will hurt French film industry especially. If DRM is a barrier to film consumption, then the absence of DRM on French DVD should mean prosperity for French film makers.
They see themselves in the funhouse mirror (Score:4, Insightful)
The overwhelming preponderance of /. readers' responses to this story seems to have been a thoughtless regurgitation of all things anti-French. I sort of feel like pointing out that, based on those posts, at least on this side of the Atlantic precisely the sort of idiotic self-centeredness you're describing holds true. The French don't think that way, no, but apparently slashdot does.
This isn't about France -- it's about the suppression of dissenting views. The entirety of the anti-French idiocy over here amounts to one big "ad hominem" attack; nobody really had an answer to Villepain's Security Council arguments, so we demonized the speaker rather than countering the speech.
(Cue jokes about how the French won the American Revolution by pitching in with their navy at the opportune moment... Oh, never mind, we're supposed to forget that one. Surrender monkeys and all that. Yeah. That stuff. Belgian fries. Etcetera.)
The reason the French hate the US.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like I'll be buying my movies from France here on out.
Unfortunately, they won't play [google.com] on an American player, due to some more obnoxious Digital pRrofit enhanceMent technology...
Another good reason to buy movies in France (Score:5, Interesting)
In North America, most new DVDs come with language choices. Most new DVDs are Hollywood productions and their original audio is in English. There is a subtitle set in English for the deaf. This is a great tool for learning English as a Second Language because the student can read the words as they are spoken. Even if the student's grasp of English is not yet to the point where the words can be understood, it is still an important learning tool.
The hardest part of learning a language like French or English is separating the stream of spoken phrases into individual words. In learning Romance languages like French and Spanish from English (and vice-versa), the vocabulary isn't the biggest problem because 50% of the words are the same. It's the rhythms of the pronunciations that is so hard to understand. Being able to see the words being spoken on the screen as they are being said goes a long way to understanding what is being said after getting an initial mastery of the language's basic vocabulary and grammar structure.
Hollywood films have a big problem with this learning approach, however. The audio and subtitles are translated by different teams and they never match. For this learning technique to work, you need an exact match between the spoken dialog and the subtitles.
Movies made in France and put on DVD do have this needed exact match.
This is a great tool for learning a language and I suggest giving it a try. However, I would not recommend learning French if you are living in the US. Spanish is the most important foreign language to learn at this time.
In Canada, however, definitely go with learning French if you are a native English speaker. The first time that you go from Kamloops to Chicoutimi you'll see instantly how smart that it was to take a little time fooling around with audio and subtitles on your DVD player. Even if all your friends do tell you that there isn't any real reason to learn any French because you'll never ever use it. You will.
French movies used to the coolest films on the planet for a short period in the early 1960s and a major contender at all other times. The French invented cinema even if Edison invented motion pictures. But lately French movies have become either really stupid or really stupid and boring. For that reason very few of them actually make it to the US as DVD releases. Or they get filmed in English and dubbed into French. Usually these dub translations have the audio/title mismatch problem. A really great movie to start with is "La Femme Nikita" from early 1990s. Unfortunately, few of the Nouvelle Vague films from the 1960s have both French and English subtitles. And many have not aged well: becoming boring and incomprehensible over the decades. The two best French New Wave films still worth watching are "Jules And Jim" and "La Jetee", both from 1962.
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:5, Informative)
I do not expect much of this judgment. All we will win is "Copy protected" written on all DVDs.
Re:Time to get an Ebay account.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your interpretation of the basic premise of copyright law is in error. They don't own the content, they own the copyright. This right to copy is a government granted limited monopoly of producing copies of a given work. It is not up to the copyright owner to determine the legal reach of this monopoly, it is up to the courts and the legislatures. If the French courts decide that this government-granted monopoly does not extend to limiting personal copying for the purpose of transfering to a different media format, then that's just tough nuts.
finally some sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:finally some sense. (Score:5, Funny)
New York harbor bereft of Statue of Liberty (Score:3, Funny)
> You mean the big statue in New York? I guess
> slashdot really IS late with the news lately!
Regrettably, following the wave of anti-French sentiments in the United States in the past couple of years, the Statue of Liberty was dismantled and sold off for scrap. From a news report:-
"Although it had become something of a national icon, it was felt that the French-built statue from old Europe had no place in modern America.
This was necessary to de
Re:finally some sense. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:finally some sense. (Score:3, Funny)
Rock on, France (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rock on, France (Score:5, Funny)
Should I return my Freedom Fries and exchange them for French Fries?
Yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Oui (Score:3, Funny)
I'll be contacting you tomorrow with your instructions for the rest of the week. Don't worry, you can trust me to think for you...
Re:Rock on, France (Score:3, Funny)
Well, yeah, but the people who think for me are trustworthy. They told me so.
Re:Rock on, France (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rock on, France (Score:4, Insightful)
People are keenly sensitive to custom. Even if you think you're being perfectly poilite for how your neighbourhood behave, you could unwittingly appear rude or arrogant in others. 'Neighbourhood' was a deliberate choice of word: the idea applies equally to regions of a single country and nations on different continents.
I've day-tripped to France (I live in Kent, UK). I have little more than schoolboy French, but I make the effort. More often than not, I have to resort to "Excuse-moi, parlez vous anglais?". Often, we struggle along in our respective pidgin English or French... but luckily many people in north-west France seem to have better English than my French!
It's the little things that count. If you walk into a shop, you always greet the shop keeper. Always. Back home, I'd only occasionally do that, and even then it'd just be a hurried smile and a 'Hi' as I rush through the checkout. Do that in France, and people are gonna think you're rude.
Even here in the UK, you say pleases and thankyou's to people who serve you. Sure, you don't greet in the same way the French do, but you *do* adhere to some basic courtesy. In some cultures, that's not the case. It's not unusual to find the "They're being paid to serve me, so they do not require thanking" custom, and of course the flip-side, "I'm being paid to serve them, why should they thank me?".
Basically, understand that things just work differently everywhere. When you go abroad, you most likely will cause offence at some point or another, be you American, French, British, German, Nigerian, Guatemalan, Whatever-the-hell-an. The best you can do is live, learn, and try to hold off on being judgemental until you've got a half-decent grasp on how others lead their lives.
Re:Rock on, France (Score:5, Insightful)
> and went all out with their "Freedom Fries",
> most people didn't do much more than make >french jokes. Not to offend, but just for
> laughs.
> Also, the French deserve it.
Do not worry, we French do not hate Americans as much as we seem, we too like to make jokes.
And you deserve it too
Re:Rock on, France (Score:2)
You should get your money back, dude.
Re:Rock on, France (Score:5, Informative)
If you're referring to a levy on blank media, I think you'll find that most "first world" countries [neil.eton.ca] have one, including the USA, which had it long before Canada did. [cornell.edu]
Re:Rock on, France (Score:3, Funny)
-aiabx
EU? (Score:2, Funny)
In a related matter... (Score:5, Funny)
-ShadowRanger
bizzarro-world? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this another thing that appears to be good, but actually creates more problems than it solves? Or is it truly a boon for DVD lovers everywhere?
And naturally it follows (Score:2, Funny)
Freedom DVDs (Score:5, Funny)
Hooray! (Score:3, Funny)
I'm so confused! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm so confused! (Score:2, Informative)
This is heresy! The Belgian and the Dutch put mayonnaise on their fries, not the French. The latter have taste, obviously.
Re:I'm so confused! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'm so confused! (Score:2)
And if you keep eating that way, you're going to have a lot of flattened Belgians and Dutch.
English Translation before the slashburning begins (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.allpeers.com/blog/?page_id=1
UFC-Que Choisir (a French consumer protection organization) has been granted a prohibition on DVD copy protection devices by the Paris Court of Appeal, these devices having been judged to be incompatible with private copying rights.
Arnaud Devillard, 01net., April 22, 2005 at 7:28pm
What consumer protection groups have not yet succeeded in gaining for CDs, they have just obtained for DVDs. On April 22nd, the Paris Court of Appeal prohibited the use of DVD-based copy protection systems. The reason? The incompatibility of this practice with private copying rights.
Two companies, Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, thus suffered a serious setback after having won the case in the Court of First Instance at the end of April 2004.
UFC-Que Choisir latched onto the case of a consumer who was unable to copy a DVD of Mulholland Drive, a David Lynch film produced by Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, onto a video cassette. This person wanted to watch the film at his mother's, who did not have a DVD player. The strict familial context mandated for the exercise of private copying rights was therefore applicable.
The tribunal also faulted the DVD producers for lack of consumer information. This was not entirely absent but was judged to be insufficient. The label "CP" for "Copy Protected" was indeed present on the jacket, but in "small characters" and not sufficiently explicit.
A worrying judgement for the French Video Producers' Association.
Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal have one month to unblock their DVDs. At the same time, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France must pay 100 euros in damages to the consumer in question. The same two companies, and Studio Canal, must also pay him 150 euros as well as 1,500 euros to the consumer association.
On the other hand, the court refused the request for damages and interest by UFC-Que Choisir against Studio Canal. The consumer association admitted to a legal misstep on its part, having chosen the wrong target for its request. The court also refused to release a judiciary communiqué on the decision.
It goes without saying, however, that UFC-Que Choisir is more than satisfied, as the damages and interest were not the main object of the case. This was rather the acceptance of its argument regarding private copying. This, and the fact that the decision can be applied to other cases "as long as the original DVD was purchased legally," says Gaëlle Patetta of the association's legal department.
But for the delegate general of the Video Producers' Association, Jean-Yves Mirski, the decision is "worrisome". Not having had the time to analyze the decision in detail, the VPA has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to a higher court (the Court of Cassation). But this is far from out of the question.
In any case, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, this judicial turn of events "directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive." The latter permits the use of copy protection systems. This will certainly not make future legal action on this subject any simpler.
Re:English Translation before the slashburning beg (Score:5, Funny)
Ummm, this is France - they have hot lesbian scenes in darned toothpaste commercials.
french courts are schizophrenics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:french courts are schizophrenics (Score:5, Informative)
great (Score:5, Funny)
just kidding...mostly...
*I say overzealous because a little French bashing, a la The Onion's "France Surrenders" second headlines in Our Dumb Century is a good thing.
This could get interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what will happen here. The French market is not so large that it gets all DVDs made specifically for it. Instead, they tend to use multiple languages and market to a lot of Europe at the same time. If that is the case, do the big media companies stop selling in France or do they start selling non-protected DVDs more broadly? This could get interesting. I wonder if France's actions will snowball or make it a backwater for digital media.
Re:This could get interesting (Score:3, Informative)
> all DVDs made specifically for it. Instead,
> they tend to use multiple languages and market
> to a lot of Europe at the same time. If that is
> the case, do the big media companies stop
> selling in France or do they start selling
> non-protected DVDs more broadly?
French market is 60 millions people; add the French speaking Belgians and Swiss, that's 1/5th of the US.
We have our edition of about anything Hollywood produces (French speakin
Go and boil your bottoms! (Score:4, Funny)
Remember "Freedom Fries"? (Score:5, Funny)
Redundant, I know (Score:2)
DMCA is much more important (Score:5, Insightful)
free speech (Score:5, Funny)
Re:free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:free speech (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with that policy, is the word "infringer." You can't have infringers without having copyright, and the establishment of copyright is a premise where government is already involved. Copyright is a government-granted monopoly, and the government does this, based on the assumption that at the end of the copyright term, the wor
Re:free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:free speech (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:free speech (Score:3, Interesting)
DVDs usually don't even have CSS in France (Score:2, Informative)
Most of the DVDs I have purchased in France don't even have CSS protection. A lot of them seem to be cheaply made too - a shitty menu stuck with just French and English soundtrack and the standard film with chapters. These DVDs are a lot cheaper than the special edition (often less than 10) and are very quick to rip to my hard drive.
The PAL standard is an advantage too, it being higher resolution and framerate than the NTSC stuff on my zone 1 DVDs...
Time to learn French? (Score:3, Funny)
This must be a plot to return the French language back to its world wide popularity!
Easy for the courts to understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is after a man who was not able to copy a DVD he purchase to a VHS cassette so he can watch it at his mother's place. Which is considered private copying and is a consumer right in France.
Until it affects you, and you can see the problem, most people dont understand the issue. This was the perfect example of people seeing the outcome of copyprotection on something you bought and no longer have control over how you use it.
Of course, I have no idea if I can copy a DVD to VHS tape legally for my own personal use in America, with the laws being passed on riders on bills for IRAQ, who knows.
Probably (Score:5, Informative)
However, my understanding of the DMCA is that it only applies to digital copies and protections. Thus you are still legally allowed to circumvent analogue copy protections, which is what prevents you from copying a DVD to VHS.
The reason you can't make the copy is Macrovision. It's a "protection" that functions by varying the signal intensity in areas that are off screen. This causes the automatic gain control of the VCR to wig out and you get an unstable signal. Some newer devices actually look for it and will just refuse to accept the signal at all.
Well you can eaisly get commercial devices that will filter this out with no ill effects. You can then make a copy as normal. As a practical matter, even if these were to become unavailable (they are still around as of today) you could get a semi-pro or pro VCR that will allow you to manually set the gain, which will then copy fine (though the copy will then have Macrovision present on it).
So at this point it appears to be legal, as well as easy to do. That could change, however.
Implications for De-CSS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Implications for De-CSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Would this Count as... (Score:3, Funny)
BG
That's a good thing (tm) (Score:4, Insightful)
In France, it is legal to copy your CD and DVD, and anything. What is forbidden is to widespread them around, or even worse, selling illegal copies (the latter have always been toughly sued).
But now, with these protection systems, when you damage your cd/dvd (kids scratching them, anyone ?), you've lost the benefits of them.
IMHO, i globally agree the idea that you have to pay for what you consume (stealing is BAD. final dot.) -but may disagree on the price it is sold, or the insane way the bill is dispatched to the artists and producer amongst others-.
A good thing would be to life guarantee the possible exchange of your broken/damaged CD/DVD, thus allowing them to be protected and uncopy-able. Also coming as a MUST is "stop making protection system that make your CD/DVD unusable on some legacy device" (like protected CD that could not be played on car player).
That would be a good idea. But that implies that the majors invest some money in these, and also implies the majors cares about the consumer as a whole, not only his money...
my
should we cheer this? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not what we should want. We don't want courts or legislation dictating how we provide our content. Just like we don't want courts and legislation dictating how we should consume our content.
Organizations should be free to encumber their products with encrypted copy protected nonsense. Just as we should be free to circumvent that nonsense.
CSS is not the problem. It's laws like the DMCA that are the problem.
Re:should we cheer this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't throw out the baby (intellectual property rights, on both sides) with the bathwater (the DMCA).
Too bad.. (Score:3, Informative)
If the ruling sticks... (Score:3, Informative)
Mulholland Drive (Score:3, Funny)
More Importantly.... the Whole EU (Score:3, Insightful)
Time to Go (Score:3, Informative)
French gov't puts desires of citizens first (Score:4, Insightful)
It makes sense, though (Score:4, Informative)
Thus, once the copy is yours, it logically follows that you can do anything with it you like, as far as your personal use is concerned. (Copying it for others is still a copyright violation.)
CITIZENS determine what "rights" MEAN (Score:3, Insightful)
A company has--or should have--the right to sell its wares under any terms it wishes.
Not if the people (acting through their govt) decide otherwise. Corporations have EXACTLY whatever rights WE CITIZENS decide to give them. THEIR rights are determined by US. If the French govt contrains corporate rights, then it is because the fRench PEOPLE want it that way.
You see, teh American propaganda has warped your perspective. A country is supposed to be "by the people and FOR the people' not by and fo