balding angrily

A warning about this post. It’s not funny or meant to be, and it’s pretty specific to the U.S. However the issues behind the specifics are being discussed in other parts of the world.

I’ve been rolling Rights (with a capital R because it’s big and important) around in my head the last couple of days because of Gizmodo’s RIAA Boycott. I got interested in fair use, copyright law, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) when I bought my iPod video last year and tried to put my purchased DVDs on it. I wondered why iTunes comes with a “Import CD” button but not a “Import DVD” button. That’s when I discovered that unlike CDs, DVDs come encrypted. In order to download the electronic file stored on the DVD, a person must remove the encryption. (I’m sorry if this elementary to you. I’m taking you through my process to show you how I got interested in this subject.) Then I found out that if iTunes were to include an “Import DVD” button, they would be breaking the law because according to the DMCA, it is illegal for Apple to sell or provide software that makes it possible to remove encryption. Further, it is illegal for me to remove encryption using software legally available outside of the U.S.

Then I remembered hearing somewhere that it was considered legal, back in the days of vinyl and cassette tapes, to copy an album or CD for your own personal use onto a cassette tape. It was illegal to sell the cassette, but it was legal to make the cassette to use on your Walkman. This, under copyright law, was called fair use. Fair use protects certain instances in which people that do not have permission to copy copyrighted material. As in the example with the cassette tape and CD, it protects, among other things, educators who wish to excerpt material for their students, critics who wish to review a book, movie, piece of music, or game, and anyone who wishes to parody a copyrighted work.

Hopefully, you see where I’m going. It is illegal to remove encryption from a DVD, but it is legal to make a copy of copyrighted material for your own personal use. So, I’m fucked with my DVD-to-iPod situation, if I wish to not break the law…but fair use says that I wouldn’t be breaking the law. To me, this is a conflict between my consumer rights and greedy movie studios, companies who wish to re-sell the same material to me in a different format.

So, I’m asking you to write your congressperson to support any legislation that will allow me to watch my legally purchased movies on my iPod on a long flight to Sundance. I should also ask you to write your congressperson to support my right to marry Jerry, but, you know…one step at a time. Today: watching O Brother, Where Art Thou on a 2 1/2″ screen; tomorrow: my right to inherit Jerry’s Social Security should he fall down a mountain in Sundance.

Oh. And sorry for the lack of funny.