Ingram: Hands up ? and drop that remote control!

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: mingram (at) globeandmail.ca
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 19:26:50 -0400 (EDT)

Copied to the folks at http://www.flora.org/dmca/


In reply to: Ingram: Hands up ? and drop that remote control!
http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D,D/20020426/wmathapr26?hub=homeBN&tf=tgam%252Frealtime%252Ffullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral&slug=wmathapr26&date=20020426


  Not sure if you are aware, but a similar problem to what you describe
with legally purchased Satellite services from the USA not being legal to
be used in Canada is a problem that has existed in the DVD market from the
onset.

  The DVD-CCA (Copy Control Association) has a licensing scheme which
allows their members, primarily the large Hollywood movie houses, to
license what DVD players can play their movie.  While someone could 
purchase a DVD-ROM for their computer and legally play DVD's on their home 
computer if they use Microsoft Windows, it is considered illegal in the 
USA for me to play the same legally purchased DVD movie on my Linux-based 
home computer.

  Not only do they control what players can play their movie, but they
also limit the ability to move a CD and/or CD player to other countries.  
They have a region code which must match: a DVD purchased legally in
Europe cannot play on a DVD player purchased in North America, and
vice-versa.

  They claim the technology is related to the ability to copy the CD, but 
that is entirely bogus - the entire purpose of the technology involves is 
to abuse the USA's DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to try to 
control the player market and control the movement of CD's - not unlike 
the supreme court decision.


  The average Canadian consumer has not noticed this problem yet because
the vast majority of movies they may want to watch are coming from the
USA, and they are purchasing already licensed video players.  I believe
people will get much more upset when the movie producers start dictating
what features are allowed to exist on a DVD player (IE: ability to
fast-forward commercials, etc), or the person lives outside of North
America and can't get the movies as easily (or bring them home from a trip
to North America).


  Just in case we were feeling not-so-proud to be Canadian because of this
extremely bad decision, we just need to realize that the US courts and
government are not handling these types of issues any better.  Some large
companies asked for a form of legal protectionism of their captive
audience, and the government put the full force of the courts behind their
protectionism - In Canada it is  ExpressVu and Star Choice, and in the USA 
it is Hollywood.


  Some like myself would argue with their new copyright law and their
threatening/arresting the researchers and developers of tomorrows
technology, that the USA is handling things much worse than Canada has.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions
 Read the speech on copyright made in 1841 by Thomas Babbington Macaulay -
 a must-read for creators -even predicted the consumer reaction to Napster

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