This story was posted to /. and its quite interesting that 'fair use' is becomming less and less acceptable in the minds of hollywood execs.

If you've been keeping up with the DeCSS case that 2600.com fought or the DMCA, then you should check it out.

Just think, the DMCA, its not exactly constitutional, and it became 'the law' by a silent vote. The DMCA can be downloaded here in PDF format. (59 pages)

So what does this mean to you, the end user? There will be signals in the digital cable connection (or other service used) which will prevent you from recording certain broadcasts and television shows on your television. It goes against 'fair use'. Stanford has a great list of resources regarding fair use.

Another link you should know about is the EFF - they are fighting for your rights - support them.

U.S. Copyright Office
U.S. Copyright Act

 

Another question along a little different line: Are DVD videos copy protected? My VCR in the den feeds a satellite signal as well as VCR playback to two other TVs. The other night I plugged the DVD player into the VCR to get a feed to the bedroom. When I attempted to copy the DVD to the VCR I would get a fade out followed by a blue screen for a few seconds until the picture returned to normal and then repeated the fade/bluescreen routine over and over. Is this a copy-protect feature on the DVD?

 

Hey, I believe it is. I have tried myself to tape from DVD and had the same problems. Also the sound dosen't come thru. (std. Dolby PL ofcourse) I wonder, is it the disk or the player. Do the players modified to play all countries do this as well?

 

copy protected, yes in some way. Its called CSS - content scrambling system. Its a way for the dvd to be scrambled up / encrypted (weakly!) so that it can only be decoded by a "MPAA approved" DVD player. This falls more in line of the DeCSS issue (to De-CSS, unscramble a dvd, enabling it to be copied or to reverse engineer it to play on non-MPAA approved DVD players - for example - Linux).

why did it come out blue? well, its called macrovision - if you remember its also on vhs tapes - well, some. my current player, although not that great of quality has a few neat features - mp3 compatibility, by pass regional coding, and disabling macrovision protection. The macrovision, I believe sends different signals to the tape, thus, giving you a scrambled picture.

In regards to regional codings, most dvd's do have them. Some others, like some anime DVD's dont.

If any of this still doesnt make sense, let me know.

 

Thanks for the info, buddy.