A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm not giving legal advice here. However, I am a law student and spend tons of time researching. Here's what I found on the DMCA tonight (had to do something since there was no WF to watch.)
"The DMCA creates stiff penalties for the circumvention of copyright protection systems. The statute states, "[n]o person shall circumvent a technological measure that controls access to a work protected under this title." In essence, if a user accesses an encrypted or otherwise protected system without authorization in order to gain access to protected information, such as using DeCSS to gain access to a DVD movie, he or she will be in violation of the Federal Copyright Act. The second anti-circumvention measure in the DMCA addresses devices or services that circumvent a technological measure that effectively controlling access to a copyrighted work. With regard to film piracy and DeCSS, the use of the code itself would violate the first measure, and the distribution and posting of the code would be in violation of the second measure. Criminal penalties for infringement can be up to US$500,000 and/or a jail sentence of up to five years for the first offense."
Also, here's two examples of successful use of the "safe-harbor" provision (protecting ISPs):
"The court said that America Online was entitled to safe harbor for allowing unauthorized postings of copyrighted works to remain on its server for two weeks because its storage was "intermediate and transient." Particularly relevant to the court's decision was the finding that AOL had reasonably implemented a termination policy that "put[s] its users on notice that they face a realistic threat of having their Internet access terminated if they repeatedly violate intellectual property rights."
AND
The court determined that eBay had no actual or constructive knowledge that its web site was being used to sell pirated copies of the DVD. And the court went on to find that eBay did not have the "right and ability to control" the infringing activity simply because it could and did remove listings for the sale of pirated DVDs in the past."
Paging a Stompy -- post 9821 of this very thread is non-NAFDA-friendly. Take action as you see fit.
Bragging is unseemly, Hec.
Bragging is unseemly, Hec.
Bragging is "I lick." At least for me. My sucking technique sucks.
First off, let me say that I'm all in favor of keeping any distribution of unaired EPs under the radar. You can't be too careful. However,
The DMCA creates stiff penalties for the circumvention of copyright protection systems.
What if the DVD isn't copy protected? The DVD copying software I have does not work if the DVD has copy protection. However, it works on that Variety "Once More With Feeling" DVD that I picked up a couple of years ago for way too much money on eBay. I wouldn't be surprised if the press DVDs for WF also lack copy protection.
Frankly, statutory research gets us nowhere at this point. If 20th wants to sue us they will, DMCA notwithstanding.
