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Date: | Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:19:14 EDT |
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--- Forwarded Message from Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]> ---
>Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 14:52:33 -0400
>From: Judy Shoaf <[log in to unmask]>
>User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Copyright and DVD regions
>References: <[log in to unmask]>
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
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Actually, there is a law against rigging a VCR to skip or ignore the
region codes on DVDs:
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Public Law No. 105-304, 112 Stat.
2861 (Oct. 28, 1998) (also referred to as the "DMCA") was passed by
Congress in October 1998 and was signed into law by President Clinton on
October 28, 1998. This legislation substantially rewrites Title 17, the
U.S. Copyright Act, by creating new copyright-related rights not limited
to the prevention of traditional copyright infringement. The Act imposes
civil and possible criminal liability for the circumvention of access
control measures and for the distribution of technology to circumvent
access or copy controls.
from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/dvd-discuss-faq.html#ss1.5.1
The "access control measures" could be construed to include the DVD
codes. Our equipment room here refuses to buy DVD players that will play
other regions because of this. I have a couple of the Odyssey machines
which are supposedly defined not as "no-region" but as "all-region"
players, meaning that they can switch from one region to another,
rather than skipping the region code. I recall when I was considering
the purchase the legal problem was in the offing and this distinction
was pointed out on this email list as possibly legally significant.
(They don't make the Odyssey any more, though, and to tell the truth I
am not sure how legal it is.)
So this is a nasty bit of business for language labs and the original
suggestion (customize the DVD players on the computers in the lab by
letting them set for particular regions legally) is not a bad one.
It is also true that the region codes are purely a device for the
distributors to control access to the film (e.g. so that the French will
have to go to theaters to see Terminator III, even though DVDs are
already available on the American market)--they have no other function.
The people whom the distributors are most upset with are people who copy
DVDs or transfer them to more portable media, or rig satellite cards to
allow free access to programming:
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5080807.html
Judy Shoaf
University of Florida
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