eBay: Burn DVD movies onto CD?

[Riad S. Wahby]

David Honig <honig at sprynet.com> wrote:
> My argument, to any judges reading, is that its *not* circumvention if you've
> bought the damn thing, no matter how you decode it.
>
> If you paid for satellite TV but you build your own descrambler, its *not*
> illegal circumvention, even though your gizmo (legally) circumvents
> access controls.  Get it? [Rhetorically; Riad is not the problem :-]
> 
> Hint: its only illegal if its fraud.  DeCSS has nothing to do with fraud.
> "cp" does.  Actually, only humans do, "cp" is not a moral entity.

I totally agree with you about all of the above statements.  I read
the original question as "would this be illegal under the DMCA?"  My
replies were all modulo the current reading of the DMCA as implied by
the 2600-MPAA case.  

As far as I'm concerned, no, the government and various media
corporations should not have the ability to restrict the way in which
I employ their content.  If it's scrambled, that's another obstacle to
my viewing, but it shouldn't be one backed by anything stronger than
the algorithm which the distributor has chosen to employ.  That is,
men with guns shouldn't be there to make sure I don't break or
otherwise circumvent CSS, nor should it be my "social responsibility"
not to do so.  The burden of protecting content is on the corporation
providing the content, not on me.

--
Riad Wahby
rsw at mit.edu
MIT VI-2/A 2002

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