eBay: Burn DVD movies onto CD?

[David Honig]

At 06:15 PM 6/21/01 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, David Honig 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.
>
>Actually that won't hold up. There is a distinction that you are missing.
>

What is that distinction?

>Do you legally purchase service from that cable vendor? If so then even
>building your own cable descrambling box may be illegal if the contract
>says so (you're depriving the cable company of contractual income,
>fraud?).

1. yes, contract law always holds; however govt-backed (eminent-domain,
spectral allocation) based monopolies should be as open as possible (cf ATT
cable in SF)

2. no one has a 'right to income' only the terms of contracts

 The only(!!!) way that I can see building your own descrambler
>and getting away with it is if you have no(!) connection to the vendor,
>hence they have no claim to a 'loss' since you're not buying any service
>in the first place.

Generally a bit provider requires that you have some
equiptment to make use of their bits, however you have no obligation to 
use their equiptment.  Bit provider = ISP | DVD producer.  
Equiptment = cable modem | DVD-licensed player