eBay: Burn DVD movies onto CD?

[georgemw at speakeasy.net]

On 22 Jun 2001, at 7:39, David Honig wrote:

> 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 :-]
> >> 

Have there been test cases which have stated this?  I
pretty much agree with you as to what the law should be,
but I think you might be mistaken as to what the law is.

When I first read this,  I couldn't think of any reason you'd
want to use your own homemade descrambler box instead of
the one that the cable co supplied (assuming you've actually paid
for the channel),  but I was ablt to come up with a couple reasons.

1) you want to tape stuff while you're not there,  and the cable box
doesn't come with a way to change channels at a specific time.
Maybe you'd even like to tape 2 things at once, which I think is
legal but not practical using their box.

2) You don't like the color,  and you can't paint their box,
because you only rent it.


> >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?).
>

Well,  obviously you're not depriving them of any income if
for some reason you decide to use a homemade box and
stick the one they rent you in your closet,  but has anyone
ever actually done such a thing,  and gotten hauled into court?

George