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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 01 January 2013 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | 1
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So, I buy a DVD, I rip it for my own personal use, and I'm stealing from myself?
I hope I don't call the cops of me to teach myself a lesson.
The Digital Copyright Act is a deliberate over-reach. They broadly defined the rules to better facilitate the conviction of people illegally distributing their intellectual property.
If, for example, I rip a DVD for an Internet pirate, I'm part of the conspiracy to defraud the rightful owners of the IP. They don't want to leave a giant loop-hole in the law that allows me to wiggle out of it.
But if I don't distribute the copy, nor facilitate the distribution of the copy, then no harm, no foul. Technically, Judge Dredd could kick in my door and sentence me to five years in the cubes for it, but that will almost certainly never happen.
And they can go after fan-fiction writers and artists who use other people's IPs in commissions and the endless multitude of ways that people casual violate the letter of the law without violating the spirit of it.
And the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of personal use copying back in the 80s.
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Tim O Neill
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 10937
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| Posted: 01 January 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | 2
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I think the deciding factor for the health and future of comic books is how kids respond to reading comic books on digital devices. I have no doubt that more and more kids will be reading digital text books in the future -- the question is whether they will be reading comic books on devices.
If a kid is savvy enough to work an iPad, s/he will opt for watching a TV show or movie about superheroes rather than a comic book. We keep looking at the distinction through our adult eyes, just comparing print to digital. Young people raised on digital devises may see comics as an inferior hybrid of cartoons and books. I fear that a comic book will always lose out to an episode from a Cartoon Network show, especially when the price is comparable.
A published comic book is a still the best way to get kids into reading. Seeing art on the printed page is a big part of the experience. Reading takes focus and little distraction, and physical books are better for focusing than any digital device. The ability to see video while one is reading is too much of a temptation for me, and I imagine it would be even more for a kid. I just hope most kids' gateway to reading is through books so they learn focus before they learn multitasking. And after they learn multitasking, I hope they learn there is no such thing as multitasking!
As adults, we see the benefits of reading digitally in terms of convenience, but we were raised on traditional books. We know what the digital file represents. To a kid, is a digital comic book going to be a cartoon that takes more work to read?
And there is still something primal about having an object - something you hold in your hands. Kids don't care about clutter. In fact, kids are the main source of clutter in most rooms they enter! There is still something special about a book. I still get a childlike thrill over a BIG BOOK, be it a history book with great images or an "Omnibus" edition of favorite comic book stories.
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 01 January 2013 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | 3
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As has been noted, digital is the new route of distribution to get out of the ghettoization caused by the direct sales market. With the Internet on the one hand, and Barnes & Noble for printed trade paperbacks on the other, these are places where people actually go and buy things on a regular basis.
Now we just need content that people want — and that's a whole other challenge. It would involve going back to a lot of the older content styles of the 60's, 70's and 80's, with material that is genuinely all-ages.
I absolutely agree with what Mark McKay wrote:
QUOTE:
| Also, few creators out there could bring to the table what JB has: the ability to write, pencil, ink and letter his own comics. He could do phenomenal in the digital market. |
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Thom Price
Byrne Robotics Member
L’Homme Diabolique
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7593
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| Posted: 01 January 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | 4
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To a kid, is a digital comic book going to be a cartoon that takes more work to read?
***
I can offer only anecdotal evidence, but my niece and two nephews (8-11) have embraced comic books far more heartily than I ever would have expected. For years, I assumed the same as you -- that kids who have video games and cartoons at their fingertips wouldn't be bothered with something as "old fashioned" as comics.
When I let them play with my tablet, the comic books were the second destination after a few video games even though I also had superhero cartoons and movies available. When I bought a new tablet, I passed my old one off to my niece because I was happy that she would use it for something more substantial than playing "Angry Birds".
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11296
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged | 5
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Isn`t a lot of this technically illegal,but un-enforced through common sense? I remember buying vinyl lp`s and cd`s and recording them to cassette for use in the car in the days before car cd players.Technically that was illegal,but i,and many thousands were not going to buy 2 copies of said album.That`s why bluray`s come with digital copies,so you can watch on a tablet or pc while on the move.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 8:14am | IP Logged | 6
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Probably not so much unenforceable as not the reason for the law. The whole concept of Fair Use is built upon the idea that individual users will casually violate copyright with no ill intent or damage.
The sticky area is people who create things that facilitate piracy, which is why the Supreme Court had to weigh in on the subject of time shifting for video recorders in Sony V. Universal City Studios. The video recorder in the hands of an honest customer was never the problem as is made clear in their deliberation, but rather the rights of a company creating a device which could be used for piracy.
Making a personal copy of owned material is definitely not stealing and may not even be considered legally enforceable copyright violation under the concept of Fair Use.
Edited by Clifford Boudreaux on 02 January 2013 at 8:31am
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Brad Wilders
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 December 2008
Posts: 178
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 8:55am | IP Logged | 7
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To be clear, cracking DRM is not "stealing" by any legal definition and it is not copyright infringement. It is a violation of a federal law intended to protect DRM. It is "illegal," in the sense of a violation of the criminal law, only if it is done willfully and for commercial gain. So ripping your comics for a backup or another platform is not "illegal" unless your selling those backups or you sell the original without deleting the backups. As others have stated, the law provides civil remedies for cracking DRM, if the person who employed the DRM chooses to pursue it. To date, most of the media companies have enforced these provisions against the makers of DRM-cracking technology, not the consumers.
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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8120
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 8:59am | IP Logged | 8
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Don't forget, back in the late 90's the RIAA tried in the courts to make MP3 players illegal, as it threatened their business model. Imagine where we'd be today if they were successful?
Edited by Vinny Valenti on 02 January 2013 at 11:50am
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Brian Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 August 2012
Posts: 476
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 10:05am | IP Logged | 9
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" It is "illegal," in the sense of a violation of the criminal law, only if it is done willfully and for commercial gain." Incorrect...it is illegal in any sense. But it honestly sounds like people are really just trying to justify doing something illegal because getting aught is unlikely. Good for them at being so successfuly at judging what laws they feel they can break and which ones they shouldn't. Though, from experience, people that don't care that they are breaking that law generally don't care and are breaking others related..
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 10:22am | IP Logged | 10
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I remember in the late 1990's, a somewhat ironic story about how the DRM technology programmed into every DVD movie was broken.
The people who hacked it out weren't even doing it for piracy. They were Linux OS entusiasts who were working together to create a DVD player program, as there wasn't any program offered commercially for the OS. So they reverse-engineered one from existing Windows DVD player programs.
Of course, this involved figuring out the software that translated the anti-piracy code, and thus also involved figuring out how to break it. Thus, anyone who could get their hands on the new Linux DVD player program could create a DVD-ripping program, undoing the movie industry's vast work to protect the contents of the new format.
At the time, this wouldn't have much an impact on DVD piracy, as the hard drives people had on home computers were still too small. But fast-forward a few years, to when people routine had hundreds of gigabytes available, and it became much easier to rip a whole DVD, and then convert it down to a smaller file format.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 02 January 2013 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | 11
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There's been two major cases against crackers and modders. One was tossed out, the other settled out-of-court with the modder promising not to do it again. The last time the Supreme Court weighed in on a related case, they ruled in favor of copying for personal use.
So I'm pretty confident that disabling DRM for personal use is considered Fair Use as there's no way of proving it causes monitary damages, which is usually at the core of all IP related cases.
And, again, they have displayed no interest in pursuing the matter, which would suggest their lawyers think the same.
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Eric Kleefeld
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4422
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| Posted: 03 January 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | 12
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I just went to an Apple Store to take a look at Comixology content on the iPad Retina, and made a big realization about the problem of double-page spreads on tablets.
The iPad Retina's screen is so high-resolution, you can turn it sideways and read it in landscape mode at all times. It's comfortable to hold that way, and the slightly smaller images look just fine and clear to read. And when spreads pop up, they'll just fill the whole screen with the images staying at a constant size.
But as it is, there's no change in my plans for now. I'll wait until it's time to get a new laptop, and hope by that time perhaps the MacBook Retina models have come down in price. The Comixology content on the 13-inch MacBook Retina looked amazing.
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