Jolard
21st January 2003, 18:35
Ok, Here is a great example of how allowing corporations to police themselves and to determine fair use rights themselves is not a good thing. The biggest problem with this is that if company's are allowed to police themselves, they have their own best interests in mind, and not that of the consumer. My example will shed some light.
I have a DVD burner, and a home video camera. I have decided to capture my home video, digitize it, edit and then burn to DVD. Perfectly legal process, one whihc infringes on nobody's copyright at any step of the process.
The problem came when I was capturing the video. I consistently noticed a large white stripe across the video footage, and I could not get rid of it. I tried recapturing over and over, and the strip would appear every time, in different places on the video. After complaints to the manufacturer of my video card, and research on the web, I found that the problem was caused by the latest versions of Nvidia's capture drivers. They had apparently be "required" by copyright holders to increase macrovision sensitivity in the capture drivers, so the latest versions had this beefed up sensitivity. (for those who don't know, Macrovision is a copy protection scheme that makes it difficult to copy video tapes). Anyway, apparently the sensitivity had been boosted so much that it detected macrovision wherever there was a stretched tape, or other aging problems on a video tape. Since I was capturing old home movies, it thought they were macrovision protected, and wouldn't let me copy them.
So, overzealous copyright protection had made it impossible for me to exercise my right to copy my own content. My video card manufacturer had erred on the side of the corporations, and made it impossible for me to capture my own video. If we don't fight back against this kind of thing, we will all lose all right to any media (even our own) unless we are paying someone for the privilege of viewing it. We need to be VERY careful.
Anyway, what was my solution? I had to go back to an old unsupported driver, and I was then able to capture fine. I should not have to do that!
I have a DVD burner, and a home video camera. I have decided to capture my home video, digitize it, edit and then burn to DVD. Perfectly legal process, one whihc infringes on nobody's copyright at any step of the process.
The problem came when I was capturing the video. I consistently noticed a large white stripe across the video footage, and I could not get rid of it. I tried recapturing over and over, and the strip would appear every time, in different places on the video. After complaints to the manufacturer of my video card, and research on the web, I found that the problem was caused by the latest versions of Nvidia's capture drivers. They had apparently be "required" by copyright holders to increase macrovision sensitivity in the capture drivers, so the latest versions had this beefed up sensitivity. (for those who don't know, Macrovision is a copy protection scheme that makes it difficult to copy video tapes). Anyway, apparently the sensitivity had been boosted so much that it detected macrovision wherever there was a stretched tape, or other aging problems on a video tape. Since I was capturing old home movies, it thought they were macrovision protected, and wouldn't let me copy them.
So, overzealous copyright protection had made it impossible for me to exercise my right to copy my own content. My video card manufacturer had erred on the side of the corporations, and made it impossible for me to capture my own video. If we don't fight back against this kind of thing, we will all lose all right to any media (even our own) unless we are paying someone for the privilege of viewing it. We need to be VERY careful.
Anyway, what was my solution? I had to go back to an old unsupported driver, and I was then able to capture fine. I should not have to do that!