If you buy a DVD legally, you should be able to do anything you want with it right? Wrong. The guys over at The Movie Blog have the latest on the MPAA’s copyright crusade against DVD owners, and they’ve won… which means you lose.
This week, the US Library of Congress rejected a petition to allow US iPod owners to copy movies that they own on to their iPod or other such similar video devices. That’s right folks, it is illegal for you to watch a movie from your DVD library on your iPod. This is utter madness.
The MPAA’s stance is that DVD copying and ripping if any kind hurts the industry, and they’re out to do everything within their power to stop their industry’s most ardent supporters from enjoying their legally purchased products to the fullest in their home. They want your money, but only if you watch what they want you to watch in the way they’ve approved.
I’m with Campea over at TMB. They’re fools. It’s this kind of idiot mentality that’s killing the movie industry. They whine and bitch about piracy, but it’s completely retarded, greedy thinking like this that’s doing it. Not pirates in Taiwan. They’re not just missing out on a HUGE and massively growing market, they’re now in the business of legislating how and where people watch movies which they’ve paid for. GET OUT OF MY HOME. The MPAA has no right to be there. If I’ve paid their blood money to buy the DVD when I could have just as easily downloaded illegally for free, then I should be able to do any damn thing I want with it. By telling people they can’t, they’re only encouraging them to go out and grab pirated copies.
The petition to reverse this dumbass legal red tape came from an organization called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Here’s their argument against what the MPAA’s claims: “The empirical evidence proves just the opposite. During the previous exemption period, DVD sales and profitability continued to grow at an astonishing pace. In fact, DVD sales have proven to be more profitable for motion picture studios in recent years than the formats they replaced, even at a time when DVD ripping software has been popular. In addition, major motion picture studios have continued to release new DVD titles in ever-increasing numbers.”
But the MPAA has clout, and money, and no one is listening. This is a dark day for DVD. Now iPod owners will only be able to watch movies they purchase from the iPod store, which means if you buy a DVD and you want to watch it on your iPod, you’ll have to buy it twice. Otherwise, you can only watch it on your MPAA approved DVD player or laptop computer.
