Re: "Bowdlerizing for Columbine" piece

I'm not sure what strikes Terry as contradictory. Clean Flicks *does* copy the DVD (I presume they would say for purposes of reverse-engineering or fair use only), but the others do not. Plainly, the risk of infringement is higher in the former than the latter.

As to the DMCA question, I don't see how putting a software overlay on an otherwise unmodified DVD has anything to do with defeating access protection. If the software intercepts the images/instructions to display images and simply moves forward, it's doing no more than automating the thumb on the fast-forward.

Or am *I* missing something?

Vance

At 09:38 AM 1/22/03 -0800, Terry Carroll wrote:
>There's something here that appears to be a contradition:
>
> The Clean Flicks folks say they respect those copyrights by only making
> a single edited copy for each original video or DVD they purchase.
>
>So this is saying that Clean Flicks *does* make a copy of the movie
>(which would be prima facie copyright infringement).
>
> Because ClearPlay and Trilogy Studios do nothing to physically copy or
> alter DVDs, they are not vulnerable to charges of copyright or
> trademark infringement.
>
>This says the opposite.
>
>It also seems to me that, apart from the copying issue of copying the DVD,
>Clean Flicks, by altering the software (or providing new software) that
>determines the sequence or appearance of the images to be displayed, is
>circumventing a technical measure that controls access to the work,
>violating section 1201.

Vance R. Koven, Senior Attorney
Comverse, Inc.
100 Quannapowitt Parkway
Wakefield, MA 01880 USA
+1 781-224-8523 (vox humana)
+1 781-224-8144 (fax mechanica) Received on Thu Jan 23 2003 - 13:51:39 GMT