Monday, February 03, 2003

Fair Use

Had a thought with regards to fair use and making backup copies of something like a DVD movie. Does anyone actually know anyone who makes backup copies of all of their DVD movies? DVDs are pretty tough when compared to their CD brethren. If I remember correctly, there's even another layer of error correction built in to DVDs that's not available on CDs. Which means that (1) they're more unlikely to go bad and (2) the amount of time it takes to make a copy of a DVD movie plus the cost of DVD-R media puts it sqaurely in the "why bother?" category. If it happens to go bad, you buy another copy (or you go rent it, or borrow a friend's copy). I still forsee a lot of low-end pirating occuring at the college and aquaintance level, but watching a movie is a foreground activity, unlike music which can be pushed into the background. Meaning you'll listen to a lot more hours of music in your life then you will spend watching movies.

Eh, it's an incomplete thought still - it just struck me as odd that someone would make a backup copy of a DVD movie... well, unless it costs you more then $10 to replace the disc.

posted by Wuphon's at 7:09 PM