The difference between Replay Music and DVD Decrypter

We've all used a VCR to record a movie on TV, and now TiVO's Digital Video Recorder does the same--just automatically. This is legal right?

From Replay Music's website:

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA)

Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Section 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that —

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

(3) As used in this subsection —

(A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

(B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

So as long as you are not circumventing copyright protection and are not publically distributing (file copying?) a work, then you are legal?

This means that services like Replay Music are legal and programs that crack CSS like DVD Decrypter are not?

Either way, using Replay Music does violate Rhapsody's and Yahoo's Terms of Service. But does it make it illegal? Can the RIAA sue you and win?

So what about AnyDVD from Slysoft? It hides the CSS from your PC, but somehow doesn't circumvent it?


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

FireWire/DV problems, blank screen, gray squares from Final Cut Pro or Motion Updates

Using OS-X's Software Update to update Fin Cut Pro Studio (FCP 5 or Motion) ?

With each update patch (5.0.4 is the current one) my FireWire/DV deck/player (like a Sony DSR-11) stops outputing audio and video. There have been four patches so far. Try reinstalling QuickTime 7 (needed for Final Cut Pro Studio 5).

To do this, delete the Quicktime receipts at "/Library/Receipts/" (get it? if you install an application package. . . you get a receipt?). Then, Download Quicktime and re-install. Also, you must re-install Quicktime in a subsequent boot than during the update--so that means updating, rebooting, un-installing, re-installing, and then re-booting.

(Yeah, thanks a lot Apple. . .)


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

Faster Logging (DV Start/Stop Detect in Final Cut Pro )

Final Cut Pro (FCP) will detect breaks in your DV recordings. You will have to log the whole tape and then use Final Cut Pro (FCP) to detect the segments. So if you have a lot of takes that they know they won't use, you may not want to use this method. This sounds like a great idea if you are including a lot of B-Roll and have plenty of Capture space on your drives.

More at Final Cut Pro Quick Tip #34 - DV Start/Stop Detect


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

Article on Web 2.0

Core attributes of Web 2.0

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

More on this by Tim O'Reilly.


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

800-CEO-READ Podcasts Blog

Why read when you can listen? Here are some mp3s of authors discussing their business books. Each month 800-CEO-READ interviews an author.

800-CEO-READ Podcasts Blog

Some of this year's books:

10 Rules for Strategic Innovators, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
Starting from Scratch, Wes Moss
The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford
True to Our Roots, Paul Dolan
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, Roger Fisher, Daniel Shapiro
Grapevine: The New Art of Word of Mouth Marketing, Dave Balter
Executive Intelligence, Justin Menkes
The Rules of the Red Rubber Ball
Brand Autopsy
Escher Cycle, Finn Jackson


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

Apple Motion crashes with AJA Kona LH board

Today, I found out that Apple Motion 2 crashes when applying filters and behaviors if you have Final Cut Pro outputing to a AJA KONA LH with the desktop preview option enabled.

To change the option (which is the default, by the way), run AJA KONA LH Control Panel and click the Control tab in the middle and change Default Kona Output to something else (like Test Pattern or Black).

I have read a similar problem happens with BlackMagic DeckLink.


--Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com