GINGER GROUP the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said today it is pushing the US Library of Congress, North America's copyright "watchdog" to accept that people be allowed to skip "commercials" on DVD and also watch DVDs that Americans buy outside their DVD region. The somewhat radical idea is because, said the EFF, there need to be exemptions from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which could penalise individuals for bypassing, or attempting to bypass, technical protections inherent in the DVD format.
One of the problems this side of the pond is that if "tourists" visit the US and buy DVDs, they may not be able to look at them because DVD players have regional codes "burnt in". That's quite common in DVD drives which are built into PCs, these days.
The reverse happens too. If you are an American, and buy a George Formby DVD here in London, you may not be able watch it in the privacy of your home when you get back to Tallahasee, or wherever. Students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic at the Washington College of Law have helped the EFF and Public Knowledge in preparing the brief. The EFF said it wants DCMA exemptions from music on copy protected CDs, films (movies) on DVDs with "regional" coding restrictions, movies (films) which prevent consumers from skipping ads, and movies (films) which are in the public domain on DVD.
The ginger group believes that will assist people to see films they've paid for.
News source: The Inq
