[ExtractStream] Re: Directivo, TivoNET, and ExtractStream

[sharkey@a...]

> our lawmaking bodies have deemed there to be a fundamental difference 
> between analog and digital data, and have applied different rules to 
> each.

But this just either represents the lack of technological understanding
of the lawmaking bodies or an execuse used by lawmakers to cater to
the corporate entertainment industry.

People like to introduce digital media as "new" and as such requiring
additional protections not necessary with analog works.

In reality, it's totally flipped around. The copyright laws written
in the 18th century were designed primarily with digital works in mind.
(Any work expressed as text is by its nature digital. All books, stories,
poems, etc. all possess the capability for infinite serial copying
which the entertainment industry claims makes modern digital media
require additional protections.)

The DMCA is an attempt by the entertainment industry to remove both
the fair use rights as well as the right of first sale (via region
coding) previously explicitly allowed by copyright law. Eventually,
this law will be struck down as unconstitutional, but this will be
done by the courts, not the legislature. As it stands now, the
law is not self consistent. Activities explicitly allowed under
U.S. Title 17 Chapter 1 sections 107 and 109 (and possibly others)
(http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap1.html) are effectively
prohibited by the DMCA's restrictions in section 1201 of the same
document, despite the claims of 1201(c)(1) to the contrary.

> directivo?
> the mpeg2 stream never get's converted to analog form.
> digital - straight to disk.
> covered by digital rules.

True, but is the stream protected by a technological measure which
effectively controls access to the work? If there's a standard MPEG-2
file on a standard hard drive, connected to a network aware computer which
can be accessed using standard and open protocols, what technological
measure can you say was put in place by the copyright holder to protect his
work? What access controls are being bypassed? If there are no such
measures, then tools for extracting such streams are legal. Redistributing
the streams themselves or substantial portions of them is still illegal,
of course.

Eric