[H-GEN] DVD Legal Issues

[Clinton Roy]

Anthony Irwin:

> I realise that people in humbug are not lawyers but I
> thought that maybe someone may know the answer off
> hand.

We do have at least one, and we have many wannabes :)

> I was wondering if it is legal in Australia to use the
> dvd decryption librarys used to play dvd movies.

Assuming this is all just for personal use, I'm not totally sure what
the current state of play is, but I'd be fairly comfortable that the
consumer watchdog would back you up. In the future though, once AUSFTA
comes into affect, it's my understanding that it will be illegal to
use open source DVD playing software, as that's a copyright protection
circumvention device, which is a big no no.

> I was
> also wondering if it is legal in Australia to create a
> backup dvd of a movie which you legally own. 

According to the recently released fair use issues paper of the
attorney generals department [1], section 11.17 says there is no
copyright exception for backup of cinema based content.


> I will still watch dvd movies on my GNU/Linux box if
> it is not technically legal to do so, I am just more
> or less interested in if it is just the US that is
> making a big deal about it.
 
I highly recommend we all read the fair use issues paper, to get some
sort of idea of where we are, and where we're heading.

Right, onto the lawyer and wannabes :)


[1]
http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(03995EABC73F94816C2AF4AA2645824B)~FairUseIssuesPaper050505.pdf/$file/FairUseIssuesPaper050505.pdf


-- 
Clinton Roy
www.humbug.org.au  - Brisbane Unix Group
staff.dstc.edu.au/croy - Blog