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Comment by res0nat0r | Hacker News Reader

From a Reddit commenter:

The issue here is DVDs & BRs not CDs. 1201 exemptions are DMCA exemptions to the anti-circumvention section. CDs don't have copy protection so this bit of the DMCA never applied. DVDs still have CSS and BRs have something else, that's why you can't just copy the files off, and why legally you're not supposed to phase shift or rip them even though you technically can.

Phase/time shifting is explicitly OK, as long as that's all you're doing, thanks to the betamax case. Breaking encryption, however busted and useless and stupid as CSS is, is still not OK. Some people were trying to get a 1201 exemption for DVD ripping, copyright office didn't go for it.

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Hi - I work at Public Knowledge and coordinated our exemption request. While our exemption request was specifically about DVDs, the Copyright Office's rejection was much broader. Essentially, the Copyright Office found no evidence that space shifting as a practice was fair use. That means that, as far as the Copyright Office is concerned, space shifters are infringing on copyright. That would include anyone who copied a work from one medium to another - regardless of whether or not it was protected by DRM.

But time shifting is fair use and as considered has always required space shifting so space shifting itself is compatible with fair use. I think the question is always about the eventual playback.

http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2012/2012-26308_PI.pdf

Starts on page 58 if you want to read it yourselves.

>why legally you're not supposed to phase shift or rip them even though you technically can

This is wrong, AFAIK. DMCA forbids manufacturing and distribution of anti-DRM tools, but not their use for personal copying.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201

"No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

The only exceptions to the above are the ones determined by the Librarian of Congress. Breaking DRM for any purpose is illegal unless the Librarian of Congress explicitly allows it.

I want to know their definition of effectively.

I'm afraid it means "was intended to" here.

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