said by mikepd :

I would really like to see this practice of three violations and the subscriber gets disconnected challenged in court. Courts tend to take a dim view of contracts that give too much control to one side over the other party.

Even if it is published as part of the TOS, it can still be held null and void by a court as unfair so it would be very interesting to see how this would play out before a judge.

said by fiberguy :

.. I really don't think the xxAA is just sending out letters at random with out first having obtained the material they reported. Since they have the "rights" to the protected work, they also have a right to make the allegations.

said by fiberguy :

The provider has a right to take actions against those who violate 'the rules'.. and, to this day, distributing copyrighted material is not legal. The TOS clearly states you are not allowed to do it.. if it's against the TOS to do so, they certainly have the right, based on the TOS as it is, to simply pull your access on the first violation if they really wanted to.

What calls into play, more so than your opinion of favoring one side, is if the provider has enough evidence to be sure that you were in violation.

Here comes the flames for this.. I really don't think the xxAA is just sending out letters at random with out first having obtained the material they reported. Since they have the "rights" to the protected work, they also have a right to make the allegations.

This "contract law" is based on actual law.. the TOS agreement is simply stating they are going to enforce laws. What you're talking about is the action they take while enforcing them, to which I agree.

said by fiberguy :

to this day, distributing copyrighted material is not legal.

said by funchords :

That's simply not true, either.

said by SilverSurfer :

Evidently you haven't been following along with the farce that is the DMCA notification process then. These companies do, in fact, randomly, and in most instances, incorrectly hand out takedown notifications like Halloween candy. This instance is but a single case in point.

Random and incorrect takedown notices happen quite frequently.

BTW, you should refrain from discussing Contract Law since you have absolutely no clue as to what you are talking about.

said by MrMoody :

No, and no. The DMCA doesn't trump fair use (yet), and doesn't prohibit the actual breaking of copy protection (yet). It only prohibits distributing technology to do it with.

In any case many public domain DVDs aren't encrypted anyway.

said by jmuskratt :

Yes, using DeCSS, which you need to rip a DVD, does.

17 USC Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

said by fiberguy :

The provider has a right to take actions against those who violate 'the rules'..
What calls into play, more so than your opinion of favoring one side, is if the provider has enough evidence to be sure that you were in violation.

said by jmuskratt :

Again, not entirely correct.

Making a backup copy for personal use *may be* legal fair use.

Using DeCSS to break the protection to make that copy, violates the DMCA.

So, if your Adam 12 DVDs didn't have CSS, then you'd be ok. Now whether there'll ever be a prosecution for using AnyDVD or DVD43, I can't say. The DMCA, however, does render otherwise legal fair use into banditry.

From UNIVERSAL CITY v REIMERDES:

We know of no authority for the proposition that fair use, as protected by the Copyright Act, much less the Constitution, guarantees copying by the optimum method or in the identical format of the original. Although the Appellants insisted at oral argument that they should not be relegated to a "horse and buggy" technique in making fair use of DVD movies,36 the DMCA does not impose even an arguable limitation on the opportunity to make a variety of traditional fair uses of DVD movies, such as commenting on their content, quoting excerpts from their screenplays, and even recording portions of the video images and sounds on film or tape by pointing a camera, a camcorder, or a microphone at a monitor as it displays the DVD movie. The fact that the resulting copy will not be as perfect or as manipulable as a digital copy obtained by having direct access to the DVD movie in its digital form, provides no basis for a claim of unconstitutional limitation of fair use. A film critic making fair use of a movie by quoting selected lines of dialogue has no constitutionally valid claim that the review (in print or on television) would be technologically superior if the reviewer had not been prevented from using a movie camera in the theater, nor has an art student a valid constitutional claim to fair use of a painting by photographing it in a museum. Fair use has never been held to be a guarantee of access to copyrighted material in order to copy it by the fair user's preferred technique or in the format of the original.

said by fiberguy :

I really don't think the xxAA is just sending out letters at random with out first having obtained the material they reported. Since they have the "rights" to the protected work, they also have a right to make the allegations.