Major ISPs Sign Off on New Copyright Enforcement Plan → Re: extortion

Interesting. How do they get around the "It's a crime to circumnavigate a copy protection scheme" clause of the DMCA?

An example would be DVD. You're allowed to make a backup copy BUT not allowed to decode to actually make the copy.

So it's legal to HAVE a backup just illegal to actually MAKE a backup, if you get my drift.

Correct.

As a practical matter no one is going after you for making personal backups with DVDcrypt or other similar tools.

Nope, but they do go after the people who make said tools and shut them down, sue them, and charge them with enabling copyright infringement.

Correct. And, factually, they are doing exactly what they are charged with. This goes along with my reality check on what's happening here. The RIAA/MPAA/content owners are not, generally, going after individual violators one at a time. They go with mass letters (which haven't worked out all that well for them, publicity-wise), and they go after the enablers -- the Napsters, Limewires, Pirate Bays of the world, and those who build the pirating tools and disseminate them.

And frankly, they don't care about individual violators as long as they do it within their personal domain (e.g. ripping DVDs) and don't get on the Internet to do it.

Ah, but they do go after individuals all the time. That's what this is all about....

Yes but it's been mass letters to hundreds or thousands of people, not one-at-a-time, which was my point.