Teachers who want to show their students DVD clips shouldn't rip the video and edit it together, the Motion Picture Association of America says. Instead, they should use a camcorder to record the video as it appears on screen.
Seriously.
This bit of advice comes from a video in which MPAA executives show the US Copyright Office how teachers can set up this contrived recording method. So it's actually a video of a video that shows video being recorded with a video camera. Follow?
The MPAA is arguing this method to the copyright office as part of its Digital Millenium Copyright Act rulemaking processions. Every three years, interested groups such as the MPAA, the DVD Copy Control Association and the Recording Industry Association of America try to convince the US goverment to flex its rules in their favor.
In this case, the copyright office is considering whether to extend DVD ripping privileges to all teachers, and possibly students as well. As of the last rulemaking session in 2006, only film teachers were allowed to break copy protection to rip DVDs.
As Ars Technica's coverage of the rulemaking states, the DVD Copy Control Association worries that these privileges could undermine the entire copyright system. For that reason, the MPAA feels that teachers should either use Panasonic DVD burners that don't break copyright control mechanisms, plan ahead to get clearance from the studios or, as the video shows, tape the content with a camcorder.
I get that the MPAA doesn't want teachers and students breaking copy protection willy-nilly under the guise of the DMCA, but it's a pretty big leap to suggest that the entire copyright system will crumble if teachers dont have to jump through hoops for the sake of teaching. This is why Big Content has an image problem.
