Friday, 9 November 2007
It must be Friday. All the IP stories are sports ones.
Several sites have picked up the story that the Major Baseball League is involved in a rather Major Technology Stuff-up. As Madisonian reports:
‘Apparently fans who purchased digital downloads from MLB have discovered that MLB has changed its DRM scheme. Fans who downloaded complete games from MLB had to log in through an MLB web page to verify that the download in question was being viewed on the appropriate, licensed computer. MLB has now removed this page, making those downloads unviewable. Apparently MLB does not know when the problem will be fixed. This means that those who purchased the downloads have been denied the benefits of their bargain.’
As the US sites are reporting – under US law, the fans are stuffed. Circumventing the DRM is illegal under their Copyright Act (the DMCA). And no one can sell the fans the means to access the games, because that’s illegal too.
Aren’t you proud that Australian law isn’t so silly? Here, under the Copyright Regulations 1969, we actually have a prescribed exception that allows circumvention of an access control to get access to stuff where:
(a) the technological protection measure is not operating normally; and
(b) a replacement technological protection measure is not reasonably available.
yay Australia! oh, but that’s right. STILL no one can sell you (or even provide to you for free, personally) with the means to do so. So GEEKY Australian baseball fans are ok. That must be a large group.
Oh, hang on, no. Geeky Australian baseball fans are not ok, because they might be circumventing under US law if they were to circumvent a US access control based on a US site … might depend on the technology; whether all the acts were occurring in Australia. Hmmm……
My brain hurts.
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One Response to “The Major Baseball League and the defunct DRM”
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November 9th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
The tragedy of this situation is that most of these baseball viewers had the opportunity to view and record these games in the first instance from a high quality, DRM-free, digital source – their televisions (and PVRs are such). Instead, when they take the route of increased consumption, they find their good efforts rewarded in this manner. As it stands, anyone with a some presence of mind can record their favourite TV show, be it baseball or the latest serial, trim the ads and play back on whichever devices they own. This is entirely legal of course, until the US works out a way to force use of the broadcast flag, in which case only outlaws will record baseball. The route of illegality will net a net-savvy infringer a copy of the latest serials less than two hours after they’re aired in North America.
With these elements conspiring against DRM – its increased vulnerability to malfunction (as we see here) and its comparative unattractiveness to both legal and illegal methods – one wonders why the distributors are constantly looking for a bigger lock for doors that don’t need to be kept closed in this way. It’s a relief to see some companies (and individual big name bands) converting to open distribution formats but we have a long way before the legal marketplace compares to its illegitimate competitors.