Apparently a French court has ruled that adding anti-copying mechanisms to a DVD violates the rights consumers have to make private copies of media that they’ve bought and paid for. Reportedly the court has given the company that released the film in question one month to provide the guy who sued them with an unprotected DVD; it’s not entirely clear whether this ruling applies to every DVD sold in France or just that one copy of Mulholland Drive this guy was trying to dub. Either way, expect the film industry to throw its entire weight behind getting this ruling overturned.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000540041149/

I'd love to hear a response from Glickman.

It doesn't matter - just as in the more familiar US system, a court decision can be overriden by a legislative measure. Presumably france has not yet produced its implimentation of the EUCD, the European version of the DMCA. Things are complicated with European laws, it takes a while for each country to produce its own version.

The UK version has produced some incidents that would be funny, were they not such great examples of political stupidity.

Such as?

Hmm... There was a conference I heard about, I knew someone who attended, at which Lord Sainsbury (Ex of the supermarket chain, now in politics) announced, in rather more words, that certian terms in the proposed legislation would be defined by working group after said legislation was passed, in order to get it through more quickly. I am unable to remember if this incident was refering to the EUCD or software-patents - Sainsbury is involved in both, more in patents than copyright.

According to the person I know, a student who managed to get a ticket by contacting their MP, Sainsbury gave up taking questions when too many people attempted to object to passing a law before actually defineing it and instead gave a speech about how he was just trying to help small businesses.

"Presumably france has not yet produced its implimentation of the EUCD, the European version of the DMCA."

I think it is in place. The ruling doesn't state that one can bypass copyright protection mechanisms. The way I understand it, is that companies can't use those mechanisms to block fair uses. In this particular case, the ruling would mean than DCC scrambling is illegally preventing fair uses that are granted by law to the owner of the DVD. Since the user can't legally remove those protections, it has to be provided with a copy that allows him to enjoy his fair uses without having to break the law to do so.

I still need to doublecheck this piece of news but if it's true, I wish US courts would force companies to respect fair use. It's not incompatible with the DMCA. It could just be done by preventing outrageous DRM...

Rare relief from the insanity of the copywrong cartel!
A precious moment such as this needs to be relived in U.S. courts. Someone with some money stateside needs to file suit for just this very thing against DRM's impact against fair use.