Circuit City: DMCA Violator?

One story that’s been making the blog rounds recently is the one where Circuit City allegedly violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by way of a DVD video transfer service. For ten bucks, Circuit City‘ll take your DVD and rip it into iPod format. For $20, they’ll do three, and for $30 they’ll do five. The sign even had a caveat: “Transfer must be from an original copy of your DVD collection.” Grammatically incorrect, but a caveat nonetheless.

Blogger Seth Finkelstein of Infothought did some fact-checking on his own and called Circuit City. He was able to speak to Bill Cimino, Circuit City Director of Corporate Communications, who said:

“The sign is incorrect and not authorized and we are in the process of making sure the sign is removed.”

“We offer two services. In a small number of stores, we will transfer your commercial CD’s to a DVD, and in other stores, we will transfer your home VHS to a DVD. We do not transfer pre-recorded VHS or DVD, to DVD.”

Thing is, though, the Circuit City store where the sign was displayed is already in a lot of hot water. Chapter 12 in the copyrights section of the US Code specifically states that “No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—“. Yep, they certainly seem to fall under that “offer to the public” part.

It seems this has turned out to be an isolated incident. Circuit City is a big business, and they know that it doesn’t pay to try and stick it to the MPAA. But still, one bad apple…

Opinions? Thoughts? Want ads? Leave a comment.

Via Consumerist

One story that’s been making the blog rounds recently is the one where Circuit City allegedly violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by way of a DVD video transfer service. For ten bucks, Circuit City‘ll take your DVD and rip it into iPod format. For $20, they’ll do three, and for $30 they’ll do five. The sign even had a caveat: “Transfer must be from an original copy of your DVD collection.” Grammatically incorrect, but a caveat nonetheless.

Blogger Seth Finkelstein of Infothought did some fact-checking on his own and called Circuit City. He was able to speak to Bill Cimino, Circuit City Director of Corporate Communications, who said:

“The sign is incorrect and not authorized and we are in the process of making sure the sign is removed.”

“We offer two services. In a small number of stores, we will transfer your commercial CD’s to a DVD, and in other stores, we will transfer your home VHS to a DVD. We do not transfer pre-recorded VHS or DVD, to DVD.”

Thing is, though, the Circuit City store where the sign was displayed is already in a lot of hot water. Chapter 12 in the copyrights section of the US Code specifically states that “No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that—“. Yep, they certainly seem to fall under that “offer to the public” part.

It seems this has turned out to be an isolated incident. Circuit City is a big business, and they know that it doesn’t pay to try and stick it to the MPAA. But still, one bad apple…

Opinions? Thoughts? Want ads? Leave a comment.

Via Consumerist