dvd burners banned?

[bsd_da3m0n]

one of my friends just told me that he saw on techlive this morning that dvd burners were being banned in the US! according to him some counterpart to the DMCA pulled something really obscure out of their ass to do this. also, he said that TiVo and all that similar stuff was going to be discontinued until they found a different way to store their recordings (apparently you can get a tivo hd to run on a computer pretty easily).

Of course, none of this makes sense, and won't last long if it's true. Can anyone confirm this?

[avdven]

I know that there have been some issues raised recently about TiVos and TiVo equivalents, but I doubt that what your friend said is true. For instance, for DVD writeres, the market is mostly in backing up data, not copying DVDs. If they outlaw DVD writers, they have to outlaw CD writers as well (VCDs). And if they get rid of TiVo's, they'll have to discontinue all video input devices for a computer (since I can easily hook up my cable line into my computer and record the data directly to my computer's hard drive). What you heard just sound like unsubstantiated rumors. If they were true, they'd be all over the news and the 'net.

AJ

Edit: I just checked out TechLive's website (www.techlive.com) and didn't find any information. If they did report something like that, they're contradicting themselves because they were raving about a new PVR for Macs (http://www.techtv.com/news/computing...395760,00.html) which is, essentially, a TiVo which attaches to a computer.

[gamemaster6502]

I agree with AJ (avdven), I don't think the U.S. can ban DVD Writters, too much hastle.

[allenb1963]

Thats an awful big genie to try to stuff back into such a tiny bottle....

[qwerty_smith]

didnt they try to do that with VCRs when they first came out? then again with CD burners? tape recorders? geez. when will they ever learn?

[juno]

to many already out there to late now!

[problemchild]

It's the same issue that came up in the early 80s when the entertainment industry tried to ban VCRs. The Sony case that went to the US Supreme Court pretty much laid down the legal standard in this area. If you can show that the device has legitimate non-infringing uses (i.e., time shifting for VCRs) you're home free. The fact that it *might* be used for copyright infringement isn't enough. Since the market for DVD burners is mostly data backup at this point, I don't see a problem.