I don't even know you. I posted an informative answer to your post. I did not insult you. If you took offense at being given information you already knew, that is your problem, not mine. I read your post. It was difficult to understand what you were asking. Why would you be offended by my telling you about locks? So what if you already knew this? Why even mention it then?

This is my original reply to you:

Note that the first sentence answers your question and does not refer at all to anything online. The rest of the information was accurate and added for completeness. Your response was out of line as was your implication that I responded only to something which you did not ask. Apparantly my major sin was giving too much information. At any rate, perhaps we can move on at this point.

I think more focus needs to be put on the lack of credibility of Sonja and the fact that the ESA is an electronic game association and not a DVD association. Everyone seems to be ignoring these things.

I was off on the name, but my point remains the same (and you still knew what case I was referring to anyway). Feist is not analogous to this situation, especially not in the above manner. Further, Implicit in the Feist ruling is that if one could come up with an creative and original idea to arrange the information it WOULD be copyrightable.

I am of the opinion that DVD Profiler meets this requirement and the use of the pictures themselves would fall under fair use. Fair use is a copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials forpurposes of commentary and criticism. The Supreme Court emphasizes the "transformative" factor as being a primary indicator of fair use. At issue is whether the material has been used to help create something new, or merely copied verbatim into another work. Ask the following questions:

Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning?
Was value added to the original by creating new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings?

I believe that DVDP would meet this.

Again, I ask if you wish to continue this debate, my e-mail light is on and I would be happy to. I too went a very good law school and would welcome a healthy debate on copyright! But this thread is not the place for it.

Ahhhhhh!!!     Lawyers!!!





In regards to the "difference between Amazon and DVD Profiler" question, wouldn't a big difference be that the cover scans on Amazon, DVD Planet, while they do make money for the stores, also make money for the DVD "makers", whereas the money made by DVD Profiler by providing the cover scans does not directly translate into money for the makers of the DVD. I would think that would be enough of a differentiation from the retail sites that DVD Profiler would have a hard time arguing for removal of the images from all sites.

Of course, the fact that the copyright holder can pick and choose who it grants the rights to, makes the above point less important.

This is what DVD Profiler's page is currently showing. So much for rumors.

I would much rather it be a hardware/software concern that took longer than anyone expected than the legal nightmare that has been debated in this thread!!!!!

Here's looking forward to DVDProfiler's quick and healthy return!!

This is the third story they have given. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I don't have any reason to accept this over anything else that has been said, either by them or others.

Timeline:

First story: Minor technical difficulties, "will be back in a few MINUTES"

Second story (as posted to HTF by Ken Cole) - "hardware failure coupled with a comedy of errors involving our servers and ISPs"

Third story: serious hardware failure

My overarching question is why not just admit this in the first place? Hardware failures happen all the time, it's not a big deal. Instead the, only real "comedy of errors" is how they handled it.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great service, but it's not one that I will be paying $25 for anytime soon.

I don't see three stories.

First story: There's problems and they believe them to be minor

Second story: After looking into the issue, it was larger than expected.

Third story: Doesn't contradict the second story. They just added an adjective and dropped the "comedy of errors" section which may or may not have played a part.

I had a major issue here at work earlier in the week. While I was working on it, several people wanted to know what was going on. I gave them my best guess at the time, but in the end it turned out to be something quite different. Sure I changed my story, but only because it took time to find the true problem.

I think you reading more into this than actually exists. It's true that they could have communicated better, but if you ever visit their forums, you'll see that communication has always been their weak point. Still, I'm not sorry I paid my $25 and I would do it again. It didn't stop me from enjoying any movies this week. I just couldn't catalog them.

As much as it pains me, I must... agree with EPKJ here.

Hey, when a man's right, he's right. This makes no sense whatsoever (as I posted above).

Sorry, but this is completely incorrect.

A reviewer can excerpt pieces of a work for a review. A scholar may provide quotes from a work, or even still frames from a film (as long as the amount of frames does not constitute a large part of the finished whole - and what a "large part" means depends on the medium.

These uses are all protected under the "fair use" provisions of U.S. copyright law, and people may use the copyrighted works with absolute impunity, without contacting or receiving permission from the copyright holder.

I don't know if a DVD's cover is protected or not - the artwork itself, is, of course, but what about a picture of a product? That is also protected.

The main point was that a video game organisation would have absolutely nothing to do with the films - that would be the MPAA. And I believe our use under DVD Profiler is fair.

In any case, the point is moot until IVS states otherwise. They're still claiming incompetence in getting their hardware working.

Ken Cole of IVS just posted this over on HTF.

The courts don't rule on creativity. First year law student, are we? The phone book isn't really an apt comparison for DVD cover art, which is creative and not based on factual information. The phone book's work is protected because of their "added value" - the collection of the data is protected, not the data itself. You can't copyright a phone number.

So you're saying that all public domain work is identical? Shakespeare and Chaucer are the same?

That's ridiculous. Just because works aren't copyrightable does not mean that similar collections in the same genre will be identical.

Phone books charge companies money to be included in the yellow pages. That's how they make their money.

They lied before about being down for "routine maintenance" and being back in "a few minutes." Why should we believe what they've posted now?

Oh come on. I don't think they lied. I think that was just a standard out of service page that their hosting service threw up so people knew they were still there but having problems.

[sarcasm]Yeah, it's a conspiracy alright.[/sarcasm]

You people are very very forgiving of a company who has lied to you. It's a good thing it's just a DVD cataloging programme, and not something important, like getting cancer from your drinking water or something, or we'd be seeing posts like "Oh, well, they knew the water was poisonous, but as long as they clean it up within the next 3-5 months I'm fine with it."

Allow me to repeat myself:


It's just a friggin' DVD catalog app....

But one that seeks a $25 registration fee and submissions from it's community members.

Yes I am pretty forgiving because I am been using the program for 3 or 4 years now and haven't had any problems with them. Things do break and it sometimes takes longer than expected to get them up and running. Cut them some slack, I am sure it will be up by next week.

Yes, and I paid my $25 a while back, too.
But, I don't really feel Intervocative "owes" me anything.

There have been plenty of other community-supported/sponsored apps that I've used over the years that suddenly became extinct for this reason or that reason.

It happens. Ifthis is just downtime due to hardware issues, it will get fixed. If they're going belly up, I don't know about you, but I'll live...

They owe you the truth, plain and simple.

No, they owe you the truth, apparently.

I don't really care all that much, other than I happen to really like DVDProfiler. The site has been gone for a week, and I'm doing just fine.

Yes, I want it back.
No, I don't really feel like I'm owed anything.

According to this thread, it's not just me. My life goes on just fine as well, thank you.

Help me to understand why YOU don't feel that giving a company money for its product does not entitle you to know why it does not function properly any longer.

My take on the $25 was not that I was buying anything, but rather supporting the endeavor involved in keeping it alive. I used the freebie version for awhile, but decided I should throw them a bone considering how much I liked and used the app.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here - really, I'm not. It's just that some posts here make it out like this is the next Enron or something.

That last part we both agree with!

I guess we just have differing views on the subject, and I'm sure we can both deal with that. But I'd still argue you gave them the $25 because you enjoyed your previous use of it and wanted to support their continued existence.

I think alot of the real upset people here are the major contributors, or those who spent a great deal of time with the app. I have put in a good amount of data into it, but nothing that I could remake with excel if I had to (but I'd still rather not!).

I guess my overall point is that in my mind, I can't understand why they just didn't come clean in the first place. It's like lying about going to Best Buy instead of picking up your dry cleaning - it's senseless to do because it doesn't really matter in the end but you make a mountain out of a molehill because you lied about it (and literally here, it has, as I type on page 13 of this thread!).