New Zealand progressive on fair use laws

Bruce — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:12:48 +0000

As reported by Ars Technica, the New Zealand House of Representatives passed a bill on 8 April 2008 reforming copyright law for the "digital age". Most netizens even outside the US will have come across the American DMCA: any mention seems tainted by the taste of bile. The DMCA criminalises circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) technologies and access controls—many folk argue at the expense of "fair use". Do the NZ reforms provide workable compromise? Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand [© iStockPhoto] Ars cite a Canadian law professor as saying: The anti-circumvention provisions are arguably the best of any country, since they are compliant with WIPO, limited in scope, and seek to preserve fair dealing rights. Having looked at the new Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill I find myself almost as confused as I was before; it raises at least as many questions as it answers. Time and format shifting I've always wondered exactly how recording a TV programme to VHS tape, DVD+RW, or PVR hard drives sat with current copyright laws. It must be pretty unusual to walk into a living room and not find the home owner's favourite TV series or movie archived on recordable media for repeated viewing at their leisure. Fortunately the bill specifies that anyone watching TV that isn't "live" is no longer engaged in a criminal act (recording of an on-demand broadcast isn't allowed). It does mean, however, that domestic recording libraries are still illegal: you must watch your recordings within a "reasonable" time frame and then delete them. No ...

HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs

Bruce — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 09:29:18 +0000

From bioneural.net:

I was recently impressed by a HDTV broadcast I saw in Brisbane. The Wellington House & Home Exhibition demoed the Bose Series III Lifestyle 28 ($NZ5500), a Toshiba-based DVD player with media centre functionality. House of flying daggers looked and sounded superb on a large $NZ10000 Samsung "high definition" LCD TV. Although the Lifestyle is a multi-region player (I'll never by region-locked again) it uses yesterday's tech, offering neither HD nor support for higher-capacity optical discs (Blue-ray or HD DVD). My current DVD player, TV, and camcorder are all limited to "standard definition". Would largely garbage free-to-air TV programming justify the cost of making the jump to high def? What equipment would I need and what technology standards should I be mindful of? And, in a Mac-centric home, how much of this would be compatible with my preferred computing platform? Here are the results of my investigations into these surprisingly complex questions: if I have erred please feel free to re-educate me. Terminology and standards Firstly the normal PAL television is now considered to be SD, or standard-definition. HD is thus high-definition, and HDTV refers to high-definition television. There are three HDTV formats in common usage: 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Note that: The numbers stand for lines of vertical display resolution; The p stands for progressive scan (the whole frame is redrawn in each refresh); The i stands for interlaced (alternate lines are redrawn in each refresh); Sometimes another number, the frame rate, is tacked on to the end (e.g. 1080i25). "Full HD" may refer to 1080p, ...

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New Zealand progressive on fair use laws

HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs