Fighting copy protection

International Herald Tribune: Consumers fight copy protection.

PARIS -- All Stéphane Perquin wanted to do was watch David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" at his mother's house in the Burgundy region of France. Since he knew that there was no DVD player in the house, he got out his dual-deck video recorder to transfer the film from the DVD he had bought to a tape so he could watch it on the VCR, as he had done in the past.

Only this time, the movie would not copy. Confused, he checked the packaging and discovered a small "CP" printed in on the back. His disc could not be copied under any circumstances because Universal Pictures had equipped it with copy-protection technology. ...

In the Universal case, the Paris appeals court said that if a DVD was not copyable, there must be a clear and visible warning. The small "CP" symbol does not meet that description, the court said in reversing the lower court. The appeals court also decided that "one of the essential characteristics" of a DVD is that it can be copied. ...