English language DVD lending scheme

Why don't you post a list of DVDS that you have and form your own lending scheme in conjuction with one of the meet up nights? Rent 2 DVDs for a week for a Weiss bier? Or similar?

I am sure some one could sort this out.

G

Toytown Movie Rentals?

Sounds too much like hard work to me. Maybe someone would be interested in setting it up, though.

I've no problem lending movies to people in exchange for the odd beer or three. Only problem is that I'm not in ToyMu anymore. Migrated about 550km north-ish for a while. Now have 2 apartments on the go in Deutschland.

But, I'll put a list of movies that I have on here and if someone wants to borrow something we can make arrangements for one of the weekends that I'm back down.

I already have a rudimentary movie & video games database on my site (those who know me and know the URL can go to /movies to see it - I'm not posting it here).

I don't think it would take too much effort to expand it to include a basic loan request/tracking thing.

If enough people are interested in taking part, I'll have a word with Editor Bob to see if he's willing to host it on the Toytown server...

Wouldn't that be against the copyright thingy? Lending the odd DVD to a mate or having friends round occasionally is one thing, setting up a lending library something else entirely and something that could draw unwelcome attention. If you do it legally I am sure there are overheads involved that would make it impractical on a casual "gizza beer" basis.

Not really a problem. You can legally lend DVDs to your mates. Just because you might not know your mates very well and might ask for perhaps a little deposit (returnable when the DVD is given back) doesn't make it a business and so no copyright infringement.

Malcolm, could you e-mail your URL to me so I can have a looksee?

On the back of a DVD I have in front of me -

WARNING: The copyright proprieter has licensed this DVD (Including its soundtrack) for private home use only. All other rights are reserved. Any unauthorised copying, editing, exhibition, renting, lending, public performance, diffusion and/or broadcast of this DVD, or any part thereof, is strictly prohibited.

Who writes this crap!!!

I can't see what the problem would be. All we'd be doing is lending DVDs to mates, and this "library" would just be a way to make sure those mates know what is available to borrow.

As 3-lions said, the licence agreements on most movies state that you're not allowed to rent them out, but I think that means for profit. Lending to friends (for no charge) should be OK. I, for one, don't intend to charge anything for letting friends borrow my DVDs...

On the other hand, I don't want to just lend out my collection to all and sundry. I'd prefer to lend to people who I know and trust. With that in mind, maybe it would be better to make it an invite-only system, and have it so only the "members" that you trust can see your collection and request a loan. Also that would mean it's not an open system, like a public library. But maybe that's going to make it overly complicated...

And you can't show them in Prisons or on Oil Rigs either. And you can't cross the road when the little man is red but it happens. I'm still on for the lending thing. I'll post a list in the next few days. Am back in ToyMu tonight till Sunday so I'll write them down then.

Any unauthorised copying, editing, exhibition, renting, lending

Perhaps I should write to Disney/Pixar and ask if its ok to borrow Monsters INC off a friend...wonder what kind of response I would get??

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that in this context "renting or lending" means for payment.

Keydeck, I just sent the URL to the email address on your website...

My collection is relatively small, I will make a note of what I have and send it to you next week.

One small point, wouldnt we have to restrict the DVD's to R2 only, I am pretty sure its illegal to lend out R1 DVD's?

Again, I think the restriction on lending R1 discs is limited to situations where the borrower is charged a fee. If you own something, I don't think there's any law that can prevent you from letting a friend borrow it.

This it probably worth a bit more research, just to be on the safe side.

No, I completely agree with you. If we dont charge anything we would be ok.

I doubt we would have a problem with all R2 discs because that is our region. But if we start trying to lend/borrow other region discs, then the old copyright law comes in to effect, cos essentially you are watching a DVD outside of its allowed region without permission.

R1 discs always have the FBI warnings on them about watching them outside of the states. I am not saying Mulder & Scully or Special Agent Starling are going to come and break down our doors Although Starling and Scully are welcome at my place

How is it illegal to have a R1 DVD in a R2 region? If it was illegal, places like play.com wouldn't be able to sell them.

You can even buy them in Mueller, here in Munich!

As for the FBI warnings, I never see them cos my hacked DVD player always lets me skip them

I don't know if that point is legally established in any country other than New Zealand (which says regions are illegal). Certainly the studios and distributors would very much like to discourage owning a disc from another region than the one in which you reside. Merely for the fact that some regions are cheaper than others (such as India), yet the digital copy is exactly the same.

I'm pretty sure it's okay to lend DVDs, otherwise things like DVDLender (www.dvdlender.com) would get stamped on pretty firmly. And it doesn't matter which region the DVDs are, either - that's just Hollywood putting the pressure on. I believe there may still be some problems with commercial importation of other region DVDs, as well as reselling and trading, but there is nothing stopping you buying them for personal use (that would go against trade laws).

Sounds good to me. I've only got a few DVDs here but I'll pool them.

Not too sure about the legal side of things - I say we do it and see if anyone
stops us.

On the other hand

http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1999/0899Bu...ntalRights.html

So the © owner can prohibit lending.

Even worse

http://www.franco-british-law.org/publicat...EU%20Rental.pdf

"2.1 Historically under UK law, where someone purchased a copy of a copyright
work, the copyright owner had no right to stop the purchaser from enjoying the
property he had purchased - either by selling, lending, renting or even destroying
it. UK copyright law only restricted the act of copying – it did not give the copyright
owner any right to restrict exploitation by sale or rental.
...
2.3 In other parts of the EU, prior to the introduction of the Directive, the law on
rental rights varied quite markedly. Denmark and France, for example, gave
copyright owners full rental rights."

4.13 The overall effect of the Directive was to harmonise the rental rights laws of
Member States along the lines of the French and Danish models. In so far as they
were not already incorporated into UK law, the provisions of the Directive were
incorporated into the 1988 Act by virtue of the Copyright and Related Rights
Regulations 19968 which came into force on 1 December of that year"

In the US, there is a First Sale Doctrine, which lets you (gasp) sell or lend
copyrighted materials if you own them.

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/tutorial/basics2a.html

Doesn't sound too good, unless I'm missing something. Curse the EU!

NIKE - Just do it!

The point about the costs is a valid one, but the copies are most certainly NOT the same. I used to purchase a lot of region 1 DVDs because:

1. They used to come out 6-12 months earlier than the region 2 versions (often before the films were even shown at the cinemas in the UK).

2. The region 1 versions used to be a lot cheaper (even after paying for shipping costs and import tax).

3. There used to be a far better selection of region 1 films.

4. The region 1 discs were often better quality than the UK versions (they are also sped up by around 4%).

5. The region 2 versions would often be censored/cut.

6. The region 2 versions almost always had fewer special features.

They've improved a lot since I bought my DVD player, although I still buy the occasional region 1 disc.

That's a bit different to what we're discussing. New Zealand says it is illegal for the manufacturers to region-encode the discs, not for customers to purchase or lend discs from a different region.

Has anyone got a DVD from NZ? Is it region free?

I am sure this is the reason why it either is/or might be illegal. Imagine you are a DVD manufacturer/Distributor and you are losing millions because R1 versions are hitting the markets before you can release your R2 version.

It is not illegal to bring them in to the country or even sell them(Dont ask why). But I know in the UK, you cannot go in any high street store and buy a multi region DVD player or other region discs, that is illegal. I got my player off the net and also my R1 discs off the net, so somehow that exploits a loophole in the laws.

Another slightly different axample is that if you were to buy a pair of Levi 501's from somewhere like Italy/Hungary and take them back to the UK, they would be deemed as fakes & illegal as they are made in a different region. Tesco lost a high court battle a couple of years back over this.

All pretty stupid really.

I still don't buy this theory that it's illegal to sell other region discs in the UK. I'm sure I've seen them in high street shops in London and Birmingham.

Eh? I don't understand that at all. I was under the impression all dvd's are mastered from the same source, regardless of region distribution. With the exception re-mastered special editions, the copy should be exactly the same no matter where the disc is purchased. The output could look different depending on the television and player (ntsc, pal, secam); but the bits on the disc are the same.

Different edits and cuts are a different sort of problem altogether; but how is the quality any different between the same release of region 1 vs. region 2 with the same output format?

DVDs in the US are formatted for NTSC format, while DVDs in Europe are typically formatted for PAL display (and usually sped up by 4% at playback). This results in different picture dimensions and pixel aspect ratio (720x480 vs. 720x576), display frame rate (29.97 vs. 25), and surround audio options (Dolby Digital vs. MPEG audio). If you compare some of the older region 1 and 2 DVDs, you'll notice that the conversions done were quite poor. Furthermore, some DVDs have been "modified" further - not just for special editions, but also as part of the conversion. For example "The Crow" was artificially brightened, which upset quite a few people.

So enough jabber. . . when can I borrow a DVD? And as for invite-only DVD lending, the software sounds complicated to write. If someone had the get up and go though, they could at a "testimonial" about each TT member, as per DVD history.

Wow, I wouldn't want to write that though, and I am not sure that it will happen.

On second thought, couldn't we just have a DVD list on the TT site, with each members name next to the DVD? You could send that member a PM and try to arrange a loan. That's probably the easiest.

Interesting AM, I learn something new everday

I thought they were simply encoded in mpeg-2 and the output was dependant on the player or external decoder.

There's a great FAQ here and more resources here as well.

Is it not http://www.fluffykittens.com/movies ? Some interesting stuff there.

I love the word, "scheme". It's inherently devious.

Here's a list of most of the DVDs that I own.

http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.as...p?alias=keydeck

if you're wanting to create an online list of all the original movies, games and music you own, go to:

http://www.swapandplay.com

SwapandPlay.com allows you to create an online list of all your movies, games and music and you can also search your street, town, university, work place, etc

You could of course just go to the English Video Club on Theriesenstr as well...

http://www.english-video.de/

Lots of US/UK DVDs often before they appear in shops here...

This is a GREAT tool and it is free:

http://www.dvdprofiler.com/dvdpro/index.ht...dpro/index.html

Download it and then you can enter the barcode numbers from your DVDs and it will connect to the internet and download a complete profile and pictures of the DVD.

You can then publish that list to the 'net and let anyone you like see it.

You can also use the application to track who you loaned your DVD to, when etc etc.

A great little tool.

Oops, just saw keydecks post...

erm, whats the big hoo-haa?

just doing it for free as opposed to going to any video rental store in munich and renting a dvd and switching on the english soundtrack???

We discovered http://www.dividi.de/ - It's just like netflix in the US. Online DVD rentals for a monthly fee. You get 3 at a time. They mail them to you and you just put them back in the mail when you're done, postage paid for by them. They have English titles, not a lot, but enough. It's all in German though, but it's not difficult to figure out. On the site you can "queue" up the titles that you want and they just send you the next three when you return the last three. It's great.