s54Legion

Hey guys, I'm am willing to start a site where you can upload / download navi cds or dvds. Now I will only make this site if at least 10 people reply back saying they are willing to post uploads to he site as well.

I will post my 2 cds which are Midwest and South East maps.. I have read several posts where ppl are trying to sell them to each other and most ppl end up buying the wrong one and its just frustrating you know.

So to all who are interested REPLY BACK AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WILLING TO POST YOUR NAVI CD and maybe someone will post a cd you need.

Legion

kenstudios

Sounds like a good idea but what about those copyright issues?

poormario

Great idea but somehow I think this may pose some legal issues. Maybe not. Any lawyers want to comment?

Mark_K

First off define "post"

If you mean copy them up and let others down load them then no you cant. (you cant even make copies of these...have you tried?)
If you mean post them for sale then ok cool.

whoover

I'm not a lawyer, but this one is pretty easy. Of course it's illegal. You would be violating a copyright. A nav DVD costs about 25 cents to make and sells for 1000 times that. The value is in the intellectual property, and the purchaser of the disk has a limited-use license to use it. It does not extend to copying for redistribution.

Skylaw

I am a lawyer, and whoover is correct.

There is definitely a copyright problem for doing this in the U.S. and a ton of other countries that are signatories to international intellectual property treaties. Not only would it be a violation of basic copyright law, U.S. participants would be violating the devil out of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if the encryption code is broken and copyrighted material is shared. No matter how much music downloaders hate it, it's still here.

s54Legion

ok guys here is how I see it. If you buy a cd, you can give it to whom ever you want and they can give it to whome ever and so on. you can trade this cd with your friends or who ever right. so why cant that be done via the web. If you have a cd that you payed for, why can't you exchange it with someone else? why cant you give it away? Now what I see a problem with is if you buy a cd then resell it ot sell copies of it, then it is not your work you are selling. its like selling bootleg dvds. So I will make the site and who ever wants to give or trade their cds con do so.
I have just copied my original cd this morning because it was scratched and sometimes would not read in the car so I copied all the files to my pc and then burned anotha cd . it works great..

So please keep posting ur comments

Legion

whoover

When you buy the CD you're buying a limited license to use the information on it. That usually means you can make a backup copy for your own use because it's considered "fair use." Note that you cannot use the backup at the same time you use the original, let's say in two cars. It's the same reason it's illegal to use the same software application CD on two computers. Some programs have registration mechanism to enforce that, but programs that are based on the honor system have the same legal restrictions.

Sometimes, even the backup copy is illegal. If the license specifies that you can't "reverse engineer" copy-protection mechanisms, you'd have to violate that term of the license to even make the backup. These license terms represent a contract you "signed" when you opened the box.

Some licenses might allow for you to let a friend use the disk in a different PC (or car), but they might not. In practical terms, so long as the original intellectual property is not being used concurrently by two users it is unlikely that the licensor would go after you, but it could be violating the terms. Creating the ability to have two concurrent users use the intellectual property when only one is licensed is the fundamental violation of IP laws.

fusion2007

just do this soo ur "technically" not violating the law. upload them to the site and say that you are uploading it to the internet site as a personal place for you to store your backup but upload in such a way others can download it as well. and make it clear that your intention is not to violate the law it is simply to create a universal back up place where you can access from anywhere.
and define the word "post" as a place for your personal backup. lol this mite work.. hey skylaw any ideas of how to make this work?

fusion2007

you could also put it on the websiite saying that you posted it there so your friend could "hold on" to your ***backup**** but everyone else is also able to download it...lol what we do for a simply nav disk..

whoover

If he did, he could have saved Napster a lot of grief. That case made it clear that enabling the violation of intellectual property rights is illegal, even if you have another, legal, use for your distribution mechanism.

You can hope to fly under the IP owners' radar but getting caught, the consequences of getting caught and the legality are three separate issues. The last one is a no-brainer. You need a lawyer to help with the other two.

jkj

This could be done via torrents on another website. No need to start your own website. The problem really comes down to can they be copied. I'm sure they can but how?

fusion2007

arent they basicaly cd-rom?

jkj

I thought so too. However I have seen multiple people say they couldn't be copied. Maybe they have some sort of copy protection. I'm sure there is a workaround.

Skylaw

Originally Posted by fusion2007
hey skylaw any ideas of how to make this work?

Whoover is again correct - there is absolutely no way to make the duplication of copyrighted discs for sale, or posting the copyrighted material on the web for distribution, legal - and I'm not about to try to advise on some charade for circumventing the law. The "wink-wink" rationales just won't work.

Whoover is correct in his earlier post concerning the duplication for back-up purposes, where it is permittted by the end-user license agreement (EULA). However, few people allow this any more, because it has been abused so badly. And, the DMCA prohibits breaking a copy protection scheme to make the duplicate, as he points out.

Don't fool yourselves into thinking you can legally distribute copyrighted material under the guise of making archives. You can't.

At one time I was in the business of protecting inventors' and authors' works from such theft. The laws exist to encourage their ideas and work, because a society is enriched by having them - and if the ideas can be simply stolen to enrich the thief, people wouldn't bother to create them to the degree they do.

Just pay for the darned discs, and get them from an authorized source.

brenner

I've tried to make a backup of one of my Navi dvd's, but coul'd not make it work. The Navi system just spits it out. I read somewhere that these are multiple layer DVD's and takes more than the average layperson to duplicate. I just wanted a backup to keep in the car in case I scratched the original.

poormario

The unfortunate thing is that people are pushed to take these extreme measures because there isn't a good alternative to what the copyright owner or distributor is offering. Not sure about anyone else but I seriously doubt that I would need every region in the country and should have a option to buy them individually from the manufacturer. It appears that most people are willing to go without the new disc's as opposed to shelling out several hundred dollars for a set they will never use and would have go through the hassle of selling the unneeded discs on ebay. Given the cost of a CD and the time it takes for the manufacturer to burn one, breakup the sets. Overall you'll sell more sets than you do now and you have negated the reason to create a black market for the discs. This is just poor marketing on someones part for not doing this. As for the technical issues there are a number of programs out there that will allow the copy of CDs and DVDs that are copy protected. Most of the legitimate programs that do this actaully interface with another program. AnyDVD by Slysoft is the one that I use to make backup copies of my discs. Despite what people think DVD's and CDs are not indestructable, I have children that have proven this!

gtig

I created, tested and posted this on a similar Benz forum.

STEPS on HOW TO BACKUP your Mercedes NAV CD's (circa 2001 for the kind of navigation in a 2002 S430/S500, have not tested this method on the 2005 disc for this navigation system, please let me know if this works on 2005, for posterity of course).

My Disc #1 was destroyed by previous owner. To ensure this does not happen again , I wanted to find a way to backup my discs... and found one after hearing of multiple people reported not having any succes.

Using this methond I successfully backed-up (copied) a 2001 Nav Disc #3 and was in my car within a few minutes browsing Chicago on it. I then copied my local region's CD and drove to my brother in laws... worked great. After reading another poster's comments on how that person just did a "disc-content" form of copy that didn't work, I figured I would try copying with a "disc-at-once" software application that used raw sector copying. Instead of immediatly going after the hard-core hacker programs of the days of old... I first tried Nero (I remembered NERO did D-A-O from back in the day.) and luckily had success. So here is how I did it. This test case is FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. I am also looking to buy a '05 Disc #2 if anyone is interested in selling me one. (as easy as I can copy them... I still like to stay legit.)

Here are the steps I used to backup my set.

1-Downloaded and installed Nero Burning software (I used 6.3.1.25, it was still on my system from a long time ago... not sure what the current version is on their site, so YMMV (your miledge might vary))

2-Launch Nero

3-Inside the Express menu, under "copy and backup" I selected "copy disc"

4-for source I chose the drive with the navigation disc in it.

5-for a destination I chose "image recorder"

6-when you click "burn" it will ask for the file name and location to save disc image to (file.nrg)

7-it will walk through the process status and even say "the CD is copyrighted"... but keeps going and will finish writing to file (my disc 1 failed, too scratched up from previous owner)

8-when complete it will say finished and then close the application

9-Go into folder with file.nrg and double clicked the .nrg file that you saved at the location I chose to save to. (if .nrg files are not associated with Nero, you might have to open nero, select "burn image to disc" and then select this file)

10-insert blank CD-R (I did not test CD+R, so if you do, let me know if the car can read it)

11-Burn, finish, label with sharpie and throw in car to test.


Let me know if you have anyquestions... I also have a FTP site you can upload the Disc #2(2005 version) image to.

thanks.

Greg

gtig

If you host a site with copyrighted info like nav-cd's, you will want to CYA. So make sure the server is located in a non-extradition country.

Here is a list I found but is undated and the reference was to a site that is no longer running (I read in multiple articles that Belize is a great choice):

"Countries which do not have extradition treaties but do maintain
diplomatic relations with the US are Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia,
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bophuthatswana, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China (People's Republic of China), Ciskei, The Comors, Cote d' Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Jordan, Korea (South), Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Maldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Philippines, Principe and San Tome, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Samoa, Yemen, Zaire, and Zimbabwe.

Countries which have neither diplomatic relations nor extradition
treaties with the US are Andorra, Angola, Bantu Homelands, Bhutan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Ciskei, Cuba, Iran, Korea (North), Libya, Maldives, Serbia, Somalia, Taiwan, Transkei, Vanuatu, and Vietnam."

bamberger_1

Just recently a Russian teacher was charched with copying and distributing, not even selling, copy right software from Microsoft and he may go the the gulag in Sybiria for 5 years. Doesn't Navi CD's there, for sure.

So rather legally buy your CD's and be done with.

sanjm23

The Idea sounds real good, however it sounds completely illegal. Dont do it. MB wont even allow navtech to sell the disk to you directly. If you are looking to save $$ try using a different dx type disk. I read up on it before and they said it would work. I just dont know where you would find it. Maybe fry's? If you know antyone with a different car using the cd nav disks you could try it too.

The site idea is really a bad one, great to anyone who wants it but really bad for the guy who set it up.

CC Brown

I have the 01/2007 cd type DX. I wanted to have a copy so I tried what was listed above to copy them. It would say the file was copyrighted and continue for a few seconds then give and error. I also tried another program and it also didn't work. I also copied it to a file on my computer then copied to a disk. This then did not work in the car. I hope I don't need a backup!

I was able to make copies with the older version! They must have changed something!

blaackone32

Hi, I know this is a old post but do you still have access to the CD for my 2002 S500 Mercedes.I need it

blaackone32

Sorry Sotheast is what I need

cyberglk350

Hey I have the latest Southeast disc right now for sale in the classifieds.

I bought the ten disc set because I needed disc 2. I have the FEB/2010 version of southeast right now. It is disc #9. I am trying to recoup as much as I can for having to buy the whole set.

You can't download them and the newest version cannot be copied. Tried all of that already and gave up and bought the set.

I can ship the southeast disc it to you for $40.00 tomorrow morning.

Let me know if you want it.