MPAA Countersues 321 Studios

Squash writes "321 Studios, makers of DVD X-Copy, is being Counter-sued by the MPAA. You may remember them filing suit to allow thier software to be produced and sold. Interesting point: the MPAA wants to claim all profits from sales of the software, which is now being bundled with some DVD burners."

Comments

Did anyone else think

[CableModemSniper]

that the MPAA was suing three-hundred and twenty one different studios?

Re:Did anyone else think

[PunchMonkey]

that the MPAA was suing three-hundred and twenty one different studios?

No... technically there were only 136 studios, but some of them were using 4x dvd burners. The post should read "MPAA Countersues the equivalent of 321 studios".

i cant copy my own dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Motion Picture Association of America is countersuing Missouri software firm 321 Studios, alleging that the company's DVD-copying software violates anti-copying laws.

so i cant copy dvds i have authored myself? especially since this is being bundled with burners

Re:i cant copy my own dvds?

[Qrlx]

The getting past CSS part is questionable, but there are plenty of legitimate for something like that.

But do I have a right to make a backup copy of the DVD I just bought, with CSS intact? For when my two-year old tries to eat the original?

The MPAA's answer is "no." They know these things wear out, and lets face it it hurts their sales if I only have to buy it once.

Legally, I can photocopy every page of a book that I own. I might want to do that to put it into a binder and make notes in the margins for a class. The MPAA thinks you don't have the right to do that with their content.

They want to control what you do with the stuff after you've bought it. I can see why they would try to make that hard (witness - they have CSS in the first place) and something that the Average Joe isn't going to do.

The MPAA and RIAA are using the Bad Cop / Bad Cop routine on us, knowing that if enough of us knuckle under the rest of us will grudgingly give in to the concept that the fair use rights you have for digital portrayals of information are significantly restricted in ways that "analog" technologies tied to physical media are not.

Many people here on SlashDot take the stand that they support copyright laws and going after the "pirates". But I think that's anachronistic. Isn't one of technologies main functions to eliminiate scarcity? Whereas the paradigm of the guilds that run Hollywood is a selfish inclusiveness against ousiders.

My hope is that the huge media companies will be hurt by Napster and Tivo and that TV and the Big Six (or however many there are) media conglomerates will lose their stranglehold on culture.

If that happens, technology will have made the world a better place :)

Re:i cant copy my own dvds?

[Melantha_Bacchae]

MrLint wrote:

> I found this repugnant, the mpaa will spend tothe
> ends of the earth to destroy fair use, but (for
> whatever reason) what you do isnt important.

Oh, it isn't that it is not important to them, it's that you are not a member of the MPAA. Worse, you are in competition with MPAA members if you are producing content (as a non-member) and "wasting people's time with it when their time and money would be better spent on a MPAA member product".

Competition in distribution of their content (so called "piracy") and competition in content creation are their public enemies number one and two. Conveniently they can use copyright law to deal with competition in distribution of their content.

The other kind they have to deal with on the sly, because if they were ever too vocal about competing content creators, the government may see fit to bust their little anti-competitive cartel. That doesn't mean they (and their music industry counterparts) wouldn't love to rid the world of indie studios and musicians. At the moment, subtle little things like keeping CSS to themselves is all they can do.

Of course this is all evil, but what does one expect from a bunch of greedy sharks?

"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of Mothra (1961).

Re:i cant copy my own dvds?

[PotatoHead]

You are dead on about people wanting change, but not being willing to actually do anything to make it happen.

You know, you can get LOTR used, or steep discount new on DVD and loan it to friends.

Make your own damn Latte.

Sort of stuck with the gas station, but there is always www.gasbuddy.com for the lowest price.

Don't pay HBO, get the Soparanos used or steep discount on DVD as well.

I do this often. For me, it happened when the family got active. We decided to cut our entertainment budget in favor of school sports, outdoor activities and other things.

The first year is hard because you can't get anything new. After that it is a lot easier.

So we are a little behind. You know what? It really does not matter as much as people would think. The hard part is that making choices is harder than just going with the flow --until you actually start making them.

Copy vs. backup.

[Trusty Penfold]

IMO, they made a mistake with the name. DVD-X-Copy is, obviously, intended to make illegal copies. DVD-X-Backup, on the other hand, would obviously be intended to make legal, fair-use, backups.

Darwin works for companies & products as well ... 321 deserve to lose.

Re:Copy vs. backup.

[diaphanous]

IMO, they made a mistake with the name. DVD-X-Copy is, obviously, intended to make illegal copies. DVD-X-Backup, on the other hand, would obviously be intended to make legal, fair-use, backups.

If we took this line of reasoning seriously then every computer program that has data-copying functions needs to be changed. The C library function "strcpy" would need to be be switched to "strbkup", all our unix shell scripts would need to be scanned to replace "cp" with "bkup". No longer can our kernels use "copy-on-write" pages; new processes will do "backup-on-write".

"Copy" is a perfectly neutral term.We can't let the MPAA dictate our language.

~Phillip

lord, not again

[Alien54]

another Lawsuit for loss of potential profits instead of figuring out what is wrong with their production, marketing, distribution system.

parasites

They are profiting off of others free programs!

[Anonymous Coward]

All they have done is bundle applications that are free and from what I can tell the only programing that they have done themselfs is adding a front end.

The stolen software is as follows:
Smart Ripper
DVDx
VCD Easy/CD-Maker
PowerCDR

Re:They are profiting off of others free programs!

[pc486]

What's wrong with trying to make a profit from free programs? It's like screaming bloody murder over the fact that RedHat profits from selling free software. If the licenses of Smart Ripper, DVDx and others say that selling them is not allowed then so be it. Otherwise go ahead as packing software with an easy to use GUI is a service, and a valuable service as many DVD drive companies think it is worth paying money for.

Curious

[cluge]

Fair use has a lot of reasons to be in existance. The least of which was media degradation.

In the bad old days, merely playing any recorded material degraded the quality of it. A record, tape or VHS tape would eventually wear out. Thus making "copies" from a master was a necessity if you wanted to listen/view it over a long period of time. With todays digital media that is no longer the case, or much less so. Look for the "MPAA" supporters to try and use this fact to ban ALL fair use. Think revisionist history here (an mpaa lawyers will be!), fair use was needed because of the failure of that times recording technology. It (fair use) has no other reason to be in existance they will argue. It's outmoded and needs to be gotten rid of they will say. Reverse engineering, fair use, personal use will all be attacked (and are being attacked).

I find it ironic that a record company that can't even pay it's own employees/sub contractor (the artists) correctly is worried about a piece of DVD copying software. I guess if your accounting is THAT BAD then any percieved potential loss must be made up for. Thus the industry that can't even keep track of it's own sales accurately swings into action with a cadre of lawyers. Eventually musicians will seel directly to the people, and they will cut out the middle man. Eventually people will listen to music because they want to, not because they are told to. I can't wait for that day.

FINALLY - FAIR USE WILL BE TESTED!

[exhilaration]

*IF* they choose fight the MPAA, we will FINALLY find out whether the DMCA has stripped us of our fair use rights. I think this is far more meaningful than the ElcomSoft trial.

As we've all read a thousand times, this is no different than the movie studio's rabid reaction to the introduction of VCR's - a product that can duplicate video media and *might* be used for piracy.

This is the fight we've been waiting for: Fair Use vs. the DMCA. Only one will be left standing.

(So I'm being a little dramatic, sue me, I realize that the DMCA has a crapload of other stuff that will remain even if parts of it are struck down.)

Re:Are you kidding me?

[Mitreya]

Anyone with any skills at all can copy DVD disks without this software.

Ehm, you're missing the point. Anyone with slashdot (ting) skills can copy the software if they are willing to go through some hassle. But slashdot readers are a tech-minority everywhere but here on slashdot. All these things are relevant because this software allows the "average user" to legally (for $50) make a DVD copy. Hopefully 321 Stidos will win.

Not as bad as you think...

[Anonymous Coward]

MPAA actually only sued 57 studios, but a few of them were unusually big.

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