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MPAA Prevails Against 321 Studios' DVD X Copy

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the backup-possibilities-looking-less-legal dept.

Quok writes "Yahoo has the scoop. The article is short on details, but it seems the MPAA have succeeded in getting an injunction issued against 321 Studios, the makers of the popular DVD X Copy software, which allows consumers to make backup copies of DVD movies. Strike one for fair use."

8 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Try this by markclong · · Score: 5, Informative

    DVD Shrink. Rip your movies to the hard drive, and then burn them with Nero or some other DVD burnin software. DVD Shrink is free and works great. It is Windows however.

    1. Re:Try this by Jameth · · Score: 5, Informative

      For Linux just try:

      mencoder dvd://1 -ovc lavc -lavcopts [whatever bitrate you want] -oac lame -lameopts presets=standard -o [whatever you want to name it]

      If I were at home with access to a Linux box, I'd probably even be able to give the bitrate settings (can't recall the keywords off the top of my head). I think around 800kbps is a good bitrate, that's what I encode my home-videos at for storage. And always do 2-pass encoding.

  2. CNET by hendridm · · Score: 5, Informative

    News.com.com has a little more commentary and some background for those who aren't in the know. Thanks to the DMCA, seems like an open and shut case to me. The judge seems to think they are violating both the letter and the spirit of the law:

    321 has argued that since consumers who buy a DVD have the right to access their own movie, it would not be illegal to help them access it by using 321's software.

    Illston disagreed, saying CSS was plainly a way to protect copyright holders' rights, as envisioned in copyright law.

    I do think 321 makes some cool software. It will be sad to see them lose this one...

    1. Re:CNET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The contents of a DVD are both locked and encrypted. You can do a simple check for this yourself. I used the bundled software with Creative's PC-DVD DVD/MPEG2 playback card. Other hardware/software and or software only players should work also. Put a DVD in your drive and play it using your DVD software. While the DVD is playing put it in pause. The DVD and drive have now been authenticated and you can now open your DVD drive in Windows Explorer and copy the VOB/IFO/BUP files from the DVD's VIDEO_TS directory to anywhere you wish. Copy any of the VOB files off the DVD and then try to read them with any DVD/MPEG2 playback software. You'll find any DVD/MPEG2 playback software you chose won't be able to understand the VOB files because while the VOB files have been copied off the DVD they are still encrypted.

      CSS is a two step process. The first step is authentication of the media to the player. Without this step the DVD drive won't allow one to look at the protected file(s). The second step is decryption of the encrypted files.

      For more information and a good overview of CSS see the DVD Demystified FAQ section 1.11 -- "what are the copy protection issues" especially part 3, section 4.5 -- "why can't I play movies copied to my hard drive?", section 4.8 -- "what is DeCSS?", or take a look at Frank Stephenson's cryptanalysis of CSS (couldn't find a link.)

      I do agree with you however that CSS isn't really a copy protection method. There are too many other ways one may copy a DVD wihtout having to deal with CSS -- if one throws enough money at the problem.

  3. Re:What does it matter by FelixCat · · Score: 5, Informative
    Can't we just take an image of a DVD like any other media format?

    The answer is both Yes and No. Yes, you can use say DeCSS to create an unencrypted DVD image on your harddrive. However, without something like DeCSS you can't simply create this image of the DVD.

    The second slight problem is that most DVD movies are in DVD-9 format, which is twice as large as the standard DVD-R (4.7 GB). Hence, unless you have a DVD-9 burner, you can't make a 1:1 copy onto a DVD-R.

    The interesting this is that once you have an "region free" decrypted version on your hard-drive the copy protection is gone. Hence, there is no legal restrictions for any program to manipulate the image from that point on.

    So you can buy programs like Pinnacle's InstantCopy which takes an unprotected DVD image off your hard-drive, and automatically resizes (reencodes) the video to make it fit on a DVD-R.

    Really the easiest way to keep your software out of legal problems is to not deal with CSS protected discs, and let some other software program do the work of removing the CSS protection.

    DVD X-Copy did everything for you, all at the same time, hence was a single solution to the DVD backup problem. This made them a target.

  4. Re:What does it matter by Psx29 · · Score: 5, Informative

    A quick google shows an article from the end of December detailing the plans for dual layer drives that are due to come out soon. And this is why I don't have a DVD burner yet

  5. Re:What does it matter by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, you can't. Besides the double-layer issues others have mentioned, it's CSS(the encyption used) that gets in the way. Every encrypted DVD has 2 important pieces of information on it: the encrypted data related to the movie itself, and the CSS key on the disc. Now, while we can copy the encrypted data and the key, we have a problem when it comes to burning it. One of the quirks in both the DVD+ and DVD- standards is that drives can not burn CSS keys(this is prevented by both the drive itself, and the fact that the sectors where the key goes on the blank discs are unburnable), and it's because of this that we have a problem. Without the ability to burn the CSS key, the copy we make will be useless, since we won't have the key to decrypt the data with. We can decrypt the data before hand(this is what DVD X Copy does), and then burn the data unencrypted, but at that point, it's not a 1:1 copy anymore.

  6. Re:What does it matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just want to point out to everyone that the MPAA only got an injunction; they did not win a lawsuit. I'm putting this under your comment because it is high up and rated similarly. The various news outlets seem to be spinning this story as MPAA lackeys, making it sound like 123Studios lost the fight. They have only lost the preliminary round. I cannot wait for the day when this gets through litigation and at the end the MPAA has to pay back 123Studios for all of their lost revenue. You cannot outlaw software which faciliates fair use, even if some misuse it. MPAA beware!!