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MPAA Prevails Against 321 Studios' DVD X Copy
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."
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Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Isn't it Sony that made the VCR? Time to sue them, this lawsuit stuff works!
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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.
before DVD Y Copy comes out? :)
Free XBox, PS2
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:
I do think 321 makes some cool software. It will be sad to see them lose this one...
Effectively, this is the test case for the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, and this injunction indicates that the court is presently leaning in favor of keeping it. The right to make a backup copy is not being questioned, but that'll be a useless right if there's no legal way to do so.
Not good... not good at all.
Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art going to win a case against Kodak, Fuji, Canon and others for making devices that allow people to make backup copies their vacation memories? This is getting insane.
I'm going to go hide under my bed. Will someone please come and get me when the world becomes a little more rational?
What am I supposed to do when I irrepairably scratch my favorite DVD? Go buy another one? That's crap. The primary function of this software is what? JUST to circumvent the antipiracy scheme, or is it to give someone the ability to backup that which they've already paid for.
The fucks at the MPAA going to give me a new copy of Hackers on DVD if I accidently damage my old one? They obviously don't want me copying it for my safe keeping.
Assholes.
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
This court enjoins plaintiff 321 Studios from manufacturing, distributing, or otherwise trafficking" in the software
Now, IAMNAL, can retailers continue to destribute the software most likely? I know they wouldn't, but couldn't 3-2-1 say.... Open Source X-Copy and then we could all distribute it legally? Who would the MPAA have to sue then?
Yes, but your DVD-R drive has no hope of creating a double-layered DVD like the kind Hollywood makes, so there's no way to put that image back into your standard DVD player with consumer equipment.
I downloaded it via BitTorrent some time ago.
Fuck the **AA.
Strike one for fair use.
Not really. I'm thinking stike two, or maybe strike fifty, or strike [insert big number here.] There's the DMCA, the Napster lawsuit, 2600's issues with the MPAA over DeCSS, UnTrusted Computing, and on, and on, and on. This most certainly isn't the first, and there's no way it'll be the last.
This statement is false.
I was also trying to submit the same article.... I did some research, so a federal judge decided for the MPAA and against the 321 Studios DVD Copying software. MPAA argued that DMCA prohibits anyone to go around an encryption scheme (effective or not) the CSS. It looks like the 321 Studios is selling software that can copy DVDs onto other DVDs and also onto your harddrives in some file format. However, the software is also capable of selecting which features, languages etc. will be copied so it looks like the software actually does CSS decryption in order to go this extra steps. Maybe in this case DMCA does apply. If this is the truth, the software will have to be changed to only allow bit by bit copying in order to allow fair use and at the same time to comply with the DMCA.
BTW. on the 321studios.com Flash is required for navigation, I personally see it as the grounds for shutting that company down, not only prohibitting their software
You can't handle the truth.
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.
I thought one of the main concessions that the RIAA "allows" is that people can make copies of CD's that they have legally bought, both for backup purposes and to have a copy in the car, home, office, etc.
Is this different? Does the MPAA have a different view on copying than the RIAA, and if so under which corporate empire's rule do we live? We are obviously not under the rule of the people anymore.
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
I doubt the injunction will stop the inevitable availability of this software on just about any file-sharing service you care to name. What it might stop though is legitimate companies developing software like this so that you, I and anyone else can exercise our right to make working backups of the software, movies or anything else that we've purchased.
After all why would anyone want to spend time, effort and money developing software that allows people to do sensible, legal things with their property if the MPAA, RIAA or anyone else with a big enough cheque book is going to shut them down before they get going? Chalk up another victory for big corporations in their seemingly unstoppable war against the rights of the law abiding majority in their pursuit of the lawless minority.
That being said, the cat is out of the bag and the movie industry will have to wait until the next generation of copy protection when DVI connectors become more common.
harmonious design
If I can legally make a backup copy but I can't legally obtain the means to do so, well that's just the same as it not being legal for me to make a backup copy, isn't it?
The point has been made before-- if we're only buying a license to view/hear the content on a disc as the RIAA/MPAA maintain, then we should definitely be owed replacements (if not free, then for the cost of the media only) when something bad happens to a disc we possess and renders it unusable.
That is a class-action lawsuit I'd like to see... where a bunch of people with ruined CDs/DVDs sue to force the producers to provide minimal-cost replacement media-- and not just for the members of the class, but for everyone, in perpetuity.
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.
They really should appeal. Sure it will cost a goodly sum in lawyers' fees, but the 9th Circuit (if you get the right judges) is quite liberal in terms of personal rights.
It's baseball idiom. You are naturally both correct.
Now kiss and make up.
And in the words of the immortal yogi bera, "You can observe a lot by watching."
From the article:
"Most Hollywood DVDs are protected with a technology called Content Scrambling System, or CSS, which encrypts the content on the discs so that they can only be read by devices with authorized "keys" to unlock the data. A studio-affiliated trade group licenses those keys to DVD player manufacturers."
Why doesn't 321 try to license the CSS from the trade group? If they are not allowed to license it then sue for unfair trade practices.
To me it appears that since 321 is not paying for the CSS license the MPAA has grounds. However, if the MPAA/trade group refuses to license (per copy - yes that means no "free" software) then there are grounds for unfair trade/monopoly suits.
When you buy a car, you own the car, period. You can do with it as you wish.
When you buy a CD or DVD, you're not buying the music, you're buying a plastic circle and a license to view/hear the contents of that circle. If your plastic circle eats it and becomes unusable for some reason, you still possess a license to the content, and as such should be able to get replacement media for the cost of producing the media.
Problem is, the movie/record companies don't want to have to replace your media, but they don't want you to have the right to make backup copies of it, either. And they own more congressmen than you.
~Philly
Anyway, even if they have to stop making the software, it will live on forever in p2p sharing perpetuity.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
The judge had to rule this way.
By selling an encrypted format, the MPAA has carte blanche on how they want the DVDs to be used. If they didn't have encryption, the judge could have more leeway (such is the case with cds) to enable a more logical fair use of the media. As long as we support encrypted formats, we're doomed to merely borrow the content.
"The case had tested the limits of 1998's Digital Millenium Copyright Act"
no limits, it seems.
I have ripped my entire library of about 70 DVDs into DivX with it. With a script you can just insert the DVD and walk away.
It all began as an effort to be able to watch entire seasons of Simpsons, Futurama or Black Adder in one go without having to change discs and/or deal with cumbersome menus and copyright announcements that you can't fast-forward (FOX is particularly bad in this aspect).
Now I've got a fanless VIA EPIA mini-ITX box connected to my TV with the media on a 250 GB portable hard drive. Interestingly, a cordless trackball mouse is actually a better remote than your ordinary remote control when you get used to it.
The owls are not what they seem
To force your pet peeves and petty issues on everyone else, you constantly lobby to pass new laws that will arrest those whom you don't like. Consequently, the government has become bigger and bigger and no longer looks out for you.
There was a time when the individual was bigger than the state, now he is just a slave.
People, wake up and realize that the two points of opinion are not the left and the right. The struggle is between individual rights and the statists (which includes Democrats/liberal and republican/conservatives). And the statists have won in a big way.
The greatness of a nation hinges on the freedom of its people. Welcome to the beginning of the end of the Great American Experiment!
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Yes, but your DVD-R drive has no hope of creating a double-layered DVD like the kind Hollywood makes
:-)
That's true, but DVD Shrink does an excellent job of compressing the content down so it will fit on an ordinary DVD-R. Or so I have heard
A dingo ate my sig...
Making one's own backups doesn't become useless, it becomes something to fight for. The question is how much are people who understand the technology and the social issues at hand willing to fight so that the public can legally make backup copies of information they have legally acquired? Will knowledgable people just talk on Slashdot and never organize others to help take the issue to the public?
Digital Citizen
When you buy a *thing* you can do with it what you want. For instance, if I buy a painting, I can publicly exhibit it all I want, I can draw a moustache on it, I can lend it to a friend.
When you buy a license, you get a set of rights. So, if I buy a gym membership, I'm allowed to work out during gym hours, use a locker, swim in the pool. I'm not allowed to loan my membership card to a friend to use. If I misplace my membership card, that doesn't cancel my membership.
It seems the MPAA wants it both ways: They want to be allowed to make all sorts of restrictions as if they were selling licenses, but want to pretend it's just a physical object they're selling when it comes to media damage, theft, and format changes.
I say they play by the same rules as everyone else. Make it one or the other.
DVD2one? You can use a simple DeCSS program like DVD Backup, then DVD2one to compress and then just burn using your favorite authoring software. Sure DVDXcopy is easier for the masses but backing up your DVD's can still be done.
Given the number of DeCSS/Compression programs out there, I don't think the MPAA is going to be able to get rid of every tool to rip, compress and burn DVDs.
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
Soviet Union had a Constituion that looked like a document fair to all the citizens of the country. But the Soviet Government constantly used lied (usually poorly disguised lies) to do whatever it felt was neccessary to stay in power. It still used its well-oiled propaganda machine to try to convince the dumbest 80% of the population that it was the most fair society in the wolrd.
Sure US has a freedom of speech. Unless you want to discuss something that is not politically correct, or you happen to be a computer programmer communicating in a way that you find most expressive, or you happen to be a mathematician discussing mathematics (think cryptography), or a chemist discussing high-energy reactions (think explosives).
It used to be that it was OK to tremple everyone rights legally as long as it was done to bring about safety. More and more it is done to bring about practical short-term solutions (read profit).
But at least there is no slippery slope.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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!!
Right on the front page (after updates to two similar products are mentioned btw!) they have the following interesting comment:
My bold, and that pretty much sums up how i feel about this aswell. I trust the views of Doom9 (he's a person and a site) as someone who knows a lot more about all this than me and has proved right on the money in the past. The sentence after the bold... well, that just pisses me off - i don't know what to say. I can make cr*p quality backups?! Is that a joke? (rhetorical).This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is a merge of state and corporate power."
Photocopiers are legal.
[TMB]
If that were the case, the studios wouldn't be able to put restrictions on how you use your one copy of that plastic circle. But right smack dab in the beginning there's a warning that you're not allowed to use it for public performances. That's a license, not a single copy purchase.
What the studios want is to have their cake and eat it too. They want to restrict your use of the info on the plastic disk as if it were a license, but if the physical media fails they want you to have to buy a new one at full price.
If the book later becomes available as a searchable PDF you have no automatic rights to that either: it's a separate product entirely. You also don't get free rights to the movie version of the book. Just like buying a ticket to a film doesn't grant you a "license" to come back tomorrow and see it again; you got what you came for, now get out.
If a book becomes available as a searchable PDF, that's a product that provides capability and value over the original book (it's searchable), and thus requires a new purchase. Same reason you weren't entitled to automatic upgrades for your music collection from cassettes to CDs - the digital format provided additional value over the old analog format.
When you go to a theatre, you're purchasing rights to a one-time viewing. When you buy a DVD, you're purchasing rights to infinite viewings. If something happens to inpede your right to infinite viewings, it's the studio's responsibility to restore that right - that's what you paid them for. This is why they've been trying to market products that give you rights to limited viewings (Divx, those DVDs that turn black after a few days). They're trying to shirk the responsibility to keep up their end of the bargain.
No, my rights end where they injure others. My rights to watch a DVD on a Linux box do not injure the movie industry, therefore those rights are inalienable. Those who say otherwise are the greatest threat to the freedom of our country and our world. We must stand firm.
As Ray Bradbury put it in Fahrenheit 451:
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Yes, but your DVD-R drive has no hope of creating a double-layered DVD like the kind Hollywood makes
Not true. Pioneer has already shown a live demo where a mere A06 with hacked firmware can write dual-layer. Whether or not they will release such firmware for older drives seems another matter entirely, but the as the more important issue, dual-layer writeables do exist.
Additionally, although most discs do use dual layer, the movie itself often comes to under 4.7GiB. So, removing the useless French and Spanish audio, and making a movie-only copy, you can frequently get a 100% main-movie copy.
Now, if you care about extras (I do not, personally, nor do I care about "director's commentary" audio where you have mindless chatter for fifteen minutes which tapers off to "Uh, yeah, I remember this scene" once every five minutes or so until the end), such a "copy" might not satisfy you. Myself, I buy DVDs the main feature, not for trailers, ads, idiotic babbling, or anything of that nature.
They really should appeal. Sure it will cost a goodly sum in lawyers' fees, but the 9th Circuit (if you get the right judges) is quite liberal in terms of personal rights.
Nonsense. There is probably no less favorable forum in the United States for the defendant in a copyright-like action.
The 9th Circuit decided the Napster case.
The 9th Circuit decided the Sony Betamax case in favor of the movie studios before being reversed by the Supreme Court.
The 9th Circuit even decided that Vanna White's right to publicity was invaded by a commercial depicting a robot in a gown turning letters.
If there is a bright shiny sweet spot for owners of IP rights, and a dark nadir for balancing of the public's rights, it is the 9th Circuit.
I think it's plainly obvious by reading the comments that the vast majority of Slashdotters would only ever use DVD X Copy for backing up a DVD that they already own. They would not use it for, say, renting a DVD from Netflix and making a copy for themselves, as many of my friends do regularly. Then again, almost everybody I know who uses Kazaa uses it to download and share copyrighted material without the holder's permission, so perhaps I'm hanging with the wrong crowd.
Making backups of your media is a good idea, in case they're damaged or stolen. But not even factoring in the cost of the DVD burner or the blank media, the basic version of DVD X Copy retails for $69.99. That's the cost of three DVDs.
I must own over a hundred DVDs, and not once have I had a DVD go bad or otherwise become unusable. I would have to have had three instances of this happening in order for a purchase of DVD X Copy to have been worth the investment.
If I regularly loaned DVDs to friends and three ended up not coming back, the software would have been a good investment, but it would have been more efficient to be more careful in whom I loan my DVDs to.
It seems to me that the most logical way to get your value's worth out of DVD X Copy is to use it for piracy. Just as most people use Kazaa illegally and most people who buy equipment for getting free cable or satelite signals also do so to avoid paying, rather than for "test purposes" or "for educational use only" as the ads proclaim, my bet is that most people who use DVD X Copy do so illegally.
Does anybody dispute this?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Never, and that's the point; the MPAA doesn't want you to be able to burn CSS, and has 1million + 1 failsafes in place to keep it that way(member patents, trade secrets, etc). The only semi-consumer drives that can burn CSS are those that follow the DVD-A standard(DVD-Authoring), and those aren't even in a price-range where we can begin talking about reasonable.
"If the majority of people don't obey a law, should that law even exist?"
If people could revoke a law by majority violation, would we pay taxes? Have copyright? The American Disabilities Act?
"I would also like to point out that there are two sides to this honor system, and if one side isn't playing fair, why should we."
The 'other side' offers a product, and they can choose what form and under what license to offer that product. If you don't like it, don't buy that product. By your comment I gather that you think it's okay to make copies of DVDs for your friends, or do you mean something else by 'not playing fair'?
"The people who make money infringe on copyrights are houses that produce DVDs by the thousands."
Yeah, but the people who lose money are the people who would otherwise sell their product.
I'm no fan of major labels, the RIAA, or the MPAA, but if and when smaller labels make their comeback through online distribution, they'll be the ones who are hurt by flagrant copying, and no matter how piusly we can say 'we won't copy the little label's music or movies, just the big-label basters who rape their artists' I don't believe that the day we remove copyright law is the day we stop needing it.
Kevin Fox
Except you can't write the CSS key to a standard DVD-R. The area on the DVD-R where the CSS would go is not writable. You have to have a speacial DVD for Authoring drive and media (both are much more expensive) in order to write the CSS key.
In other words, you cannot make a 1-1 copy using standard DVD-R media and drives (and expect a DVD player to read it). You also cannot CSS encrypt your own content onto standard DVD-R media and drives.