MPAA Sues Company For Selling Pre-Loaded iPods

ColinPL writes, "The MPAA has launched yet another 'defensive attack,' this time on a small business that is pre-loading movie DVDs onto iPods and reselling them. The original DVDs of the movies that are loaded are also given to the customer. The MPAA is claiming that the service Load 'N Go Video offers is completely illegal because ripping a DVD is against the DMCA. The MPAA is also suing the company for copyright violation."

Comments

Re:'Nothing to see here'

[morgan_greywolf]

Putting aside for a moment that "format shifting" hasn't really been tested yet in court,

It doesn't need to be. The Legislature has already spoken. See Title 17 Section 1008 of the U.S. Code:

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

(Emphasis mine). It says "no action". The use of a digital audio recorder by a consumer for non-commercial purposes is pretected. Note that the definition of "digital audio recorder" seem to include MP3 players or iPods. The grey area in this case is that it's not the consumer who's doing the transfer, it's the company selling the equipment.

Re:'Nothing to see here'

[Chris Burke]

It's hard to argue "fair use" when someone is making money by making a copy... that's the whole point of copyright.

No, copyright is about making money distributing copies. The one doing the copying is not making a copy of their own DVD, they are making a copy of the customer's DVD for the customer.

Making a backup copy of a copyrighted work is completely legal and is explicitly spelled out in copyright law. If you don't own or don't know how to run a CD burner, is paying someone to make the backup copy for you illegal?

There's a reason the MPAA is invoking the DMCA, and that's because the DMCA is what makes breaking encryption illegal even if the actions performed thereafter are legal under copyright law. Were it not for the DMCA, the MPAA would not have a case here at all.

Agency law.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the consumer doing it... but it is the consumer's "agent" acting under instructions from the consumer. If they were preloading and bundling BEFORE sale, that would be illegal. But they are doing it AFTER the sale, but before delivery and only upon the instruction of the consumer to do so.

Basic agency law -- if you instruct someone to do something, they are your agent and it is as if you were doing it yourself. There are only a limited and specific few things that you can't do by using an agent like this.