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

Illegal maybe, but copyright violation?

[Kelson]

The MP3.com case (remember that one) seemed to hinge on the fact that even though the service was trying to verify that consumers already owned the CDs, they were doing the actual ripping from a copy that the service had purchased.

Now we've heard that space-shifting falls under fair use, as long as you don't distribute the copy. This is the principle under which it's legal to rip tracks from your own CDs and load them on your iPod.

Now, we've got someone who is oofering (1) a legit copy of the music and (2) a service that will take your DVD and transfer it to your iPod. All copies made under fair use are transferred at the same time.

Now it may be that circumventing copy protection is illegal under DMCA... but does that make it an infringement of copyright?

Re:'Nothing to see here'

[MightyYar]

Putting aside for a moment that "format shifting" hasn't really been tested yet in court, the end-user is not the one doing the copying here. It's hard to argue "fair use" when someone is making money by making a copy... that's the whole point of copyright.

Copyrights and wrongs

[Alan426]

So, if I make a backup copy of my customer's disk before working on his computer -- a service provided for a fee -- have I violated copyright law? What if I use Norton Ghost to make the copy, because some files are encrypted? Have I then violated DCMA as well?

IANAL, but this makes my head hurt!

Better Targets?

[SomeOtherGuy]

This reminds me of mp3.com

As an "honest" consumer -- I thought it was the best win/win situation ever.
I whip out my credit card and pay $15 for a CD, and I get to download and
listen to the songs I just bought right away until the CD itself showed up
in the mail in a week or so. Everyone gets paid the full amount and everyone
is happy.

Yet -- they chose to take mp3.com down to the ground because of it.

In this case they are marketing the ipod to people who are also paying the full
price for the physical media......

This is said....I don't shed tear 1 when they "take down" the criminals that stealing movies
or music where the content makers don't profit....But to take down the people who are selling
your product at full price seems pretty stupid to me. The people that suffer the most
are the honest consumers.