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Media Server Manufacturer Wins in Court
whoever57 writes "The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) has lost its bid to shut down Kaleidescope, which manufactures media servers that can copy DVDs (along with decryption keys) to built in hard drives. The DVD CCA claimed that this violated the terms of the contracts that control DVD-related equipment because the DVD need not be physically present for payback. However, the
judge ruled against the DVD CCA on the narrow grounds that part of the specification of the Content Scrambling System was not part of the overall license agreement. This may open up the market for similar devices."
Hello DVD-ripping in iTunes! And not a moment too soon as they just started shipping the Apple TV.
Not that it matters to us nerds since we've been ripping DVDs with Handbrake/MediaFork for a while, but still.
Kaleidescape not Kaleidescope (kaleidescape.com)
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
that without the DVD present. playback's a bitch.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
LOLpwnz0r!!one!eleven
Edith Keeler Must Die
Netflix
DVD throws chair at "F*ing" Kaleidoscope only to miss and hit its own reflection
Assuming this is correct, the argument seems very weak, almost completely counter-intuitive:
"In closing arguments Coats warned that a ruling in favor of Kaleidescape "could open the flood gates to copycats. Prices could come down to that of a laptop for products that are not as elegant as Kaleidescape's but have the same basic functionality," Coats said."
So by ruling for the defendant, the judge would open the floodgates to innovation, increased competition and more jobs in the market?
Yeah, I can see how one must warn against a ruling with evil results such as those.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Anything I BUY should be MINE to do with what I please within the privacy of my own home or in/on my own property (with obvious exceptions such as causing physical harm to others, etc.). And I should NOT be illegal in any way to provide the tools to allow me to exercise that right.
I'm thrilled that the courts are slowly, every so slowly, starting to realize this. They need to look past the fact that it's a DVD and realize that its a collection of bits on a piece of plastic. I understand copyright and why it's not legal for me to distribute it to millions or to re-sell copies of it, but copyright is limited not absolute. Having a copyright on something does not mean that you get to dictate how and where it is used in perpetuity.
If I buy a piece of furniture and I want another one like it for another room, should it be illegal for me to pull out my tape measure, buy some wood, and build myself another one just like it?
If I buy a small print from a local artist to hang in my bedroom, should it be illegal for me to scan it, manipulate the colors, and print another copy that matches the decor in the guest room?
If I have a VHS tape that I'd like to preserve, should it be illegal for me to capture it, do a little noise reduction and clean-up on the video, and burn it to DVD?
And if I have a shelf of DVDs, should it be illegal to rip them and stick them on a server in my own home. Should it be illegal to provide the tools that allow me to do that? Of course not. It's no more illegal than to make the hammer I use to put together the copy of the chair.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
These devices cost $27k for a "base" system, and $4k per player. On the one hand, I suppose this means they had enough money to litigate the issue. On the other hand, one can only hope that some competition brings the price point down.
I've known about transcode/dvdrip for about five years. Why would I bother with MediaFork? I think transcode is good enough. True, you have to install all the required libraries but it is worth the effort!
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
It seems that the pendulum is reversing direction; now it is swinging back against the media companies. (the RIAA is having to work harder in court, and now this) Hopefully this will be a long-term trend and not just a series of flukes.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
I think that this is good. I don't think that it will last, but I think that this is good. The copy protection on DVDs has always been weak. One could as soon as DVD burners came out to the masses copy single layer DVDs without any sort of cracks, a bit later came the DL DVD burners allowing all of the rest to be copied.
All that the content management stuff ever did was prevent playing the movies in a non approved player. Really insignificant, except to Linux users, because any DVD player at all would play the copies just fine.
They'll just change the terms of the contract going forward, so don't expect any new entrants in the field to be able to play ball.
They say the mind is the first thing to
As an owner of this system, I think you're grossly missing the point. The first issue is price. The reason for the price being so high is:
1) Esoteric and unique system when it first came out.
2) Purchasers pay a "tax" for every DVD the machine could store. In essence, if the device can store 10 DVDs then you pay for the hardware + 10 DVD licenses worth even though you have to purchase the DVDs yourself. Yes, you pay double.
3) The system just works. No fuffing about. Support calls are handled quickly and owners can go on doing what they do.
Without some external form of CSS decryption software (such as libdvdcss in the Linux world), the data are no more accessible from a hard disk than they were from the original DVD. If the capacity for decrypting CSS-scrambled exists, than the medium from which the content originates is inconsequential - viewing, copying, etc. will all work identically regardless of the source medium.
Fortunately, a judge or jury somewhere got the point.
Kaleidescape is very nice and far from a massive copy device, it's a storage device. It help save time by centralizing all movies and thus money.
Multimedia tools such as the Kaleidescape have a market niche and should be permitted to exist. It is not a 'pirate tool' just a very convenient way to help handle huge collections, usually by professionals (or rich people).
The business I know using Kaleidescape have around 30 employees that need to watch specific scenes from a bank of 600 movies (and growing). Not to pinpoint them, but it is similar to searching small details in a scene for marketing purposes. They rarely watch more than 5 or 10 minutes after the initial review of a full movie; full reviews are often split between several employees, like 15 minutes each, but never the same scenes.
What the "bad guys" wants is for the business to buy 10, 20 or 30 copies of each movie.
What this business do is buy one copy, put it in the 'Kal and it is available anywhere in the building thru the network. (I think only one access of a single movie at the same time).
Before the 'Kal they had to search everyone's office for an available copy "Do you have movie X? Do you know who has one?" At some point someone started to manage a check-out system (time lost), system never used by high managers bringing movies in vacation and so on.
Worst case, it could be used by some Hotel owner to give free access to every room to the same bank of movies, but as stated, each player is an additional 4K, and once a player starts a movie, another cannot access the same movie. Not a great service for the price.