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Kaleidescape Triumphant in Court Case, DVD Ripping Ruled Legal
Jim Buzbee writes "Ever wanted to rip all your DVDs to a big network server so that you could select and play them back to your TV? Up until now, manufacturers have been wary of building a device to allow this type of usage because they've been afraid a lawsuit. The DVD Copy Control Association had claimed this was contractually forbidden, but now
a judge says otherwise stating, 'nothing in the agreement prevents you from making copies of DVDs. Nothing requires that a DVD be present during playback.' Kaleidescape has finally won their long-standing lawsuit, a case we first talked about early in 2005."
Doesn't this mean they'll just change the contract on new DVDs?
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
No. Firstly, the lawsuit was not about "legally writing ripping software" - it was specifically about whether the companies who had gained a license for Content Scrambling System can write those programs. It doesn't mean anybody can use DVD Shrink to break "protection".
There are a few problems that would face Apple if they wanted to add that functionality:
1) DVD CCA is appealing the decision.
2) Apple would need to get a license for CSS, and DVD CCA will probably change the terms of the license to disallow such programs.
3) Apple risks pissing off the movie studios that offer video on iTunes stores. (AFAIK, only Disney so far.) People expect to be able to rip CDs, so that's OK. But if people aren't expecting to rip DVDs, why let them? It would cannibalise sales from iTunes Video Store.
4) The Kaleidoscope system maintained the copy protection, whereas iTunes would need to downscale and crop/letterbox the video in order to make the feature useful to smaller iPods - and in the process, re-protect it somehow.
Apple already has a CSS license for their "DVD Player" app, but your other points stand.
Why not? I'm not trying to troll -- I honestly would like to know what your philosophy is. Why would a limited number of copies be OK but an unlimited not?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
"This case has exactly *zero* precedential value, unless you live in Santa Clara, CA, and then only if your case comes in front of the same judge. And you can bet this case will be appealed to a court that actually can create binding authority."
/.'ers will continue to quietly do whatever the hell they want with their own property, regardless of what some lawyer says.
And in other news, most
*Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.
For a group of people so obsessed with IP law, most of you /.-ers have no idea how the American legal system works:
/. is full of people from all type of backgrounds. Most of these people have a great insight into their speciality. They need to speak up when something is wrong, so that the rest of us can be educated.
/. readers, I come here to be educated as well as entertained. This is due to the quality of people that /. attracts. (Granted some /.'ers have no clue about anything)
That is why you who are lawyers need to speak up and explain it to us.
Like many
Actually, the key for Apple is to create a market where people have an incentive to put movies into iTunes in the first place. Once people put in movies they already own, they have a library and future purchases are more likely to be made online. Same held true for music.
The real challenge will be the DVD rental business. It becomes much harder to tell if people own a DVD or are just renting it. I'm not sure the studios would be ok with people ripping rented movies. This might be the pill they have to swallow though to allow penetration of downloads.
Personally, I can't see there being a big market for purchasing movies online for download at current DVD price points. Most people only watch most of their movies once or twice-- the big exceptions are kid's movies and cult classics. The studios would need to swallow the idea that people pay a slight premium over "renting" to "own" the content... but it has to be a very small premium.
I really hope Apple can take advantage of the situation. The appleTV is kind of an odd ball without that type of functionality.
I don't feel that DVD-video should be treated much differently than software, where the law permits one backup of a given disk. Unless the license says otherwise, you may install the media on one device.
So does RAID5 count as 1 backup or 1 and 1/n backups? Copyright law is silly because it's still concerned with physical copies 50 years after digital computers effectively made copies free.
1) The decision was handed down today. How did they manage to file an appeal so quickly. /snark TFA has a discussion about this very subject. I suggest you read it or invest in some reading comprehension lessons.
2)I don't have any knowledge on the former, but the latter is also addressed in TFA
3)Jobs will piss himself off. Uhuh. Guess who is on Disney's board as largest individual stockholder. I'll give you two guesses. People expect to be able to use things that they purchase in a way that is most convenient for them. If that involves copying to a server so that they can fire up a movie at will with the remote and without having to buy an expensive mechanical disk caddy system, that is what they will expect. Those who sell a turnkey product should expect to make a profit if it works as intended. If iTS is more convenient, there should be no expectation of cannibalization.
4)You answered your own concern here.
Lets also note that DVD uploaders on PirateBay and the like are essentially altruists. Once they have ripped the video for themselves, they only expose themselves to risk by uploading. There is no profit model. If the convenience were upped for the now-downloader to rip his own disks or buy video from iTS and competitors, PirateBay would be a shadow of itself competing with Archive.org and hosting the odd out-of-print but not out-of-copyright stuff.
Notmysig
Ummm, as far as I'm aware you're completely and utterly wrong. Could you please point out the section in the DMCA you speak of.
Oh, and DVD Shrink is perfectly capable of decrypting CSS on its own. Have you ever actually used DVD Shrink?
The problem is when you get the majority spouting nonsense while acting like they know what they are talking about. I've seen that happen numerous times, and I don't even bother correcting at that point because it seems like a lost cause. One culprit is people who post on SCO articles. I still see Slashdot posters who think it's a patent case, or who don't know the difference between Caldera and SCO.
That's the example that came to mind right away. I could name some more if I thought about it for a minute.
This actually makes me want to go and buy DVD's
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )