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Kaleidescape Triumphant in Court Case, DVD Ripping Ruled Legal

Posted by Zonk on from the only-when-you-own-it-netflixers dept.

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."

11 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Not contractually forbidden... by fatduck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't this mean they'll just change the contract on new DVDs?

    --
    Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
    1. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by Andy_R · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not the contract on DVDs that's being discussed, it's the contract between the owners of CSS and manufacturers who buy into CSS. Kaleidescape signed the contract that gives them the right to make legitimate machines that unscramble CSS, the CSS cartel claim that contract includes a 'thou shalt not make dvd servers' clause, the judge agreed with Kaleidescape that the contract does not say that, since Kaleidescape didn't get to see that particular rule until after they joined the cartel.

      --
      A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
    2. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by packeteer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's ignorant pricks like you that make my life miserable. I used to work in retail when i was going to college. It was hell. So many people assume that clerks are either stupid or just plain lesser people. I'm sorry if you run into some boneheads but that is inevitable. In the office i work in now i work with plenty of morons, retail doesn't have a monopoly on stupid people.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
    3. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by Ucklak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The other side of the coin in that is that if you work in retail or even better, food service, you come across plenty of people that shouldn't be part of human society.
      People ARE stupid.

      There are stories a plenty of food service or retail employees that come across gems of humans that lack common sense. Those stories are much more interesting than the 'holier than thou' patron that comes across a dweeb employee that is having a bad day.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    4. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by Grave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Shopping and dealing with retail employees never made me lose faith in humanity. Working in retail and dealing with so many horrible excuses for human beings has made me question whether we as a race really deserve to exist. But I have faith that Darwin will take care of things.

    5. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by PetoskeyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Right - this was just a contract dispute between Kaleidoscope and the DVDCCA. Other DVD player manufacturers may have similar contracts, and could now build in DVD-ripping/storage, but you can be sure that the DVDCCA will be changing their contracts moving forward to eliminate this behavior in the future.
      I'm sure Kaleidoscope hopes they do change the license to prevent storage in the future. They already have the machines developed and their agreement is already in place. It sounds like they may be one of the only licensee to not agree to the DVD backup clause. If the DVDCCA decides to prevent this type of thing from happening in the future they would just be placing a barrier to entry to future Kaleidoscope competitors.
    6. Re:Not contractually forbidden... by thelastquestion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      yes, there are breeds of dogs that would not survive, and you pointed out the reason: MEN did this to dogs, just like they did to pidgeons, etc. which is not natural at all. what you don't seem to get is that the rules of 'what is fittest' have not changed at all. what HAS changed is mankind's ability to alter their environment, which makes the rules no longer apply to humans. there is no longer any significant amount of evolution because we can keep those with normally fatal diseases alive, and stupid fat people aren't eaten by lions and tigers, et cetera. my point is that technology has made it so that anyone can survive, however unfit they are.

      --
      Si vis pacem, para bellum
  2. Re:iTunes ripping? by r3m0t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:iTunes ripping? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple already has a CSS license for their "DVD Player" app, but your other points stand.

  4. Re:Reasonable but... by gilroy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Blockquoth the poster:

    Understand I'm rather a moderate as far as fair use rights go. I don't feel legally the user should be given carte blanche to copy everything they own an unlimited number of times.


    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
  5. Re:Forget it unless you live in Santa Clara, CA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For a group of people so obsessed with IP law, most of you /.-ers have no idea how the American legal system works:

    That is why you who are lawyers need to speak up and explain it to us. /. 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.

    Like many /. 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)