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Zediva Shut Down By Federal Judge, MPAA Parties!
AlienIntelligence writes "Looks like the loophole that Zediva founded their business model on evaporated. Zediva's biggest problem was getting over a 1991 ruling against a similar method of transmitting copyright works. Zediva has vowed to appeal the ruling."
He who gives gold to Congressional and Presidential election campaigns makes the rules.
And $111 million is a lot of gold.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It is common to ignore the letter of the law in favor of the "spirit" of the law. And the spirit of copyright law is protection of the movie industry against all little people and all disruptive technology.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Twenty years ago, it was decided this wasn't legal. They decided to do it anyway and were shut down. This somehow makes content owners evil.
Do I have the facts straight?
So Zediva thought they could purchase a single DVD and re-broadcast the content to multiple customers, essentially relying on a very loose interpretation of the first sale doctrine and avoid paying the same licensing fees as Netflix or Amazon.
If the MPAA didn’t take them to court, then Amazon or Netflix or Redbox, hell the entire legitimate broadcast industry would have.
Anyone who builds a business based on a loophole in the law really shouldn't quit their day job.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
For folks who've never heard of Zediva, they apparently let customers stream newly released movies. Their business model was that the customers rent the DVD and DVD player which are both located at their facility, and the customers access them over the Internet. Clever approach, but this shutdown should be of no surprise.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Like some many times before they forgot its not about the letter of the law, but rather the spirit most of the time. HINT if you think you have found some CLEVER exploit in the law, its only really clever if you have at least as many highly paid lawyers as whoever what ever it is that your doing is going to annoy.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Why is what Zediva does any different than Slingbox? (Individuals rent DVDs and view remotely).
Slingbox exactly allows for this, along with remote cable TV viewing as well. So Zediva is nothing more than renting the use of a Slingbox setup, including the DVD rental.
Nothing about the ruling in On Command was binding on this court, so I'm not sure why everyone thinks the argument was ridiculous. I think it's absurd to construe the prohibition against transmitting copyrighted acts to "the public" as encompassing this activity. How is someone sitting at home on their computer "the public"? It is clear that Congress intended, by this phrase, to prohibit transmitting of copyrighted works to the public at large, not to individual people for individual use.
It's legal to rent DVDs to people. It's legal to rent DVD players to people. It's legal to rent DVDs, DVD players and viewing space to people. But it's not legal to rent a DVD and DVD player to someone to use at a distance. That defies logic.
And how is this not the same as cable VOD? ppv? push PPV / VOD?
Most cable and satellite systems have PPV and or some kind of VOD system. Does it have to do the fees they pay and the higher cost? In the past some cable systems pushed out VOD in clear QAM.
1) You are renting a video player which is located in the store and provide exclusive access to you while renting through an encrypted virtual interface
2) You are separately renting a movie
3) You ask as delivery method that someone is placing your rented movie inside your rented dvd player
4) You connect the rented player to your display unit
5) You see the movie
Streaming was done by you from your equipment to your equipment. The streaming can in this case not be said to be done by the store, as it is solely initiated by the client from his own rented player with his own rented physical media. I don't see how this can be illegal. Maybe I did not understand it right, and they don't rent the player out separate from the movie? In that case there might be problems...
on the point of a needle.
Only the MPAA version is: Can the same "work" (whatever that means) be present in multiple places at the same time?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
How is "transmitting" the video over the Internet any different than "transmitting" it over an HDMI cable from a local DVD player to a television? In both cases, bits are being moved, and only one person has access to them.
I hate how convoluted copyright law has become.
The 12-page injunction took issue with nearly every argument Zediva made in its defense, and even went further, arguing that since Zediva's users could occasionally encounter movies that were "out of stock," consumers would be confused about how streaming video services work, potentially ruining the market for Hollywood.
Oddly, Martin also argued that Zediva's service, which charges per movie, could cause "confusion or doubt regarding whether payment is required for access to the Copyrighted Works."
This is pretty shocking. I hope very much that they get it reversed.
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/equipment/satgo
this may fall into the same trap or does the mirroring / outlet fee to tie it to your home account some how make it ok?
How is "transmitting" the video over the Internet any different than "transmitting" it over an HDMI cable from a local DVD player to a television?
Because in the former case, "a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances" potentially have access to it.
So does this mean that slingbox is illegal? Or that it is illegal to watch a movie that you own via slingbox?
It was that Zediva was playing movies for other people (and taking money for it) without having the public performance rights to do so. This is the same principle that stops someone from opening a movie theatre and just buying a DVD of each movie they want to show. The 1991 case said a hotel can't get around that by having a bunch of VCRs and sending the output of each to a single hotel room, and the judge for the Zediva case found this to be no different. And he's right.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Well they can't beat cable and satellite before DVD release to ppv. I was able to see Source Code 2-3 weeks before DVD on Directv push VOD in 1080p Same price as other new VOD / ppv movies and it was push out to the DRV box ready to view.
Directv also has download VOD / PPV and right now 36 PPV HD channels + more SD ones. The PPV HD bandwidth does get used for stuff like RSN HD over flows and NFL ST bandwidth. But more on Zediva if Direct can push PPV movies in at least 3 different ways then Zediva has got to fit in to at least one of them there systems seems to be more like cable VOD or ONLIVE you are controlling a remote sever that is pushing out the video.
1) You are in away renting a HD or SD slot / bandwidth for the movie.
2) You then rent a movie from a list
3) a QAM slot on the cable system is opened from the movie sever at the head end to your local node and then to the cable box.
4) The movie starts up and you have control of that movie for X time.
Now is seems to be about the same the with the DVD players being the movie sever and then there being a data link from them to your local player.
broadcast != unicast.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
So, by definition, if you transmit a video over the internet, everyone and their mother potentially have access to it?
If you encrypt it to transmit it to one subscriber, then you encrypt it to transmit it to another subscriber, eventually you'll have encrypted it to transmit it to "a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances". This is true "whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times."
Whether or not this ruling was fair isn't the point, they can't keep up with the business anyways and would have to make a deal at some point with the distributors.
It's the standard Redbox problem. Redbox was sending their workers out on the day that a new DVD came out and then buying up all they could. They would then label them (barcode and case) and then put them into their machines. Then they can rent them legally as they see fit. However, once the distributors realized what was happening, they made it so big retailers (Walmart, Target, etc.) had a limit of 5 per customer. It doesn't affect you and me but it prevents Redbox from getting a large stock of movies. Then Redbox had to make nice with the distributors to get the movies and one of the concessions was to wait 28 days before putting some movies in their machines. This is the same story with Blockbuster, Netflix, and any other (legitimate) company.
And it would be the same for Zediva too. Unless they only wanted a few customers, the scaling up of their business was going to have a few problems. And once that happens they are no better than Netflix or Redbox.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Don't call the MPAA angels.
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You know, I would really REALLY love to see a video subscription service that specializes in non-MPAA movies and shows. I know I would subscribe to it out of principle alone. It could become like YouTube on steroids. And there could be lots of content... even historical and reference content. Schools could literally create their own documentaries to publish on such a service. Maybe since I am having the idea, it's not a good one since I rarely come up with good ideas... and if it is good, someone else already thought of it, tried it and failed. Whatever the case, I'd love to see that happen and let the MPAA eat it if it were to become popular.
If a DVD rental store lends their DVD to one customer, and then lends it to another, and then another, eventually they will have lent it to a substantial number of people too. I'm not seeing your point.
The U.S. copyright statute is worded such that the right to distribute copies of a work and the right to perform a work publicly are completely separate. This means that the exhaustion of the exclusive right to distribute a particular copy after the first sale (17 USC 109) does not exhaust the exclusive right to perform a work by transmission.
Did MPAA party like it was 1999? If so, can we get an injunction against them from RIAA?
A dedicated CD-DVD player seems a bit silly for myself and some of my friends, since we so rarely consume such media. We rely instead on streaming movies from laptop to television in order to screen that rare DVD. Am I broadcasting across my living room?
What about a DVD player tucked out of the way in the basement with a long cord? Or one that is hooked to multiple TVs allowing people in a house to watch in different rooms all at once?
Better yet, how long can the Woodstock (read greed) generation cling to their dead, lifeless VCR-based model of home movie consumption?
A physical copy of the media is delivered, whether to a DVD player across the room or to an address in the city.
As I understand "distribution", moving a single copy around within an organization is not "distribution".
An HDMI cable constitutes a point-to-point network between 2 devices.
HDMI can't go more than 15 m (~50 ft), which isn't far enough for a judge to presume that the transmission will reach "outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances".
The only variant is distance.
A judge will look at distances on the scale within a home and presume "normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances". A judge will look at distances on a much larger scale and presume "publicly".