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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?
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.
from TFA:
"Only one person can rent a DVD at one time, meaning that if Zediva bought 20 copies of a movie, only 20 people can watch it simultaneously. Still, Zediva saves money because it could serve many more customers with the same physical copy of a DVD than a company that has to mail out a DVD and wait for its return. "
So they're not using a single DVD to broadcast to multiple people simultaneously; they are basically a renting organization that is very similar to RedBox except it is done through streaming and online purchasing but the limitation is still a 1:1 ratio of viewer-to-physical dvd copy. Ask yourself this: if Redbox has 20 copies of a movie and every day 20 people rent it and return it (some the same day, some after a day or two), how is this different than Zediva's business model other than the online factor vs. physical stand?
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx
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.
Can we stop using the word "broadcast" to refer to long-distance, point-to-point communications, please? If we keep using these terms wrong, we shouldn't be surprised when judges arrive at absurd conclusions about laws which are concerned with "broadcasting".
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!