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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
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.
Except they don't rebroadcast to multiple customers at the same time. For each person watching the DVD at a time, Zediva has one copy and one DVD player. Its almost identical to renting the physical copy of the movie, but without actually sending them the disc itself. So its nothing like broadcasting, except it occurs at a distance.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
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
It's an odd situation in general. Rent DVD from blockbuster, take it home and play it = legal.
Rent DVD player and DVD from blockbuster, hook up to your TV and play it = legal.
Leave DVD player at blockbuster but run really long video cable to your TV is untested, but the length of the video cable doesn't seen legally relevant (even if it is a technical problem).
Now, treading ever further into untested waters, same setup but you just call Blockbuster and rent the DVD and get an employee to play it in the DVD player you left there.
Next up, multiplex the video cable with other communications. Still doesn't seem relevant. Video cables that include ethernet channels aren't illegal.
Rent the common multiplexed communications cable from someone else. Why not, you're renting the player and the DVD, why not the cable?
Now, connect a digitizer at your end and watch on the computer. Shouldn't matter, it's not illegal to do that on a home theater.
Finally, move the digitizer to blockbuster's side of the rented multiplexed communications cable. Fundamentally, you're still renting a DVD and a player from Blockbuster and watching it at home, but somehow it has magically become illegal according to the judge. What part makes it illegal now? Is it legal as long as you burn a gallon of gas in the back yard so you can do your part in the pollution effort?
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!