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Tenative Ruling Against Kaleidescape in DVD CCA Case
An anonymous reader wrote in with an update in the long drawn out legal proceedings between the DVD CCA and Kaleidescape, a manufacturer of a video jukeboxes. Despite a victory by Kaleidescape in 2007, they ended up back in court in November 2011. The DVD CCA insisted that ripping a DVD was in violation of the license granted to Kaleidescape; Kaleidescape disagreed since their jukebox made a bit-for-bit copy of the disc rather than first decrypting the contents. Unfortunately, in a preliminary ruling, the court agrees with the DVD CCA. Kaleidescape has released a statement.
The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA
Whats a DVD?
Technology could be so much better if the damned companies would just get out of our way:
-Let us tether our phones. Don't make us jailbreak/root the things to get the bandwidth and features we pay for. The phones are perfectly capable, so stop stifling us!
-Let us watch our movies on whatever device we want, whenever we want, without having to crack/decrypt or download someone else's cracked/decrypted copy.
-Embrace streaming. The infrastructure is there. The technology is mature. Drive-in theaters died a long time ago, and so will megaplexes. Deal with it. Stop fighting Netflix. Stop trying to cling onto your antiquated distribution platform.
I'm sure I have other rants, but I won't be able to think of them until my vein recedes back into my forehead.
sig: sauer
Just let both parties put up a binding contract of injunctive relief. Then they submit it together with an undisclosed amount of money to the court. Whichever side submitted the most wins and their contract is enforced. The other side gets the money, minus, say, 10% that go to taxes. Problem solved: better, predictable justice for all instead of the travesty of "who bought the judge" all the while pretending that there is such a thing as fairness.
I'm quite familiar with the Kaleidescape system. It's effectively a DVD jukebox that uses disc images instead of physical media. In 2011, it's a very outdated piece of technology, but it remains one of the few idiot-proof systems out there. Pay gobs of money, plug it into your TV, fiddle the remote and you're off to the races.
From the very beginning, the system has required users to rip their own DVDs. You don't download shows to it, you have to pop in the disc and let the system create its own image. No disc, no love. Sure, you could toss in a burned disc, but by that point the encryption has already been broken. The only way you can willfully circumvent copyright laws with this thing is by renting/borrowing a movie, ripping it and returning the disc.
That said, if someone has the whimsical income to afford a $7000+ Kaleidescape system, they can probably afford to buy their movies legally. Once again, the movie industry doesn't have a goddamned clue.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Looks like the MPAA bought themselves another judge. The MPAA are trying to protect an obsolete distribution/business model and we play the price. Assholes. I wonder if that's what automobile owners said about the blacksmith's union at the turn of the century. Let's hope the progress triumphs over greed.
...
Move to Asia, buy non US hardware. Problem solved.
Or any different than posting to the wrong thread?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
read that again:
unless the manufacturer adds some kind of authentication mechanism, such a carousel that stores the physical discs
doh! how stoopid are they!
ok, so the ripped copies are also in a carousel. that good? we all good now?
fine. SHIP IT.
oh wait, there's more demands? too late. we just shipped and you ok'd it.
(fucking morans)
every teen and probably half the adults know how to rip a dvd. this is not amoral and not technically hard. a well known company has been selling product from a certain south island for 10 (?) years now. not illegal and no one has shut THEM down.
so, what the fuck? hmmm? wtf!??
they (mpaa and judges in their pocket) can't even lie with a straight face anymore.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
My job is to design and install systems that utilize Kaleidescape systems, and I can say for a fact that most systems i've installed are in the $40,000-$80,000 range for everything combined (they are normally installed in tandem with an expensive control system). Even though DVD's are dead, I find it hard to believe that the DVD licensing association would not even budge for a company who has made EVERY effort to allow for legal storage and retrieval of discs. The type of customer who is buying something like this has LOTS of money to spend on luxuries and is not likely to care about copyright infringement or purchasing movies, it just needs to be stupid simple and convenient. Why must media companies make it so difficult to make every legal attempt for customers to spend their money and do what they please with what was purchased? I am baffled by media conglomerates unwillingness to adapt to ANYTHING new when it comes to technology? I don't care about established institutions you are still trying to squeeze money out of, point is I (and to also my very rich customers) are going to do whatever is easiest, weather the media companies like it or not!
so, for folks that have 'popcorn hour' boxes and WD media players, asus players, etc - are we all supposed to throw these in the trash, now?
they play remote files.
the essence of this ruling is that playing files is illegal (if they were on a dvd and you ripped it).
essentially, its back to dvd-jon (remember him?) and how dvd ripping is the start of the end of civ as we know it.
isn't there a precedence set by the fact that popcorn hour style boxes have legally been allowed for 5+ years, now?
then again, almost all (if not all) of the media streamer companies are mikey mouse (excuse the expression!) and they can easily be bullied. I just wonder if they'll be required to have a physical disk verify feature before they allow remote file access to movies.
where is the court really going with this? I wonder if they even thought it all out. I bet they have not and are simply running with blinders on, being paid by mpaa and not really thinking on their own...
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What the MPAA wanted to make sure is that a Kalidescape system didn't become an everyday item. The technology is Kalidescape is not that difficult, and today you can do the same with:
1. NAS storage server
2. Computer with ripping software of your choice
3. XBMC running on cheap receivers.
4. Download movie/tv info from tvdb.com/IMDB/etc.
All of the above can be put together for well under $1000.
What a company cannot do in the US is put all of the above together into an easy to setup package. Kalidescape got away with it by exploiting language in the CSS licensing agreements, but it appears that they will finally be shut down. Just another reason to never do business in the US.
The only way you can willfully circumvent copyright laws with this thing is by renting/borrowing a movie, ripping it and returning the disc.
The newer Bluray models don't even allow that. You still rip it to hard disk rather than accessing the disc each time, but you have to purchase disc vaults that only allow you to play content secured inside. Now sure, you could cut the things open to retrieve the discs, but I doubt it would let you add a new disc to a slot it thought was already filled, and at $7000 each for 320 discs, it costs more for the unit than it did to purchase the movies themselves.
May I just note that the word is "tentative", not "tenative"? Been bugging me from the get-go.
(fucking morans)
Did you just try to infer how stupid someone is by calling them a moron, and then you misspelled it?
Oh, they have a clue alright. It's just that it doesn't match up with your idea of the same.
It's always been about CONTROL, not Copyright.
(fucking morans)
Did you just try to infer how stupid someone is by calling them a moron, and then you misspelled it?
What a maroon! Ha ha ha! What an ignoranimous! Ha ha ha ha!
So it's $7000 to save you getting up and moving a disc from a box on a shelf to the player's tray? Sounds about right. Where can I get one?
That said, if someone has the whimsical income to afford a $7000+ Kaleidescape system, they can probably afford to buy their movies legally. Once again, the movie industry doesn't have a goddamned clue.
This is the key point that makes the whole argument absurd. Many of the Kaleidescape buyers don't even deal with ripping DVDs themselves, they give their collection and/or just tell the HT installers what they want on it (who then go buy a crapload of legal DVDs) and pay someone else to do all of the work for them. Total plug-and-play system for rich people, they probably only ever watch a fraction of the movies they own, and I'm sure somehow the MPAA will argue it's costing the industry billions of dollars per year...
I think you meant tentative. Does nobody use spell check these days?
Look, if you want to post a story fine. But imbed links to the real stories and news articles not back to Slashdot so that we have click on another link for fucks sake. If you have enough time to make a link to slashdot, you have enough fucking time to link to a useful fucking article. Like what the fuck??!!!! Fuck off already. Do you think having more links makes the story better. Fine then make two or three links to the same story, but make it to an ACTUAL FUCKING NEWS ARTICLE! Not back to slashdot. Jesus H Fucking Christ already.
DVD CCA must be the most idiotic organization in the world. Why would you sue a company who provides the equipment to your boss's villas, yachts and planes? As someone who works in the industry and installs these systems II can guarantee you that every single one of the movie studio executives will have a Kaleidescape system in every single property or yacht they owe.
And who would seriously slash out between $10 000 and $1 000 000 on a Kaleidescape system just so that they could make copies of DVD's they don't owe? Who are the DVD CCA trying to kid?
Kaleidescape servers are really expensive equipment from my experience. Normal consumers are not buying these devices. Kaliedescape servers are only installed in businesses and multi-million dollar houses where generally only legal media is used. It seems to me that they are being manufactured, marketed, sold and (in general) used in a fairly law-abiding spirit. This law suit does nothing but aggravate the situation.
Maybe they need to move their headquarters. The right to back up media is enshrined in Canadian law, because we OWN our media, not "license" or "lease" it. So unless the *AA companies want to GUARANTEE to replace damaged or lost media AT NO CHARGE TO THE CONSUMER, they have to suck it up, give up on DMCA-type legislation, and go home with their tails between their legs like the whipped dogs they are. :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
They only need to win once for any stupid shit they wish to do. We need to win every single time to stop them doing stupid shit. Ergo, this war cannot be won :( All rights will eventually be lost.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Ouch. Yes, definitely the wrong thread. I must have clicked when I should have menued. *LOL*
Sorry about that, folks. 'twas an accident, not a hijack.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What the MPAA wanted to make sure is that a Kalidescape system didn't become an everyday item. The technology is Kalidescape is not that difficult, and today you can do the same with:
1. NAS storage server 2. Computer with ripping software of your choice 3. XBMC running on cheap receivers. 4. Download movie/tv info from tvdb.com/IMDB/etc.
All of the above can be put together for well under $1000.
You can also do it with Apple TV and iTunes; with a lot less fiddling around, so there is even a solution for the non-trchincally inclined.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Dated technology? have you touched one lately? It's far more advanced than any of the crap any geek can build at home. They did a full DVD rip to try and satisfy the stupid MPAA.
The only thing that makes it dated is they tried like hell to keep the industry happy. The DVD images still have their CSS encryption on them, Which was their stupid mistake. You cant keep organized crime happy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do you mean 'tentative'?
Can I have your job, Mr. Editor?
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Exactly. If they allowed the $7,000 Kalidescape to exist, the next model would be a $2,000 version. Then, someone would make a $999 version and another company would lower the cost to $500. Eventually, you'd be able to pick up one of these devices for $100 and everyone would buy one. Then, they'd start buying tons of DVDs to rip on their devices and it would kill the industry the exact same way that the VCR killed them.
For an industry that keeps being "killed" by new technology, they certainly seem to stay around. You know what that means, don't you? The MPAA are zombies!!!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There is huge amount of profit to be made in the media industry. Bit media companies sitting on goldmines, and this is obvious from the fact that they're making huge profits despite being very poorly managed. The idiots in charge of these companies have a turn of the century mentality, they're stuck in the olden times and they can not capitalize on the goldmine they're sitting on because they're refusing to embrace new technology. They try to make new technology conform to the limitations of the old technology, wasting huge potential profit in the mean time. It is hurting the company, it is hurting the consumer and it is hurting the shareholders.
I doubt they will do anything differently anytime soon though. They will still hire backward brained neanderthals to lead them into the future. They deal with new technology by wasting money legislating it away. Each new technology is potential profit venue for them, but they spend all their efforts pushing it away instead.
No, because those devices don't have DVD CCA license agreements. This court case wasn't about copyright, it was about the hoops people agree to jump through in order to play DVDs.
If you want to build a CSS-compatible DVD player "by the book" then you have to sign an agreement that your player will be guaranteed to suck. If your player doesn't totally suck, then you're in breach of contract.
(Contract -- a real contract which you signed and also handed over thousands of dollars as part of, not a secret one that you didn't know you had time-traveled and retroactively become bound to, like opening a box containing software a week after buying it. This isn't some secret surprise that sprung on Kaleidescape.)
Alternatively, since the CSS trade secret is long-ago out, you can avoid the agreement but take your chances with DMCA and probably some patents. Do this and you won't have a legal document that you signed with ink, where you promised to make sure that nobody will want your player.
Or just don't make DVD players. Tell user to get their media files .. um .. however. With no DRM or trade secrets, there are no contractual or DMCA issues. The worst you have to worry about are codec patents.
Popcorn Hours and WDTVs are perfectly safe. This is the future of media players: never be compatible with DRM if you don't want contract lawsuits. Just suggest to users that they get non-proprietary files which don't require any special permissions to be compatible with. And if non-proprietary files aren't for sale, well, people manage to get them anyway, somehow. If the copyright holders refuse to be paid, that's their problem. The rest of the economy is waiting for them .. or not.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
> You can also do it with Apple TV and iTunes; with a lot less fiddling around, so there is even a solution for the non-trchincally inclined.
The only way the iTunes approach is going to yield "less fiddling" is if you restrict yourself entirely to what's available on iTunes and pay their prices. Unfortunately, their prices are high and their selection is inadequate.
The end result will be much like the Kaledescape. You can only play your stuff on devices from the single vendor. Although the Kaledescape allows you to shop at Target and Best Buy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Dated technology? have you touched one lately? It's far more advanced than any of the crap any geek can build at home.
No it isn't. It hasn't been for a long time.
The only value that it has is in being a "legitimate" solution.
Now of course I "haven't touched one lately". I don't have the 50K or so it would cost me to replace my $800 solution.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So in other words you have NEVER touched one and are just guessing.
Got it.
From what I read on their website, they do a LOT more than some nerd's "$800" solution. I'm with lumpy here. I dont see yours streaming to multiple rooms with bookmarking and all the other features their system has. You have a raid 5 for high availability in case a drive dies?
There are movies that were actually rescanned and remastered for the bluray release, and someone has to pay for that work. So in cases like that I don't begrudge them charging separately for the bluray version.
Now if someone buys the bluray version I would have no problem with downloading a lower-res version for format shifting, because it could be generated algorithmically from the higher-res version.
> You can also do it with Apple TV and iTunes; with a lot less fiddling around, so there is even a solution for the non-trchincally inclined.
The only way the iTunes approach is going to yield "less fiddling" is if you restrict yourself entirely to what's available on iTunes and pay their prices. Unfortunately, their prices are high and their selection is inadequate.
The end result will be much like the Kaledescape. You can only play your stuff on devices from the single vendor. Although the Kaledescape allows you to shop at Target and Best Buy.
HUh? I can import files into iTunes that I did not buy from them. Just rip into a compatible format and import.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
> HUh? I can import files into iTunes that I did not buy from them. Just rip into a compatible format and import.
You lost 99.9 percent of the Apple contingent at the "rip" part.
Never mind the "compatable format" part. Then "importing" is going to be a vastly inferior thing compared to what Boxee or Plex or even MythTV gives you.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The only thing they have going for them is the fact that they have an appliance that handles the entire process.
> I dont see yours streaming to multiple rooms with bookmarking
Streaming to multiple rooms is trivial. All you need is a media server. The same goes for bookmarking.
> You have a raid 5 for high availability in case a drive dies?
A good modern operating system handles that by itself.
The fact that you are impressed about what little information is available about this grossly overpriced device says much more about you than it does the device.
Clearly you have ZERO experience in this area with either the Kaledescape or anything else for that matter.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> HUh? I can import files into iTunes that I did not buy from them. Just rip into a compatible format and import.
You lost 99.9 percent of the Apple contingent at the "rip" part.
Probably, but then again 99.9 percent of all users are probably lost at "rip"
Never mind the "compatable format" part. Then "importing" is going to be a vastly inferior thing compared to what Boxee or Plex or even MythTV gives you.
Here I disagree. I have setup Plex on my Mac, and while it is anise interface it has enough quirks to make it more of a hobbyist tool than a "ready for prime time" app. ITunes its much more of a plug and play solution; which makes it more appealing to the average user. As for 'vastly inferior' I find iTunes quite acceptable for someone who just wants to watch movies/TV/listen to music and have some IMDB type info attached. In the end, it just works and is free; criteria that meet 99.9% of users' needs.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
> ITunes its much more of a plug and play solution;
Only until you want to use your own content.
iTunes is not "just fine" for random things you try to import into it. It doesn't handle this at all. What 3rd party add-ons exist are inferior as well as having the inherent problem of being cobble ware.
No. It's iTunes that looks like a "hobby" when compared to Plex.
iTunes only suits 99.9% of users needs if they are unwilling or unable to see beyond the Apple company store.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> ITunes its much more of a plug and play solution;
Only until you want to use your own content.
Considering that Kaleidoscope was the original comparison, which uses one's own content, that's exactly the point.
iTunes is not "just fine" for random things you try to import into it. It doesn't handle this at all. What 3rd party add-ons exist are inferior as well as having the inherent problem of being cobble ware.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that iTunes isn't just fine for imported content. I've brought in a lot on non-Apple content with zero issues.
No. It's iTunes that looks like a "hobby" when compared to Plex.
iTunes only suits 99.9% of users needs if they are unwilling or unable to see beyond the Apple company store.
Considering the challenges with getting and keeping plea working compared to those with iTunes I'd say Plex is much more of a hobbyist solution. I've gotten more random non-related cover art, stuff not showing up in Plex despite searching for new content, random freezes and crashes, etc. with Plex; stuff I never experience with the exact same content in iTunes. Sure Plex does more, and I think it is a neat program; but it takes a lot more hand holding then iTunes. I really with Pelx was as solid a solution as iTunes but it simply isn't; which makes it less useful for the 99.9% of users you keep talking about.
As for seeing beyond the Apple company store , I really don't care who makes the product as long as it works without having to constantly mess with it.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This is exactly what I do, hence why I feel Kaleidescape is an archaic system, but I'm a geek - a geek who happens to sell NAS boxes for a living. If my wife didn't have me, she wouldn't have access to any of this tech. Most of my lesser geek chums get by with a $99 el-cheapo media player and USB pen drive or hard drive.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
So in other words you have NEVER touched one and are just guessing.
I've touched several, I even installed two of them and repaired at least a dozen others. As I said way back in the original post, I am quite familiar with the Kaleidescape. At least I was, up until 4 years ago when I stopped moonlighting in the a/v installation field.
From what I read on their website, they do a LOT more than some nerd's "$800" solution. I'm with lumpy here. I dont see yours streaming to multiple rooms with bookmarking and all the other features their system has. You have a raid 5 for high availability in case a drive dies?
Well..... my solution cost way more than $800, but I could see a clever geek getting away with it. $300 ION mini-ITX box, $100 el-cheapo NAS RAID-1 box with $200 worth of hard drives, $100 for a cheap 5-port switch and a few long patch cables, and an evening to set it all up.
Me, well I have the equivalent of their fully decked-out 3U server and three zones. The key difference is I can do whatever the hell I want with my system. DVD, Xvid, MKV, Youtube, podcasts from iTunes, hell I can play video games on the damn thing *while* watching TV in a PiP-style box.
If Kaleidescape sold systems like mine, it would kick ass. They'd also get sued into the ground because they've already let the MPAA walk all over them. There is nothing inherently illegal in what the system does, the problem is their bowing to legal threats has been accepted as an admission of guilt for a crime they never committed. The Kaleidescape does not commit copyright infringement: users do!
-Billco, Fnarg.com