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.

Comments

Obviously

[bobstreo]

The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA

Re:Obviously

[DoofusOfDeath]

The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA

Just because you don't like the ruling, doesn't necessarily mean it's contrary to the law.

That being said, the MPAA and RIAA have been instrumental in writing the laws, so...

Re:Obviously

[Moryath]

It's funny, whenever someone suggests this sort of thing, they usually get modded down.

And yet the judge basically took the DVD-CCA's side and copy-pasted it into his ruling word for word. He ignored basically every argument Kaleidescape put forth. That's rare in court. Not only that, but the judge has done a major about-face since the last ruling in 2007. What changed in the intervening time? How do you go from a judge ruling that Kaleidescape had made good faith efforts to ensure their products were compliant, and were in fact compliant, to what came out today if money didn't change hands somewhere?

Re:Obviously

[LoverOfJoy]

How do you go from a judge ruling that Kaleidescape had made good faith efforts to ensure their products were compliant, and were in fact compliant, to what came out today if money didn't change hands somewhere?

Who needs money when you have incriminating photos?

Re:Obviously

[causality]

The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA

Just because you don't like the ruling, doesn't necessarily mean it's contrary to the law.

That being said, the MPAA and RIAA have been instrumental in writing the laws, so...

If I were a judge I'd never rule in favor of something I know to be wrong, excessive, or unreasonable. Modern copyright suits like this one fit all three descriptions. If the law says otherwise, let them impeach me. Then I might lose my cushy prestigious job. Then I'd say hey, at least I put something on the line to try to bring some sanity to our legal system; how many others did the same?

You wonder why freedoms are eroding?

Re:Obviously

[causality]

Until they declare it illegal to resell DVDs or they tie the content to a specific piece of hardware for playback.

The bittorrent pirates couldn't dream of a better justification in the popular mind.

The copyright interests enjoy some public sympathy as long as they can portray themselves as the poor victims of rampant "theft" who just want a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. This mostly depends on the general public being ignorant and not considering it worthwhile to read up on the subject and learn about its nuances. Thus, what is generally known about them comes from propaganda (aka "PR") sponsored by them. If the cartels clamp down too hard, no amount of PR will prevent it from being generally known that they are a bunch of assholes and control freaks who will never be satisfied.

What you suggest is, sadly, the kind of thing they would do. It's also the dumbest thing they could do. Seems like a balance to me.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they are in a lot of counties. This particular judge was elected - it took about 30 seconds of googling.

Re:Obviously

[compro01]

Actually, Superior Court judges in California (like the one this ruling was issued by) are elected.

The judge in question was elected in 2006, so he's also up for reelection this year.

Re:Obviously

[Ramin_HAL9001]

Until they declare it illegal to resell DVDs or they tie the content to a specific piece of hardware for playback.

The bittorrent pirates couldn't dream of a better justification in the popular mind. .... If the cartels clamp down too hard, no amount of PR will prevent it from being generally known that they are a bunch of assholes and control freaks who will never be satisfied.

I think you put way too much faith in the general public's attention span.

If the MAFIAA were to use their political clout and pass laws that made it illegal to watch a movie without a specific piece of hardware, which they have already done in a way, using region codes and forcing DRM on downloaded music, people will just sit back and take it, and continue to repeat the propaganda spoon-fed to them. "Its good for the economy, they have the right to make money in whatever way they want, pirates are bad, baaah baaah baaah baaah."

No one notices just how many liberties we have lost over the past 20 years (ironically, more and more so as technology has improved) because no one knows the technology well enough to know when a politician is passing yet another law to take their freedoms and property rights away. They think, "as long as I don't vote for those big-government Democrats, I'll be safe." If only it were that easy.

Re:Obviously

[SlithyMagister]

The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA

Just because you don't like the ruling, doesn't necessarily mean it's contrary to the law.

That being said, the MPAA and RIAA have been instrumental in writing the laws, so...

It's the LAW I don't like

However your comment is a beautiful encapsulation of the entire problem.
First, the courts are for sale, since judges are elected.
Second, the people who write the laws are for sale.

American politicians are little more than puppets for the wealthy and powerful to play with.

Re:Obviously

[EdIII]

which they have already done in a way, using region codes and forcing DRM on downloaded music

Uhhhh, not they have not. Purchased music is widely available in DRM-free formats and has been for some time now.

Region codes do not force a specific piece of hardware at all. You still require a basic DVD-ROM to even begin to physically read the disk. I don't think that is forced, and certainly not by law. You have a choice of DVD hardware to purchase. Additionally, as stupid as region codes were, they were incredibly easy to bypass, even for the most unsophisticated person. When purchasing a new DVD-ROM you get to set the region code. At least on the last couple I purchased, and you could reset it up to five times. I believe I even found some DVD players that ignored region codes entirely. I can't say for sure... but I imagine they would be quite popular in some places.

You missed his point. The populace usually does not notice until you stop them from doing something they want and without an exceptionally good reason.

Telling people that a DVD jukebox is illegal, when they purchased the jukebox and all the movies, is something that they will notice and get pissed about. Once that happens, that is all the motivation they need to bring out Google, start talking to friends, and then..... welcome to the world wide web of pirating.

In my experience, once somebody finds out how easy it is to get stuff for free, they never pay again. I will pay for music, software, and DVDs out of principle, but I know I am not in the majority.

The poster you are replying to is right. The absolute last thing the content companies want is to provide motivation for people to get educated on their options. That is because none of those options is good for the content companies, even the legal ones.

Re:Obviously

[Opportunist]

Not necessarily. Or at least, in my experience.

Take my dad. The most un-technical person on this planet outside of an Amish village. Lately, he actually replaced his VHS recorder with a DVD player. He is, though, a person who doesn't give half a shit about "the economy" as long as he doesn't profit from it. As it is with most people around Europe, I might add. Sadly, he also doesn't give too much about his liberties. As does most of Europe...

But he has a keen sense about being ripped off. And being ripped off includes everything he's used to and cannot do anymore. He's used to borrowing movies from a friend. Take that from him and he'll certainly notice. And not in a good way. And as much as he is a die-hard conservative, something like that won't sit well with him.

Re:Obviously

[Kjella]

You still require a basic DVD-ROM to even begin to physically read the disk. I don't think that is forced, and certainly not by law. You have a choice of DVD hardware to purchase.

Sure, you can pick the logo on the player but you don't have a choice. To play DVDs it must have a CSS key, to get a CSS key it must follow the CSS license and to play it in any other way would violate the DMCA (or EUCD in Europe or whatever fits your region). It doesn't matter if you've legally bought and own the disc, if you find a way to play it on your own you're a criminal. And because every manufacturer is under the whip of the CSS license, so are you. If they want to enforce region codes or don't want you to fast forward past the commercials they can impose those conditions on the manufacturers through the license who will then impose those restrictions on you. It's not required by law, they've just taken away all other ways of doing it legally - but it works much the same.

Re:Obviously

[tlhIngan]

The Judge has received some re-election funds from the MPAA

Technically this case was more of the agreement between DVD Forum and Kaleidascope. The DVD Forum runs a licensing agency (DVD CCA) that handles all the patents/technology/etc licensing so if you want to implement the DVD standard, you apply for a license and get access to the spec, the patents, etc.

The licensing agreement states fundamentally that a movie DVD data may not be copied to another medium except for temporary storage. It also states other things (wonder why you can't ever get more than 480p out of the analog outputs? Same reason - of course, HDMI hadn't quite been invented yet, so it's really just a loophole).

And that's where the company lost - they made a DVD media server that "ripped" DVDs to hard drive and didn't require the disc to play, in contravention to the licensing agreement they signed.

The DVD Forum is not the MPAA's bitch, though. Their next gen HD spec was dropped because the movie studios hated the fact that it lacked region protection, letting people in other countries import HD-DVDs before the movie even hit theatres. (It was one reason why the studios started releasing HD-DVDs long after the DVD and Blu-Ray versions came out... lots of people were doing this before the movies hit their local theatres months later).

Technology could be so cool

[ichthus]

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.

Re:Technology could be so cool

[Dan667]

it is not nickel and diming, it is insisting on being a horse and buggy maker in a car world. The RIAA and MPAA are throwing away huge wads of money to cling to a business model that no longer works.

Re:Technology could be so cool

[CODiNE]

Wanted to pick up a copy of Tucker: The man and his dream today. So I check out used prices on Amazon and Paypal. Both selling used from $60-90. Daaaang. Well I wanted to avoid DRM and have a nice portable copy, but $60 is a bit much for that, so I figured I'll get it for $10 on iTunes and only play it on iDevices. Eh.

Well it's only for rent at $4. Every single comment in the reviews mentions that it should be for sale. Huh... oh maybe Amazon is selling it. Dang, $4 rental there too.

What's the point in making it rental only? It's not like the makers profit off the used DVD market, or did one of them buy a pallet of them? Besides that, the movie is from 1994, it should be $0.99 and not "new release" price.

Oh well, I'm not going to pirate it... I'm going to wait for it from the library. If I can't own it I won't pay to rent it. Total cost to the movie studios? -$10.

There you have it, one good rant deserves another.

Re:Technology could be so cool

[hairyfeet]

I'd agree with two out of three but frankly the world was a better place before the iPhone and everybody trying to use a wireless like a landline. there is only a limited amount of wireless bandwidth you know, and in many places its already saturated to the max just with all the teens blabbing their asses off all day, tethering your laptop and trying to treat it like a landline just makes the whole thing suck worse for everyone else. Wait until you fucking get home or use Wifi dude, don't be a bandwidth piggie.

As for TFA all my customers are switching to media tanks so meh to the MPAA. Once they are all using Nboxes and WDTVs I'm sure they'll find out about the wonders of TPB, just another case where the pirated version is the better version. i mean here it is 2012 and they expect people to feed discs into the thing like its 1997, wake up and smell the technology jerks! Music has already gone to MP3 because with no DRM they'll play anywhere, yet here they are saying only this DRM encrusted crap is the only way you can play a movie. Well i hate to break the news to them but MP3 didn't become the default format because the record companies liked it, it became the default because of piracy, because people wanted easy and simple which the record companies didn't give them. The same thing is happening with movies as even that $40 DVD player from Walmart is now playing DivX .avi and MKV files. Do they think grandma is making MKVs of the kid's baseball game? nope its just folks bypassing the bullshit yet again.

It took years of dragging the record companies before we could bring their stupid asses to the giant money trough that is selling MP3s, it looks like it'll be another decade to do the same to the MPAA. What a bunch of total dipshits, they'd rather spend millions in bribes trying to make the world 1979 again than face the fact that times change, just retarded.

Time to change the civil adjucation process

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Huh?

[gnapster]

They're those flat shiny things that ISOs come on.

DVD ? DVDead.

[billcopc]

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.

Re:DVD ? DVDead.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Tenative?

[Red_Chaos1]

I think you meant tentative. Does nobody use spell check these days?

Most ridiculous lawsuit ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?