Ruling Prohibits Kaleidescape From Selling, Supporting Movie Servers

So... by lagartoflojo · 2012-03-12 07:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

What is Kaleidescape and why should I care?

(Yes, I know there's Google. But a bit of context would be nice.)

Re:So... by cpu6502 · 2012-03-12 08:20 · Score: 2

So you are against a company that tries to obey the law (per the DMCA) and instead suggest they should have been breaking the law (cracking encryption/not paying DVD license fees). That is illogical.
Another article worth reading. It does sound similar to a cartel, but I suppose it's no different than the Matsushita/JVC/Mitsubishi/Sharp cartel (which controlled licensing for VHS VCRs): http://www.cepro.com/article/industry_insider_dvd_cca_is_an_innovation_stifling_cartel/

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Re:So... by Stormwatch · 2012-03-12 08:50 · Score: 2

When the law is illogical, it is illogical to respect it.

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Re:So... by jedidiah · 2012-03-12 09:33 · Score: 2

The cost of the product is entirely artificial and has nothing to do with preserving the DRM on the original media. You can do that with dd. Some people even prefer the "clone the disk" approach. It primarily escalates your storage requirements.
There is no moral superiority to complying with a clearly unjust law just so that you can spend $50,000 on an overpriced workaround that will get sued into oblivion anyways.
My original preference would have been for a physical disk jukebox approach but that tech never really developed in a sophisticated and affordable form.

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:So... by sixsixtysix · 2012-03-12 17:52 · Score: 2

what, like this?

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Kaleidescape is... by earls · 2012-03-12 07:54 · Score: 5, Informative

"Manufacturer of a movie server that digitally stores and organizes your Blu-ray and DVD movies, and makes them available from any television in your home."

So a ripping station.

Re:Kaleidescape is... by BagOBones · 2012-03-12 07:58 · Score: 3, Informative

A really high end, nearly fully automated ripping station, mostly use in the entertainment systems of the wealthy.

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EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Re:Kaleidescape is... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-12 08:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

If memory serves, a ripping station that(in an ultimately doomed effort at compliance) ripped only bit-for-bit disk images(and yes, realistically, their price alone kept them away from most pirates).

Their theory of operation, not good enough to save them from the MFIAA, was that the rip was DMCA compliant because it didn't break any encryption at all, just made a bit-for-bit backup copy of the DVD in question. Then, upon user request, the encrypted bitstream from the disk image would be fed to an ordinary, licensed, decoder, same as any DVD player, with all the usual i's dotted and T's crossed(in terms of restricted outputs, macrovision, etc.)

Team content(for reasons unclear) declared a bitter war of attrition against a boutique luxury product purchased largely by cinemaphiles with huge movie collections that they used to enhance their enjoyment thereof, despite the fact that the pirate kiddies of the world weren't even inconvenienced in continuing to pile up multi-terabyte franken-NAS piracy servers.

Foolish, vindictive, and shortsighted. Not that that's a huge surprise.
Re:Kaleidescape is... by rahvin112 · 2012-03-12 08:08 · Score: 3, Informative

You forgot the point where it's full to the brim with DRM and access controls, and the price is 5 digits large.
Re:Kaleidescape is... by adnoid · 2012-03-12 08:42 · Score: 5, Informative

It's not really even a ripping station. It's a system for watching your DVDs and BDs in a really convenient manner.
Disclaimer: I work in the industry that Kaleidescape sells to, I work with a couple of people that used to work there, and I know Michael Malcom. And we've got one of their systems set up in our offices.
Your analysis is correct in that the system copies DVDs, BDs and CDs to a hard disk array that, in our case, is in a rack in the equipment room (it's got fans that are loud along with with the spinning drives) and plays them via a player with an HDMI output in a different part of the building. The units are connected via the same Ethernet network used for data. If you know the background, you know that the founders of the company approached the DVD CCA and did, indeed, get a license. The DVD CCA changed their mind about the license later. They are the ass clowns, in case there was any doubt.
It's not just the playback that's useful, the system allows you to set favorite scenes and jump right to them. We need to demonstrate various audio and video capabilities of the equipment we manufacture. Being able to jump from movie to movie, scene to scene with a push of a button - or to write a simple script to run a full demonstration - without having to wait for each disk to spin up, display the FBI warning, etc. is the reason we have the unit.
We've also bought every single title that's on it. When you are playing a scene from a movie to the people who were involved in making it, it would be really embarrassing to explain that you ripped it from a rental. Not that people that pay the amount that one of these systems cost are the kind of people who flinch at paying for a movie anyway.
Do you want to know who owns systems like this? There's one big group I know of - next time you see a movie, watch the names in big type in the credits. When their home systems stop working, I hope they direct their ire at the DVD CCA, because those are the folks that broke their toys.

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Re:Kaleidescape is... by mrops · 2012-03-12 08:45 · Score: 2

More and more I read about MAFIAA, it really seems that they believe to have a successful business case for selling same movie to the same customer more than once. Once for your iPad, once for your iPhone, once for your TV1 and again for TV2, if they can get away with it. It seems they think it is logical that the user pays for right to view on every screen he owns.
IMO, its doomed to fail.
Re:Kaleidescape is... by Kagato · 2012-03-12 08:45 · Score: 2

This isn't a DMCA issue per se. The issue is they went with what they thought was the legal way of doing things. That is to say they actually licensed a DVD CCA license for the product. They were issued a DVD player license key and could lawfully use the DVD logo on their machine and marketing. The problem more or less is a contractual one between them and DVD CCA because they tried to do things on the up and up. There are other products out there that do the exact same thing. They aren't being sued because they aren't bound by a license agreement.
Goes to show, no good deed goes unpunished.
Re:Kaleidescape is... by Genda · 2012-03-12 09:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sorry but you're just not getting the message. They want you to pay for it each and every time you see it. They want you to have to sit through 10-30 minutes of commercials whether you see it on a TV, your iPad, or at a theater. They want to CONTROL every aspect, particle, atom of how and when it will be viewed and if you infringe on any atom of their control, they want to part you out for organs and tissue and make a profit on your earthly remains.
These are men who have raised avarice and control to art forms, and keep packs of hungry lawyer on tap, just to remind you if you should forget.
Re:Kaleidescape is... by EdIII · 2012-03-12 12:31 · Score: 2

Yep. That's essentially it.
Those people want to do away with all copyrights as they exist now, outlaw all fair use, and create a system in which they have absolute control over their content regardless of where it is.
Rewriting copyrights and the laws from the ground up, bit by bit, lawyerpult by lawyerpult, till they have the system that is totally in their favor, and allows them to "monetize" their content to the maximum extent not currently allowed by common sense, ethics, morality, or the current legal system.

This comic seems appropriate by cpu6502 · 2012-03-12 07:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

My only disagreement is this:

Just because the DVD won't be available until the fall is not justification to download it freely. Oftentimes cable channels like HBO want to play the show over-and-over several times (for subscribers) before releasing it to everyone else. Movie studios do the same thing (release to theaters first; DVD later).

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

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Re:This comic seems appropriate by sanosuke001 · 2012-03-12 08:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

That comic is spot on why I understand when people decide to torrent things. The corporations are making it increasingly hard for customers to give them money for things they are willing to pay for so, out of frustration, the would-be customer goes somewhere they won't get the arse-hole (you don't want to give me the arse-hole, do you, Gary?).

Another big issue is that they're just understanding that digital distribution is in for good (legal or torrent-based) but they expect you to pay the brick-and-mortar prices for digital versions. Again, this pushes people to torrent because they feel like they're getting fucked when the Blu-Ray in stores is $30 and the download is $35. For example, season 7 of "How I Met Your Mother" is $1.99 for SD and $2.99 for HD per episode on Amazon. 18 episodes total, so $35.82 or $53.82 total. Since the Blu-Ray isn't released for Season 7, the Season 4 Blu-Ray is $29.99 ("on sale" from $49.99). So, even if it weren't "on sale" the Blu-Ray version would be cheaper than the digital version.

Same thing for DRM and those pesky FBI Priacy warnings that aren't fast-forwardable; pirates have no issues, paying customers are berated for doing the right thing. Overall, it feels like they WANT their potential customers to say, "fuck it, i'll torrent" and not give them their money. Honestly, it's frustrating...

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-SaNo
Re:This comic seems appropriate by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-03-12 08:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oftentimes cable channels like HBO want to play the show over-and-over several times (for subscribers) before releasing it to everyone else. Movie studios do the same thing (release to theaters first; DVD later).
Which is, of course, why they're idiots.
People are always talking about "justification" and "it isn't right" and similar moral indignation which ignores the simple fact that if someone can't buy the thing they want, they still have the option to pirate it. The answer to the question "how many sales are lost to piracy" when the product is not available for sale is always "all of the sales." Because you can't buy something you can't buy.
So here come the studios saying that they still make more from selling theater tickets to people who have to have it right away than they would get by selling the DVD sooner. Which is why they're still idiots. Nobody says you have to price the DVD at the same level while it's still in the theater or playing on HBO as you do a year later when you normally would have released it. Putting it for sale at a higher price gives people an option. And then some of those people will buy it. And some of them won't because it costs too much, so they'll either wait or pirate -- but since you never would have gotten those sales anyway, that doesn't matter.
The only sensible reason to not offer something immediately is that it would displace a different offering by the copyright holder which would have been more profitable. But that is not a reason for refusing to offer it at all, all it means is you should price the earliest DVD release so that you make as much on the DVD as you would by selling the number of theater tickets (or HBO subscriptions) that a DVD sale displaces. Hence, the studios are idiots. Completely regardless of the moral status of the pirates.
Re:This comic seems appropriate by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-03-12 16:04 · Score: 2

All true BUT if you could buy the new HBO episodes of Season 2; Game of Thrones the very first day, why would you subscribe to the channel? The answer is that you wouldn't.
And...? The existing HBO model is totally braindead anyway. What possible benefit is there in not offering HBO as a website like Hulu, for the same price as it costs as a cable channel? Then HBO gets 100% of that money instead of sharing it with asshats like Comcast, and customers get to subscribe to HBO without subscribing to Comcast TV. Problem solved.
The sole thing standing in the way of that is that grandpa doesn't understand how to plug the internet into the TV, so you still have to offer the channel with Comcast to get his money, and Comcast will explode in a rage of fury if you even conceive of such a thing as cutting them out of the loop. But selling DVDs of the whole season the day the first episode comes out gets you around that: Grandpa knows how to use a DVD. Moreover, to get it on the first day you have to pay like a hundred bucks, which more than makes up for the non-100% of people who cancel their $14/month subscriptions. And once the subscriptions get to be a sufficiently small portion of their business, they can tell Comcast to pound sand because at that point they can afford to walk away and stay in business, which lets them set up the streaming service (whether Comcast capitulates or not) and be in a position to keep 100% of the now-larger amount of money their content sells for.

Ummm .... by gstoddart · 2012-03-12 08:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

So, I can do this with Apple TV. At one point, I did this with my XBox.

Things like Slingbox have allowed you to stream your media to your TV for years.

Why is this industry incapable of recognizing that users would prefer to have a juke-box with their movies? Especially people with kids I should think.

In this case, it sounds like the product tried very hard to not be helping illegal copying.

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Re:Ummm .... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-12 09:16 · Score: 3, Informative

No, the disc images were being sent to the local Kaleidescape physical server in your home. I have a Kaleidescape and have owned their systems for about 8-9 years now.

Re:Total BS by gmuslera · 2012-03-12 08:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

So this rule forces people to use solutions that could actually remove copy protection or share outside of the home?

With employees like this the MPAA don't need enemies

It seems like part of this shouldn't be at issue by Overzeetop · 2012-03-12 08:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is one of the areas that the DMCA creates an illusory right. The law specifically states that the right to fair use, which includes time and format shifting, is not to be affected by the law. The law also prohibits anyone from assisting in removing copy protection.

The key is that the ability to remove the protection for fair use _must_ be available and reasonable for the average person who has paid for the product, or the right to format shift in accordance with fair use doctrine is purely illusory. This is pretty common, and when it comes up in contract law, it's pretty straightforward - you can't give illusory rights.

IA(of course)NAL, and even lawyers will disagree, but the law explicitly states a right (fair use) that is not to be altered, and then effectively alters that right by making it illegal for nearly everyone to obtain access to it.

I would like to see the law struck down - or at least the traffiking in copy protection removal devices and software removed for any fair use right, including personal use.

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The DMCA doesn't create fair use rights at all by DragonWriter · 2012-03-12 08:26 · Score: 2

This is one of the areas that the DMCA creates an illusory right.

No, it isn't.

The law specifically states that the right to fair use, which includes time and format shifting, is not to be affected by the law.

Fair use is a pre-existing (compared to the DMCA) statutory right in copyright law (and, at least in part, reflects limitations on copyright imposed by the Constitutional rights of free speech & free press), and not a right created by the DMCA. Ergo, leaving aside questions of the exact extent of fair use and whether or not the DMCA renders it illusory, it can't be an example of the DMCA creating an illusory right, since the right existed (and not in an illusory form) prior to the DMCA.

It might be an example of the DMCA destroying a right and leaving a illusory shell behind, but that's a very different thing than creating an illusory right.

Re:The DMCA doesn't create fair use rights at all by Overzeetop · 2012-03-12 08:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's a very fine point to put in it.
It is true that this chapter of the law does not grant fair use rights, but it is part of Title 17 (Chpt 1201 to be exact), not a standalone title.
The summary provided by the US Copyright Office attempts to address this condition, and utterly fails:
"This distinction [between unauthorized access and unauthorized copying] was employed to assure that the public will have the continued
ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited"
The problems is that since there is no mechanism for the CCA to grant copy authority, copying for fair use by the public requires that "unauthorized" access be granted. This isn't like the DAT recorders which implemented copy once which allowed fair use copies. Without access, no mechanism short of access to the material is available to the public to make a fair use copy. The law makes it impossible to obtain the method from anyone else. It's a key flaw in the logic of the text, and one that has, afaik, not been tested, at least in part because nobody who has a business model based on removing CCA has enough money to do so.
The right given in Title 17 is, therefore, made illusory by the law itself. I don't know how the courts view language in a law versus an interpretation of an illusory right in a contract, but there is a certain parity to the conditions.

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Yet Another Out-of-Control Judge by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2012-03-12 08:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

I see this as just another out-of-control (I won't go quite as far as bought off) California judge that the 99% of us would be far better off if s/he were removed from the bench permanently. With judges like this I'm surprised that we ever got as far as being allowed to have our own electric lights. S/he surly would have killed of the VCR if ever given the chance, likely along with the cassette and reel-to-reel decks as well if they had recording abilities. S/he would likely take out your DVR as well, given the chance.

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Re:Yet Another Out-of-Control Judge by NeutronCowboy · 2012-03-12 09:34 · Score: 2

I don't know what's worse - people who think judges should be subject to the wrath of the mob, or people who think that only pinko-commie California judges behave in a way that they object to.
Reading crap like this makes me happy that out-of-control judges do exist, just to remind the posters of the independence of the judiciary.

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Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.

RealDVD and Kaleidescape by steveha · 2012-03-12 09:48 · Score: 5, Informative

I worked at RealNetworks for a while, on a doomed project called RealDVD. There were going to be two versions of RealDVD: a software-only version you could run on your laptop or whatever, and a software stack to be licensed to consumer electronics companies.

The reason RealNetworks thought there was a chance they could do this was: Kaleidescape. Kaleidescape made such a product, got sued, and won. There was a clear legal precedent.

For the next section, you are getting this third- or fourth-hand. I wasn't there for this. This is what I remember of how it was explained to me. I apologize in advance if anything here is incorrect.

What did Kaleidescape do? They signed up as a licensed and authorized customer of the official CSS unscrambling code, and built a licensed DVD player. Theirs just happened to have a big box full of hard drives that cached the disc images. (They had a quiet and stylish head-end unit for your living room, and some sort of big noisy box or boxes for the hard drives, which you would put in your basement or whatever.)

Once it was clear what Kaleidescape was up to, they got hit with a lawsuit for violation of contract. They were sued by the authority in charge of CSS, the CCA. In court, Kaleidescape pointed out that they had obeyed the contract to the letter: the contract didn't say anything about not copying the discs, or about the disc needing to be in the drive at the time of playback. (After they signed the contract, they received the technical specs, and the technical documents said "you can't copy the discs and the disc must be in the drive at the time of playback". Kaleidescape argued in court that this cannot be legally held to be part of the contract. The judge agreed.) Kaleidescape prevailed in court.

So, RealNetworks looked at this and said: clear legal precedent that this is legal to do. We had better do everything exactly the way Kaleidescape did it. So we ripped a bit-exact copy of each DVD, making no attempt to re-encode in MPEG4 or anything like that. We encrypted each disc image. We even made the UI pop up messages saying things like "remember, you can only do this if you own the disc". (It goes without saying, but RealNetworks also licensed CSS decryption, with all the hassles that entailed.)

Now, while Kaleidescape charged US $30,000 for their first model, and only US $10,000 for their "inexpensive" model, RealNetworks was going for a $300 price point on the consumer electronics product, and a $50 price point on the Windows software. No doubt this raised the level of concern from the MPAA; instead of a few rich people buying Kaleidescape units, the common people could buy RealDVD en masse.

The Windows software product shipped before we had the consumer electronics version ready to manufacture. It was sold by download, with an introductory price of $30.

The discussion here on Slashdot was nearly unanimous: hah, what morons those RealNetworks guys must be. Why would anyone buy a product that encrypts DVD images and is useless as a ripper, when we can just get Handbrake and do whatever we want?

Despite the /. scorn, the general consumer reaction to RealDVD was very positive, and sales were brisk.

Sales lasted about a week.

The MPAA picked a venue to sue RealNetworks, and asked the judge for an emergency injunction to shut down all sales of RealDVD. The judge (the same judge who ruled on the Napster case) granted the injunction.

This time, it wasn't a breach-of-contract suit. The DMCA gave them a big hammer and they used it. The judge agreed: DMCA says no copying, you guys are copying, you lose. There was more to it, but it was the DMCA that really did in RealDVD.

I wanted a RealDVD player in my living room. I believed in the product. It was not to be.

So when I saw this news, I figured the MPAA had used the DMCA to shut down Kaleidescape. Imagine my surprise when I found that it wa

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Re:RealDVD and Kaleidescape by cpu6502 · 2012-03-12 10:30 · Score: 2

+1 informative.
And it appears the original decision saying Kaleidoscape was "not infringing" was appealed by the DVD group to the Superior Court. Next it would go to the CA Appeals court, and then the CA Supreme Court. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.)

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Ruling Prohibits Kaleidescape From Selling, Supporting Movie Servers

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