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Ruling Prohibits Kaleidescape From Selling, Supporting Movie Servers

Posted by Soulskill on from the our-way-or-the-highway dept.

Stowie101 writes "Kaleidescape has lost its drawn-out legal battle with the DVD CCA. A judge has issued a permanent injunction that prohibits the sale and support, including product updates, of existing DVD movie servers. 'As part of the injunction, Kaleidescape and its dealers can no longer offer technical support for products that are already in the field, meaning existing servers can receive no updates or repairs.' Kaleidescape has filed an appeal and 'believes that under California law the injunction order should not come into effect unless the California Court of Appeal affirms Judge Monahan's decision.'"

9 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. So... by lagartoflojo · · 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.)

  2. Kaleidescape is... by earls · · 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.

    1. Re:Kaleidescape is... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · 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.

    2. Re:Kaleidescape is... by adnoid · · 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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      No sig
    3. Re:Kaleidescape is... by Genda · · 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.

  3. Re:Total BS by gmuslera · · 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

  4. Re:This comic seems appropriate by sanosuke001 · · 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
  5. Re:This comic seems appropriate by Anthony+Mouse · · 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.

  6. RealDVD and Kaleidescape by steveha · · 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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