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How a Fight Over Star Wars Download Codes Could Reshape Copyright Law (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge in California has rejected Disney's effort to stop Redbox from reselling download codes of popular Disney titles like Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, and the latest Star Wars movies. Judge Dean Pregerson's Tuesday ruling invoked the little-used doctrine of copyright misuse, which holds that a copyright holder loses the right to enforce a copyright if the copyright is being abused. Pregerson faulted Disney for tying digital download codes to physical ownership of discs, a practice that he argued ran afoul of copyright's first sale doctrine, which guarantees customers the right to resell used DVDs.
If the ruling were upheld on appeal, it would have sweeping implications. It could potentially force Hollywood studios to stop bundling digital download codes with physical DVDs and force video game companies to rethink their own practices. But James Grimmelmann, a copyright scholar at Cornell Law School, is skeptical that the ruling will survive an inevitable appeal from Disney. "I don't see this one sticking," Grimmelmann told Ars. Copyright misuse has such sweeping legal implications that an appeals court will be reluctant to apply it to a common movie industry practice.
If the ruling were upheld on appeal, it would have sweeping implications. It could potentially force Hollywood studios to stop bundling digital download codes with physical DVDs and force video game companies to rethink their own practices. But James Grimmelmann, a copyright scholar at Cornell Law School, is skeptical that the ruling will survive an inevitable appeal from Disney. "I don't see this one sticking," Grimmelmann told Ars. Copyright misuse has such sweeping legal implications that an appeals court will be reluctant to apply it to a common movie industry practice.
how do I not have a right to sell it? If Disney sells me a license, how do I not have a right to resell that license? And if I don't have that right then we're not even pretending to be a free market anymore, are we?
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Redbox purchased the DVD or Blu-Ray. They paid the same amount that a regular person would when buying the disc. The code can only be used once, so it's not like this is enabling mass piracy by everyone who rents the video or anything. What's the big deal?
If Redbox didn't sell the code, the first person to rent the disc would get it anyway and probably use it. It's not like Disney is losing any money from this.
They need to chill out and stop trying to stop people every time they find a way to do things that they did not anticipate when there isn't even a harmed party.
Copyright misuse has such sweeping legal implications that an appeals court will be reluctant to apply it to a common movie industry practice.
The Appeals Court: "It's so common that consumers are getting fucked up the ass, we see no compelling reason to change this established practice."
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Good! I don't want to pay for a shitty download code. I want the full quality disc.
They absolutely can prevent transfer of a license. The license is obtained by entering the code into a website, and that code is usable only once. That's not where Disney's argument falls apart from a legal perspective.
The problem with Disney's argument is that their reasoning, when applied to slightly different situations, results in a legal interpretation that fails the common sense test. Consider three scenarios:
In all three cases, the result is the same: I have a DVD and you have an electronic copy, and we each spent $5.
Nothing in Title 17 could plausibly explain why only one of these three transactions is legal, given that the end result and process are effectively identical except for trivial accounting differences. Such a requirement completely fails to stand up to the slightest bit of logical scrutiny, and any legal code that would result in such an outcome would have to be patently absurd.
Now the question of whether the second person (being not the original buyer) has the right to *use* the code is another question, but if you apply the same reductio ad absurdum to that, you get the same results.
So the correct question is not whether the judge's decision is correct — it very clearly is — but whether the particular path to that conclusion will survive appeal or will be replaced with a different path to the same inevitable conclusion.
You really have to wonder what Disney's lawyers were smoking to have believed that they could pull this off. IMO, it isn't just clear-cut legally; it is *laughably* so.
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The workaround for that seems pretty simple; they only have to specify that your license for the downloaded movie is only valid so long as you have the original disc. If you sell the disc then the license is revoked, and you have to delete the downloaded copy. This doesn't violate the "first sale" doctrine since you still retain the right to sell the disc.
I'm not sure whether that's part of their license or not ... if not then it was obviously a rather large oversight. Expect it to be rectified.
Disney would prefer to forbid Redbox from buying the discs at all, but haven't yet come up with a method for doing so.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
That's why this is a civil action against Redbox, and not a criminal proceeding.
Cars 3 was right at $20.
It's on Amazon right now BluRay, DVD and the code for the same price. (oddly, at the time of this post the combo pack I just mentioned is $0.19 cheaper than just the DVD).
I looked at a couple of other Disney releases on their site, with similar outcomes.
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