DVD Copy Control Association sues Kaleidescape for selling DVD jukeboxes
posted Dec 8th 2004 1:18AM
We always figured that somehow Kaleidescape, which makes those DVD jukeboxes we can't afford, was in the clear, but
the DVD Copy Control Association is suing the company, saying that it's not legal for them to sell a home server which
copies DVDs to a hard drive and then streams them around a home network. Kaleidescape says they're totally
flabbergasted by the suit, and they'd been working with the DVD CCA for over a year to make sure that their products
were 100% compliant with all the licenses and all that. The DVD CCA counters that while Kaleidescape did have a license
to use CSS (Content Scramble System, the relatively weak copy protection used for DVDs), but that the license doesn't
mean they can help people make copies of their DVDs (and it sounds like for them there are absolutely no circumstances
in which it should be legal to copy a DVD).
[Via LiveDigitally, which has
some on all this]
give me a break...
moving on...
does this mean i will be able to buy one of these on e-bay for cheap when the company folds?
Goddamn DMCA suit; that's the only thing this could be based on. Fair use, etc. etc. so this thing does not run afoul of any copyright law. What it does run afoul of (given that they're bringing up CSS) is the clause in the DMCA that forbids circumventing copy protection measures.
It's completely ridiculous because what the DMCA basically says in cases like this is "it may be legal for you to copy something, but it's not legal for you to access the thing which can be copied", in this case the direct bitstream on the DVD's. It makes no sense at all, and it pisses me off when I see the DMCA invoked in this way.
It's like they've sold you a car, given you the keys and then changed the locks on the doors. Then they tell you it's perfectly fine if you can figure out how to drive it off the lot, but it's illegal to enter it. If the world really worked this way it'd be pretty much impossible to do anything at all, but in terms of copyrighted digital media, that's exactly what the DMCA is saying.
They have nothing it is legal for a person to make only one copy of purchased media for the purpose of backing up having the ablity to stream it should not change that. If that right is abused it is the persons who is at fault not the company, this is commonly referred to as the Betamax Precedent, a result of Courts Decision on Sony V Universal
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
this can't be based on the DMCA, as Kaleidescape isn't circumventing any copy protection - they're copying the DVDs, leaving all CSS intact - which is why they were working with the DVDCCA and paying such huge licensing fees in the first place
ridiculous
on top of that, they have the nerve to sue for damages????
if you do the math, you can only fit 500 dvds in their system. I think that works out to about $60 dollars per dvd. Where are the damages?????
In the US, it is *not* legal to "make only one copy of purchased media for the purpose of backing up" - section 117 (the section I assume you're referring to) only refers to computer software. Copying to a hard drive for the purposes of streaming may well be fair use, however (assuming you own the DVD). Betamax only protects products that have substantial non-infringing uses - something designed to copy and archive DVDs probably doesn't have many substantial non-infringing uses, at least not until people start putting their home videos on to DVD.
As to damages, a legitimate concern would be people borrowing DVDs or subscribing to Netflix, but to be honest, anyone who can afford upwards of $25k for a DVD jukebox can afford to buy DVDs (although maybe not after buying the jukebox). And in copyright infringement suits, the plaintiff can opt for statutory damages of up to $30,000 per work ($150k for wilfull infringement), so the "$60 per DVD" maths is irrelevant.
with thing like this going on, piracy seems so small now
This is such crap. I dare anyone to find the slightest link between this high-end jukebox and copyright infringement, though msg 7's comment is daunting. that is one expensive toy that I don't understand why people would buy, considering even a high-end sony 100 disc dvd player is less than $400.
Does anyone know if a DVD has a unique ID label, similar to the number which is printed on each DVD and/or CD? If so, couldn't software be put in place and some provisionary ruling set forth where Kaleidescape systems would compress a table of contents of the disks (disk id number) which are currently loaded on the system and if a rental disk is found to be on the hard drive after a certain length of time, the owner could be subjected to an audit to see if they are indeed pirating DVDs by copying rental disks onto their system?
Or maybe another route could be that the system bundles the Table of Contents as suggested earlier in this message, and that the owner is required to turn in the physical disk once it has been loaded onto the system as proof of purchase, and if a system is found to have titles on it but no disc has been turned in the disk is considered to be pirated.
There's got to be a way that this system can be legal and like someone else mentioned, if you can afford to pay for this system and you also buy a disk collection (which probably costs more per disk than going out and finding a bargain price) you probably aren't going to turn around and risk legal action by copying movies you didn't buy onto your system.