MPAA/Real Suit Could Start Server War
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 10/1/2008
Los Angeles — The movie industry’s copyright-infringement lawsuit filed here in U.S. District Court against RealNetworks could open up a new front in the industry’s war against home video servers, which copy DVDs and stream their content throughout the house.
Movie studios represented by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) allege that Real violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) when it began offering RealDVD, a $29.99 software package that copies movie DVDs to a PC’s hard drive for storage and playback. Up to four additional PCs can be registered with Real at a cost of $19.99 each to play copies saved to an external USB hard drive connected to the first computer registered to a user’s RealNetworks account.
The DMCA, the studios said in their suit, “prohibits the manufacturing or trafficking of any technology or
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To read PDF versions of the lawsuits please click here , and here . |
product, service or device that is designed for the purpose of circumventing measures that effectively protect copyrighted titles.”
The studios fear that Real’s software, and by inference DVD-ripping movie servers, will encourage consumers to rent and borrow DVDs and thus “cause immediate and irreparable harm” to the studios’ DVD rental and sales revenues, the suit contends. The studios are seeking a temporary restraining order, permanent injunction, and damages against RealNetworks.
The studios also contend that the successful defense by server maker Kaleidescape in a California state court has no bearing on the validity of its lawsuit. The MPAA suit alleges a violation of the federal DMCA, but in the Kaleidescape case, the trial focused on an alleged breach of contract under state contract law. In that suit, a state superior court judge ruled in early 2007 that the company did not, under California law, breach the terms of a license granted to it by the DVD Copy Control Association (CCA). The CCA is the authority that licenses the Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption and authentication technology used on DVDs and in DVD players to prevent unauthorized copying. That case, which is a civil but not criminal case, is currently under appeal by the CSS before a state appeals court.
“Real’s CSS license is no defense to its DMCA liability,” the studios contend in their suit.
Real and Kaleidescape don’t agree. In a preemptive suit filed before the MPAA filed its suit, Real asked a U.S. District Court in Northern California to rule that it fully complies with the terms of its CCA license. For his part, Kaleidescape chairman/CEO Michael Malcolm told TWICE that, based on the California ruling, it would be “immune to a DMCA claim.” The Act states that companies or individuals “can’t circumvent an effective [copy-control] technology,” he said. By definition, he continued, “circumvention means that you don’t have permission.”
MPAA disputes that claim. In the Kaleidescape case, the suit contends, “the trial judge’s decision turned on whether the DVD CCA license expressly prohibited the defendant’s conduct. Relying on state rules of contract interpretation, including that uncertainty is to be construed against the drafter of the contract, the trial judge held that prohibitions … asserted by the DVD CCA as the basis for its breach claim were not clearly ‘part of the contract signed by the parties.’”
Under the DMCA, however, “the proper inquiry is whether a copyright owner affirmatively authorized the circumvention,” the suit continues. “Under federal law, rights holders must affirmatively authorize rights, or they are presumed to retain them.”
Neither Real nor Kaleidescape describe their products as designed to circumvent copy-control technology. In fact, Real said its software “maintains the DVD encryption intact” and does “not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs.” So does Kaleidescape.
For their part, the studios contended that although RealDVD doesn’t break CSS encryption, it nonetheless violates previous court rulings on the DMCA, including one in which a court ruled that circumvention is not limited to breaking encryption. That ruling, the studio assert, found circumvention to include “avoiding, bypassing or impairing” an access- or copy-control measure, “any of which may be accomplished while leaving the measure physically intact.” The suit concludes, “By using authorized technology for an unauthorized purpose, Real avoids, bypasses, and impairs those very measures. In short, RealDVD circumvents CSS’s access- and copy-control protections.” The purpose is unauthorized under DMCA, the studio’s stressed, because copyright owners did not expressively give their permission to Real “to make permanent, playable copies of content on computer hard drives or to gain access to these unauthorized copies.”
Calls to Marantz, Fuze and other suppliers of DVD-ripping servers weren’t returned in time for this posting.
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The MPAA and the movie studios have to make up their minds (what little of it they have). Do I own the movie or do I own the right to play it? If I own the movie then I should be able to do anything I damn well please with that disk or tape I bought. That means unlimited copies for back up and copies for my PMP, computer phone etc. If they want me to own the rights fine as well. They just better be ready to replace that disk if I scratch it, replace all my VHS copies with DVD copies, my DVD copies with Blu-Ray copies and my Blu_ray copies with whatever follows it. It should also mean I can download this movie from their servers if they so offer it or download it via torrent as long as I have ledally purchased the rights. They can't have it both ways....
rcorrino - 2008-4-10 12:24:00 EDT -
Yah another ridiculous waste of money, courts time, tax dollars and resources. Rather than fighting a losing battle, why doesnt the MPAA/RIAA and any other anti piracy organization come up with a plan to deliver content for the digital age.
Solutions?
Rather than selling you a scratchable, piece of junk optical media, you buy rights to watch a movie, hosted ONLINE whenever you want for a cheaper price as theres no need to generate a physical copy. Wouldn't it be great if every new movie could be viewed with a 1 time cheap fee from the convenience of your own home using a network attached device and home television? I for one would pay 3$ to watch a movie once, and if i liked the movie (which i probably wouldnt) i would pay another 7$ to own the rights to watch it anytime through my streaming device. In a sense the "studio" could make 10$ off me without ever wasting any resource other than bandwidth which if purchased in a large enough quantity wouldnt cost them much at all, especially with the compression and video delivery options available today.
They would be smart to adopt the same policy for music. Piracy is an inherent issue in the world we live in, its not going away. But, to circumvent losses taken by piracy efforts, wouldnt it be good to architect an alternative for a reasonable price and have an on-demand solution for all entertainment (audio, video, etc). If you stopped wasting money on optical media, and stopped worrying so much about intellectual property laws, you would find that you could make a ton of money, monthly off every consumer with an internet connection, a computer, and a television by offering them everything they need in their homes for say 50$/month. I for one would pay 50$/month to have unlimited access to movies & music on my home entertainment system. Your system is flawed, and until you offer up something better and loosen your reigns on copyright and intellectual property wars that you will never win, we the people will always find a way to hurt your pocket.
Enough said, get smart, architect the future of entertainment and stop this senseless war!
-Your Mom-
your mother - 2008-3-10 13:28:00 EDT -
The whole DRM thing needs to go away. What happens to a customer who purchased a DVD and it gashed up or something to that extent, will the company who made the dvd provide the customer with a fresh, new disk at no cost? NO
Thats why people should totally be allowed to copy them and store that image file or avi file on there computers so they never have to worry about loosing the movie.
I love it when these idiots try to figure out new types of DRM encryption. Listen up morons, GETTING PAST YOUR ENCRYPTION ISN'T HARD AT ALL! GIVE UP ALREADY!! Develop your fancy encryption methods and ill show you a old school method of coping that will make you look like idiots.
GIVE UP MPAA!! your only wasting money.....and in these times of financial instability, those who don't use there money right end up with going out of business.
Deez Nuts - 2008-3-10 12:48:00 EDT -
JD,
Remember that the MPAA in the 1980s likened VHS players to Jack the Ripper in that it would mass-murder their business model for movie-goers to watch movies in the theater. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to eliminate VHS, camcorders, digital cameras, and anything else that can be used to break their ideal business model of charging you for every time you view a work, leaving ownership entirely in their hands and not in yours.
John Deer - 2008-3-10 11:15:00 EDT -
If they are trying to keep DVDs from being copied, why are VCRs allowed? You can always send a recodable signal between the two or to a computer. It may not be the best quality, but it works. Are we really going to make VCRs illegal now? So many people have TVs and DVD players with built in VCRs, and what about the old ones you might have forgotten about? If so I don't want somebody finding an old VCR or tapes in my property that I might not remember having and turning me in. Besides, VCRs have already been ruled legal in supreme court. Digital media copy protections can always be circumvented by crafty hackers so it is, and always will be, a black hole for the studios' money and other resources.
John Doe - 2008-3-10 06:52:00 EDT
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