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DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera)
LWN's hometown newspaper (the Daily Camera) has an
article about a completely different DMCA case: 321 Studios is suing
the MPAA for the right to sell "DVD X Copy," a (proprietary) DVD copying
utility. "Seldom does a new product land in court before it lands on
store shelves. But that's the case with DVD X Copy, a new software program
that gives consumers a relatively easy way to burn a backup copy of a
prerecorded, copy-protected DVD movie. What's even more unusual is that
the lawsuit was brought by the program's maker, Missouri's 321 Studios
Inc., in an attempt to get a definitive ruling that making personal copies
of DVDs is a legal activity under U.S. copyright laws."
(Log in to post comments)
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 17, 2002 1:28 UTC (Tue) by tony_peden (guest, #531) [Link] IANAL, but doesn't someone have to *do* something before they can be sued?I don't like the MPAA anymore than they do, but I think they just might have a point.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 17, 2002 3:25 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Maybe 321 Studios actually wants to lose in court? There is something fishy here.They are charging $100 for some utility that amounts to a GUI interface to "dd" and "cdrecord". I don't think they care about fair use when it comes to their software.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 17, 2002 9:21 UTC (Tue) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] Yes, there _is_ something strange. But I think 321 Studio's lawyers may have advised them that it may be better to test the water with a toe rather than leaping directly into what may be a pool of piranhas. Unless you have some sort of proof that 321 Studio's action is being bankrolled by Hollywood interests, it seems reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt. For now.As for commerical organizations charging big bucks for what _we_ know is rather simple, well, lots of them do that - and many consumers are prepared to pay for the convenience. I mean, making hamburgers from raw ingredients is not exactly rocket science; many people have wheat & beef available, together with the hardware required to prepare & cook the ingredients, yet most of them seem to prefer to pay extra for the convenience offerred by McDonalds. (Or Wendys. Or whatever.) Freedom of choice here includes both the freedom for corporations to rip off gullible consumers, and the freedom for consumers to avoid being ripped off by greedy corporations. The real point here is that the DMCA is trying to do the equivalent of making it impossible to legally obtain a recipe for hamburgers, to obtain hardware capable of making hamburgers or to modify any other hardware so that hamburgers can be made using it.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 19, 2002 4:29 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I agree that the customers are prepared to pay for convenience, but do you think many people expect to lose over $100 worth of DVDs to be bothered to buy the software and blank media and spend time on doing backups?I'm all for the right to make backups, but I don't think that the business model of 321 Studios is based on those honest users. Most home users don't even backup their most important data.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 17, 2002 18:37 UTC (Tue) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] No, you don't have to do anything to be sued. And in this case they aren't "suing"; they are asking a judge to make a declaratory statement that their actions do not violate the DMCA.
DVD-copying program sets stage for legal showdown (Daily Camera) Posted Dec 29, 2002 2:38 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Terminology varies a little here, but in most court systems, asking a judge to make a decision of civil law is called "suing." The case in question here is in U.S. District Court, where that terminology does in fact apply.The LWN article contains an error, by the way. The defendant in this suit is not the MPAA. The defendants are a bunch of big movie studios that own copyrights on movies. In case you're wondering, in a case like this, what you sue "for" is called "declarative relief." I.e. rather than money or an injunction, you ask the judge just to award you a declaration that what you're thinking about doing won't make you liable to someone. Such a declaration has little legal weight and is rarely given in U.S. courts, which are really geared toward deciding very specific cases -- cases so specific that they can't effectively be argued hypothetically.
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