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Another fine attempt assisted by the MPAA to shut someone down
Quoted by Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's movie studios face a key test in their battle to defend copyright holders from digital pirates, when a federal court in California this Friday hears a case filed by a maker of software that allows users to copy DVDs.
At stake for the studios are potentially billions of dollars in revenues that would be lost if nearly perfect digital copies of movies on DVD were sold in large quantities on the black market or circulated on the Internet in digital files.
But the privately held software maker, St. Louis-based 321 Studios, argues that its software is designed to protect DVD owners by allowing them to make backup copies in case their DVDs, which can cost as much as $30, get damaged or are lost.
The case, which will be heard in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, tests the limits of 1998's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), lawyers said.
The studios claim 321's software violates a portion of the act that makes it illegal for anyone to sell software used to break or bypass digital encryption codes.
But 321 argues that the DMCA allows software owners to get around encryption when copies are made for an owner's sole use.
"This is a very interesting, cutting-edge case," said 321's San Francisco-based attorney Daralyn Durie. "The first issue is what does the DMCA mean, and does it prohibit all circumvention of encryption, or does it only prohibit the circumvention when it's being done to engage in copyright infringement."
Durie contends that copying DVDs, for example, to use excerpts in critical reviews or by a teacher in a presentation to students, falls under the legal concept of protected "fair use." 321's software, called DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy, aids (news - web sites) in the "fair use" of copyrighted content, she said.
Not so, say the studios. "321 isn't making any fair use. They are stripping my copy protection," said Russell Frackman, the attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's major film studios.
"The law has never provided you have the right to get two-for-one" when you buy a DVD, Frackman said.
BILLION DOLLAR BABIES
The MPAA estimates that filmmakers already lose $3 billion a year in old-style, analog piracy, which is copying videotapes or taping movies in theaters or movie production offices with small video cameras and then reselling them on the black market.
While the MPAA has battled analog piracy for years, the practice has proved nearly impossible to stop. The industry has taken some solace in the fact that tape quality generally is bad and the distribution of tapes can be tracked.
The equation changes in the digital world, however, where copies are exact and can be put on the Internet for downloading to computers around the world.
Illegal copying and Web-based free swapping of digital music has wreaked havoc on the record industry. Global music sales in 2002 fell 7.2 percent from 2001 to $32.2 billion.
The MPAA is determined to avoid the same fate. To some extent, the free swapping of digital movies has been limited by the hours it takes to download a film with dial-up connections.
High-speed broadband links, however, reduce that time to minutes. California-based Adams Media Research expects broadband-linked homes to number 24.3 million by the end of 2003, up 41 percent from 17.2 million at the end of 2002.
The MPAA estimates as many as 400,000 to 600,000 digital movies are currently being downloaded everyday from file swap sites like KaZaa, Gnutella (news - web sites) and Morpheus.
"The (quality) of it gives me a Maalox moment," MPAA Chief Jack Valenti said at the ShoWest industry gathering in March.
Defendants are various film studio divisions of Sony Corp (news - web sites)., AOL Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney Co., Vivendi Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Pixar Animation Studios Inc. and Saul Zaentz Co.
Quoted by Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood's movie studios face a key test in their battle to defend copyright holders from digital pirates, when a federal court in California this Friday hears a case filed by a maker of software that allows users to copy DVDs.
At stake for the studios are potentially billions of dollars in revenues that would be lost if nearly perfect digital copies of movies on DVD were sold in large quantities on the black market or circulated on the Internet in digital files.
But the privately held software maker, St. Louis-based 321 Studios, argues that its software is designed to protect DVD owners by allowing them to make backup copies in case their DVDs, which can cost as much as $30, get damaged or are lost.
The case, which will be heard in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, tests the limits of 1998's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), lawyers said.
The studios claim 321's software violates a portion of the act that makes it illegal for anyone to sell software used to break or bypass digital encryption codes.
But 321 argues that the DMCA allows software owners to get around encryption when copies are made for an owner's sole use.
"This is a very interesting, cutting-edge case," said 321's San Francisco-based attorney Daralyn Durie. "The first issue is what does the DMCA mean, and does it prohibit all circumvention of encryption, or does it only prohibit the circumvention when it's being done to engage in copyright infringement."
Durie contends that copying DVDs, for example, to use excerpts in critical reviews or by a teacher in a presentation to students, falls under the legal concept of protected "fair use." 321's software, called DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy, aids (news - web sites) in the "fair use" of copyrighted content, she said.
Not so, say the studios. "321 isn't making any fair use. They are stripping my copy protection," said Russell Frackman, the attorney for the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's major film studios.
"The law has never provided you have the right to get two-for-one" when you buy a DVD, Frackman said.
BILLION DOLLAR BABIES
The MPAA estimates that filmmakers already lose $3 billion a year in old-style, analog piracy, which is copying videotapes or taping movies in theaters or movie production offices with small video cameras and then reselling them on the black market.
While the MPAA has battled analog piracy for years, the practice has proved nearly impossible to stop. The industry has taken some solace in the fact that tape quality generally is bad and the distribution of tapes can be tracked.
The equation changes in the digital world, however, where copies are exact and can be put on the Internet for downloading to computers around the world.
Illegal copying and Web-based free swapping of digital music has wreaked havoc on the record industry. Global music sales in 2002 fell 7.2 percent from 2001 to $32.2 billion.
The MPAA is determined to avoid the same fate. To some extent, the free swapping of digital movies has been limited by the hours it takes to download a film with dial-up connections.
High-speed broadband links, however, reduce that time to minutes. California-based Adams Media Research expects broadband-linked homes to number 24.3 million by the end of 2003, up 41 percent from 17.2 million at the end of 2002.
The MPAA estimates as many as 400,000 to 600,000 digital movies are currently being downloaded everyday from file swap sites like KaZaa, Gnutella (news - web sites) and Morpheus.
"The (quality) of it gives me a Maalox moment," MPAA Chief Jack Valenti said at the ShoWest industry gathering in March.
Defendants are various film studio divisions of Sony Corp (news - web sites)., AOL Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney Co., Vivendi Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Pixar Animation Studios Inc. and Saul Zaentz Co.
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