Comments on: MPAA wins settlement in DVD copy case

Shortly after 321 Studios closes its doors, the MPAA settles its copyright infringement suit against the company.

MPAA = Greed

The software is still out there on file sharing networks like Kazaa and gnutella, folks. Go get it. It's great for backing up your movies. How many of you have had to throw away a DVD because it got scratched and damaged?

This software isn't just about piracy, it's about protecting your investment in those DVD's. We did it with VHS tapes, we should be able to do it with over priced DVD's, too.

[Dachi]

More so than VHS

CD's are the same deal, I bet I could dig out some old cassette tapes that are over 15 years old from an old car at a junkyard and it would play just fine.

In contrast, I could go out front to my car and I bet 50% of the CD's laying around my car are damaged and skip.

Burned CD's have a short lifespan of only about a month in my car.

[ajbright]

Flawed judgement

The judge ruling in this case made her decision on flawed information, stating that it was possible to backup DVD's using analogue copying methods. As we well know, the macrovision technology implemented in all DVD players prevents this, so in fact there is no method of creating a good backup copy of a DVD, without resorting to some form of copy protection circumvention.

Whether you disable macrovision or break through the copy protection system on the actual DVD itself, you still run foul of the law, especially the flawed DMCA.

I am all for adequate protection of copyrighted material. However if the Hollywood studios are truly serious about keeping their ownership of their content, and not seeing the same mass distribution as the music industry has, they had better listen to public opinion.

The easiest solution would be to build in a limited number of copies solution to the actual disk - providing the backup software themselves - on the DVD. This way they could control the situation.

People are generally lazy, and if it's easiers, and cost effective enough, to just use a legitimate method of backing up the disk, then they will usually do it that way.

But if the only method available is the one that allows (illegaly) unlimited copies to be made of the same disk, then that's what's going to happen.

In the next few years we're going to have a broadband system that will copy a DVD in seconds. No amount of copy protection will stop these movies from being ripped from the disk and downloaded on an anonymous peer to peer system.

If the movie studios don't act now to allow legal backups, then they will suffer the same massive piracy that the music industry does today - and will have no real way to stop it.

[unknown unknown]

War on piracy, my butt. Try war on fair use.

The only reason they one is because they had the most money.

[PGHammer]

How the MPAA *won* its case

Basically what the MPAA did was lawyer 321 to death. They tied up the company with both preliminary injunctions (cutting off their cash flow) and using the DMCA (which is known to be flawed, as even the MPAA itself admits) against the company.

The chilling effect this has is already starting to circulate. Why else is Roxio getting rid of the entirety of their software division for basically chump change (a mere $80 million) and concentrating on the now-legal Napster? What does Roxio realize that Sonic Solutions (the company buying Roxio's software products) does not viz. the MPAA?

In fact, there will be only *two* mainstream companies in the DVD creation marketplace for consumers, Sonic Solutions and AHEAD (whose NERO Burning ROM is the closest thing to Roxio's own Easy Media Creator on the PC side of the street).

While the RIAA has gotten a clue (audio extraction is included in freely available PC products, including Windows Media Play and the competing RealPlayer; in fact, RealPlayer Basic now offers both high-bitrate *and* variable-bitrate options free!), the MPAA is defending Macrovision more viciously than the British Beefeaters defend the Crown Jewels!

Sonic Solutions, watch your back.

[johnclifton7590]

Industry Greed

It's hard to be sympathetic to an industry that charges $7 for buttered popcorn.