DVD Copying Software Sparks New Legal Battle
from the copy-this dept
Here’s yet another legal battle of technology fighting Hollywood. A small company, 321 Software, that makes software to let people create copies of their DVDs has filed a lawsuit against the movie industry to have their software declared legal. On the face of it, their software violates the DMCA by circumventing DVD-copy protection schemes. However, the argument is that consumers have a fair use right to copy DVDs the same way they can make a fair use copy of a VHS movie or a CD, for personal use. I sense this is an uphill battle.
Comments on “DVD Copying Software Sparks New Legal Battle”
Why not go to court?
The only reason I can think that the movie studios don’t want this to go to court is that (heaven forbid) the judge might decide that 321 Studios is not breaking the law.
If the movie studios are so sure that what is being done is illegal, then they should be *demanding* that they go to court immediately.
What surprised me the most is that the D.O.J. is siding with the movie studios on this issue and asking that it not go to court. I thought that the D.O.J. was supposed to fairly and accurately represent everybody equally… guess if you have billions of dollars at your disposal, you get treated more ‘equally’ than others.
DMCA?
Wasn’t that one of the arguments of DeCSS? That making a bit for bit copy of a DVD wasn’t covered under the DMCA? I’m getting confused about this. There is no circumvention of anything. A bit for bit copy doesn’t circumvent anything!
Re: DMCA?
Except it’s not a bit for bit copy, it’s a copy made with the encryption removed. You can create a bit-for-bit copy of an encrypted DVD, but it won’t play in your DVD player. The section of the DVD that holds the CSS encryption key is not writable with a DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD+R/DVD+RW drive, and so making a bit for bit copy doesn’t really do you any good.