Posted on 02/24/2004 6:25:20 AM PST by Born Conservative
DVD copying software ruled illegal
11:10 24 February 04
NewScientist.com news service
Selling software bypassing copyright protection mechanisms on DVDs is illegal - even if the purpose is to make back-up copies for personal use, a California court has ruled.
The ruling clarifies ambiguities in the controversial Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), but is a blow to consumers who rely on back-up copies of DVDs to safeguard against damage to the original.
Ruling in favour of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on Friday, Judge Susan Illston said that within the next seven days, the software company 321 Studios of St Louis, Missouri must stop selling their software suite called DVD X Copy.
The software allows users to copy a DVD movie to a hard drive or to another blank DVD, even though the compressed MPEG code on the disc is usually digitally encrypted using the Content Scrambling System (CSS). CSS makes conventional copies unplayable.
The case was widely viewed as a test of the scope of the 1998 DMCA, which until now was ambiguous. Although the Act states that any "device" designed to "circumvent" a copy-protection mechanism is illegal - it also includes a get-out clause for "fair use". 321 Studios had hoped this clause would include making back-up copies of DVDs for personal use.
However, the court did not agree. "It is the technology itself at issue, not the uses to which the copyrighted material may be put," writes Illston.
Unscrambled code
But some lawyers disagree with this interpretation of the DMCA. "We don't think Congress intended to de facto eliminate fair use," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
She points out that the ruling does not make sense: "Under the DMCA, you have a theoretical right to fair use. But this ruling shows that if you provide a tool for fair use you can't use it."
Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer at Morrison and Foerster in Washington, DC, agrees: "It's bad public policy and it makes no sense."
321 has been selling its DVD X Copy software since the end of 2002, for $100. X Copy uses a conventional DVD ROM player to unscramble the MPEG code for legitimate playback, and then sends it to a temporary cache file on the PC's hard drive. From there X Copy copies the unscrambled MPEG code onto a blank DVD using a conventional DVD burner.
Well-priced product
321 had hoped that the recent increase in the popularity of DVDs combined with their obvious fragility would persuade the court that this was a case of fair use. "The MPAA has not brought any real evidence to light that anyone has used our software in an illegal way," says 321 Studios spokesperson Julia Bishop-Cross.
For unlike the music industry, which is lashing out at file-sharers because of a plunge in sales, DVD sales are on the rise. "This is the clearest example of a complete lack of any need" to outlaw the 321 product, says Band. "DVDs are a good-product, well-priced so people are willing to spend the money."
321 will appeal the ruling. Because the decision was based on the interpretation of a murky section of the DMCA, Band says it is possible that it will be reversed. "It's conceivable that court will look at it and construe it differently," he told New Scientist.
I may be wrong, but that's my understanding.
Good Luck. I have the program (paid for it) and I can tell you that it is an act of congress to get it to work. You have to call the company to get release codes and often that does not even do the trick. You have to recall and hopefully by the third time it works. It is a series of release codes that require the first the release the second to release the third ect...
I would quickly buy the program while you still could and make backup copies. It does work great btw...I have made about 5 or 6 DVD's myself, but it is time consuming and often the longer movies take 2 disks instead of one because the multi-layered originals can not be duplicated on just one single layer dvd-r. I use the DVD-R format, but have a Sony that will do most other version (ex. Dvd+R) too.
Smile
LowOiL
Unless the program has a version for Mac's, I'll have to pass.
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