Small company offers copying software for DVDs

ST. LOUIS -- After two decades in computer consulting, Robert Moore pulled out his laptop and pulled his son aside, hoping to teach the young man a thing or two about dad's work.

What came of their brainstorming last year ultimately blossomed into 321 Studios, a developer and seller of DVD-copying software.

That put Moore -- an ex-Marine and college dropout -- on the front lines of one of the digital age's most volatile legal battles: the dispute between consumer rights and copyright protection.

Moore's adversary: Hollywood, which apparently believes products such as 321's flout a 1998 federal law that the movie industry contends bars the picking of electronic locks on copyright works.

"We're nothing compared to these guys; we realize that. We're a very, very tiny fish in a very large ocean," Moore, 42, said from his business in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield, dismissing the David vs. Goliath analogy as unapplicable here. "We're not even David's big toe."

Since mid-2001, the company has sold more than 100,000 copies of DVD Copy Plus, which allows people to copy DVD movies onto CDs. It includes code that cracks the copy-protection scheme used for most commercial DVD movies.

New software released over the weekend by 321 Studios, called DVD X Copy, also unlocks the so-called Content Scramble System.

The company says the $100 product, which requires a DVD burner, will make perfect DVD copies in 60 to 90 minutes -- a far cry from the hours that DVD Copy Plus, which burns movies onto CDs, requires.

"People already are making DVD copies; we're just making it simpler with a couple of clicks of a button," said Rob Semaan, 321's chief executive. "It's not so earth-shattering from the technology environment because that stuff already exists. What we're doing is bringing it to the mass market."

Last year, in a case brought by the movie industry, a New York federal appeals court ruled that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act bars the dissemination of computer code that circumvents the Content Scramble System -- or any other mechanism designed to prevent digital duplication of copyright material.

Moore said he had never heard of the law until a March newspaper story implied that products such as DVD Copy Plus might violate it.

Moore had considered making backup copies of DVDs as harmless as duplicating VHS tapes. But after reading the article, he said, "we all kind of freaked out."

Moore, a pastor's son, said he considered shuttering 321, fearing he might go to prison. He worried he might lose his dream house he helped build on a woody, four-acre spread by a lake -- the same place he and son Brian, 22, joined forces and minds at a kitchen table to create a company.

So in April, 321 Studios pre-emptively sued nine major movie studios in San Francisco federal court, seeking the right to sell its software.

Moore wants a judge to rule that 321's products are legal and do not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He considers court interpretations of the law to date overly broad, and believes its anti-circumvention provision is unconstitutional -- a claim that federal courts have rejected in other cases.

"Whether we knew or didn't know we were breaking the law was irrelevant," Moore said, adding that consumers should have every right to make backup DVDs to protect their investments in the plastic. "We're not thumbing our nose at copyright; we're standing up for the rights of consumers."

Motion Picture Association of America spokeswoman Marta Grutka declined to discuss 321, citing the litigation. But she said people behind products that circumvent a DVD's scrambling technology "are exposing themselves to criminal prosecution" under the DMCA.

Moore said he was hoping to reach common ground with Hollywood, "but we can't get anybody there to talk to us."

So 321 has moved to allay some of industry's concerns. DVD X Copy injects electronic barriers into the copies it makes to keep them from being duplicated further.

It also inserts digital watermarks and identifying information that Moore said can trace the source of any file that's transmitted over the Internet -- a feature studios are trying to include in the next generation of DVD recorders, players and discs.

Executives at 321 -- who say they pour all profits back into operations and won't publicly discuss the company's finances -- believe that Hollywood, thirsting for all-or-nothing control, has wrongly lumped their 28-employee business in with the Napsters of the world.

"We tend to think of ourselves as middle of the road, the voice of reason," added Semaan, a native Australian whose ventures also include co-ownership of St. Louis-based Internet service provider Access US.

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online based civil liberties group, agrees.

"There's no reason why regular folks should be unable to make copies of their own property," he said, arguing that Hollywood's broad interpretation of the DMCA is not what Congress intended.

"If people misuse and sell bootlegs on the street, by all means they should be stopped. But we shouldn't all be denied fair use because some misuse."

Not an arguement, but an observation. If this software is USED AS INTENDED, then I see no harm, no foul...But, how does anyone know how it will be used by the consumer? I might set up a little operation to copy and sell "Star Wars" for $5.00. with none of the production costs, I should be able to reap a tidy profit when the costs of raw disks come down to $.30. Is that fair?

Now if I was only using it to backup my own purchased movie/software, I would say that it is fair.

The question, it seems to me, comes down to how it is used by the public.

You're the lawyer, what do you and the courts think?

Copying a DVD over the internet from someone who PURCHASED the original, is no different than making a copy of a vinyl record, cassette tape, or CD that you bought and giving it to a friend .

There is a product, DVD Backup, for OSX on the Macintosh ostensibly for making backup copies of purchased DVDs. I suppose that we can now look forward to the movie-copying-police joining the ranks of the drug police, alcohol police, seat-belt police, dirty picture police, gun trigger lock police and our own homegrown Loudoun County VA pie police.

So 321 has moved to allay some of industry's concerns. DVD X Copy injects electronic barriers into the copies it makes to keep them from being duplicated further.

It looks as if 321 Studios is being quite reasonable. The movie industry should welcome them with open arms - because, frankly, one can find explicit instructions on the internet about how to do this anyway. And with the internet instructions I just mentioned, there are NO protections for copyright.

look at your observation.

USED AS INTENDED.
How it is used by the public is really not the issue here.
It is still legal to buy a handgun in this country and how often are they not USED AS INTENDED?
Should we make the purchase of guns illegal because they _might_ by used to commit a crime?

I agree with you. There is no reason to ban copying of DVDs or software/music CDs, etc., just because they MIGHT be misused.

I was addressing the statement that the other fellow made, that it's "okay" to make copies of intellectual property--whether LP, tape, CD, DVD, or whatever--and give it to a friend.

It's not. "Fair use" should be vigorously protected, but the casual attitude toward the law is causing the honest people a great deal of trouble.

and with that, I completely agree.
i think copyrights do need to be protected (the length of copyright is debatable however).
it just seems that all the major studios (read: copyright holders) want to f*ck the consumers' ability to make _legal_ backups of their data because it _might_ and _could_ be used to pirate their copyright. i say go after those who are illegaly trading and selling copyrighted material. leave the law abiding citizens alone.

Actually, you can make copies and give them to a friend. The "Audio Home Recording Act" of 1992. Summary at http://www.hrrc.org/html/ahra_summary.html. There are other views of the act, but I've only heard the RIAA avoid it rather than debate it (but when really pushed, they admit that you can make non-commercial copies for friends).

Copyright holders get a royalty from every sale of a recording device or recordable media (audio tape, writable CD, DAT,etc) which is used to pay for their "loss" of sale that occurs when you make a copy for a friend.

"Should we make the purchase of guns illegal because they _might_ by used to commit a crime? "

Same could be said about a BIC lighter... Are you suggesting we make BIC lighters legal?

i'm guessing you meant to say 'should we make BIC lighters illegal'
but therein lies the problem.
the argument shouldn't lie against the tool that could _potentially_ be used to commit a crime, but against the crime itself.
following the copyright holders' logic, guns/lighters/axes/software should be outlawed based _soley_ on their potential to be used in a crime.
you see the problem?

Copying a DVD over the internet from someone who PURCHASED the original, is no different than making a copy of a vinyl record, cassette tape, or CD that you bought and giving it to a friend .

Well I think the music studios didn't have as much problem with that because in those examples you gave there was quite a quality difference between the original and the copy. There was still a good reason to go out and buy an original. In this case there is virtually no difference in quality and that's the big beef here.

"you see the problem?"

Of course I see the problem. A person can make illegal use of almost anything (including BIC lighters)you would find in your home.

I bought a pair of bolt cutters a few weeks ago. Not to break into my neighbors shed, but to cut the padlock off my outside fusebox, that the key had been misplaced years ago.

Banning things that MIGHT be used in an illegal fashon is stupid.

Until fairly reciently, I would have thought that perhaps no one would need a hipodermic needle. That is, until I bought a refill kit for my inkjet...

Please note that this is not actually about "copy protection." You can copy a DVD to another DVD until the cows come home. What this is about is access control, which prevents someone from accessing the DVD in unapproved ways.

What this is really about is that Hollyweird was dissatisfied with Sony vs. Universal Studios and other court decisions that allowed consumers some Fair Use rights. They have sought to implement a technological barrier to Fair Use. That is what DMCA is all about. It seeks to outlaw the rights that courts have said consumers have, which would seem to me to be unconstitional on its face.

As my original post never stated that the SOFTWARE should be illegal, I wonder why you would think that I believe guns should be illegal? If you commit a crime with a gun or Bic lighter or bolt cutters, you have commited a crime. I would have no problem with you being judged in a court of law. But to own a gun, Bic lighter, or software for fair use, I said that would be "no harm, no foul".

Now I know that the article was about this software firm and it's troubles, but I thought I was clear that the crime would be in the USE of whatever object you buy, not the actions of this software firm.

wingy,
i'm with you on this, really.
simply pointing out the illogic of the copyright holders' arguments about making software illegal because it could be used to commit a crime.
i used the gun argument to point out the lack of logic in the copyright holders' (MPAA/RIAA) argument.

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