Posted on 11/11/2002 2:38:20 AM PST by Illbay
Associated Press
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."
Hollywood sees things differently.
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."
The lawsuit is scheduled for another court appearance this month.
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."
iBill.com, the payment center, did refund the money on my Visa account after a few weeks of complaining.
I've always regarded such arguments as fallacious. If a product has a reasonable, verifiable legal use, then it should be allowed. These sorts of arguments are what they use against guns, VCRs (in the old days), and numerous other products. It could also be made against cars (used by criminals to flee crimes!), bricks (used to break windows!), televisions (used to show Madonna movies!), etc. etc.
Exactly right, and that is what is wrong about this "strong" interpretation of the DMCA.
If I did, I'd be a Democrat.
I agree, WITHIN LIMITS. For instance, I think that it is ridiculous to press this issue of "medical marijuana," because marijuana is not the only, nor even the best, remedy for pain, nausea, etc., associated with cancer treatment (the most often used excuse).
Therefore, since no one is being harmed by pot being illegal, no harm/no foul.
If you go DVD -> VHS -> DVD, there will be such a loss, occurring at both arrows.
Thankfully we are blessed with an inheritance of looking for the good in things -- at least in the "presumption of innocence". The Constitution recognizes it too: "the pursuit of happiness." Notice it doesn't say "protection from bad things" or specify some "right to be free of fear", or to "rescue from evil", etc. Instead we have charteed a government that will enable and allow us to "pursue happiness". That is, our Government, by its very charter must look for how a thing a man makes may be used for happiness! By charter, ir MAY NOT overweigh considerations of how a thing may by wrongfully or dangerously used. The aspect of happy usage -- use for the good -- should be considered primary, and weighedly.
In fact, the purpose of CSS is to enable the studios to enforce cartelization (e.g. the use of region coding to allow the fixing of prices at different levels in different markets without being undercut be grey-market imports) and to control use of lawfully purchased products (e.g. the fast-forward lockout to force the viewer to wait through the ads on some DVDs).
If they can lock up the media completely, the next step will be to convert purchased media to pay-per-view (on top of the original purchase price).
Actually, yes, DMCA in and of itself is the problem. The sort of bootlegging that ought to be illegal already was illegal before DMCA; the new law served no purpose except to enable the various price-fixing and access-control features described above.
I've always regarded such arguments as fallacious. If a product has a reasonable, verifiable legal use, then it should be allowed.
Then we agree. Once again, if you use a product for a criminal purpose then you are libel for that crime. The maker of the software need take no blame. As I said, if the product has a legitimate use, the manufacture of that product should have nothing to worry about.
Exactly! Don't blame the software maker for someone illegally copying. Don't blame the gun manufacturer if a user kills someone. Don't blame the bartender if a drunk driver crash their car. Put fault where it properly lies: with the user of the tool, not the maker of the tool.
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