Kaleidescape vs. DVD CCA: Judge Rules Against Movie Servers - Page 3

Wait a few minutes . . . I need to stop reading, make some popcorn and open a coke . . Then get back to read some more. This is better than a 3D movie.

I think this is a valid analogy. While I support the movie companies rights to sell poor products at high prices, I do not support their rights to sue me for using their products in a fair way that they don't want me to. Just like state regulation and state-owned production can be said to be state-intervention in the free exchange of goods between manufacturers and consumers, I believe that excessive laws allowing anyone to sue anyone over anything is state-intervention in the free exchange of goods.

Encryption devices that serve no other purpose than to disrupt natural competition is a bad thing for society, it serves only to conserve market share among those who happen to be large (instead of those who have good products). It should probably be legal for HP to have such technology in its inkjet printers to avoid competition from leaner manufacturers of ink, but I see no benefit from allowing HP to sue over this.

I do believe that society exists to serve its citizens. Any law should be critizised on this premise. The reason why private companies are allowed and protected by certain laws is that they tend to be more efficient at providing products and services to the people at a price where many can afford it. The fact that some can become very wealthy in the process is a by-product, and I am not that concerned with the income of Hollywood owners.

-k

How are these encryption devices interfering with natural competition? Anyone is still free to put out unencrypted content any time they want. Anyone is free to give away their work for free any time they want. Anyone is free to start a music or movie company based on their own view of how one should be operated, any time they want.

And, for the Xth time, no one is going to sue you as an individual if you have the legal purchased discs on your shelf, and you aren't sharing them on the internet. You know that that's not going to happen. It would be a vast waste of time and money on their part, not to mention that they would have zero way of knowing about it, because you never got that content by downloading it illegally (which is how they might find and take an interest in you.)

Say I want to manufacture a HDMI video processor. Do you think that HDCP in any way affect the start-up cost of my company? The profits? The result is that people will have to use video processors at worse price/quality trade-offs because many upstarts never see day of light.

Say I want to have my car fixed. I can go to a Toyota licenced dealer that will charge $500 or a guy at the corner charging $100 for a simple change of wheel bearings. Now, throw in the possibility that Toyota has an encrypted protocol (protected by the DMCA) that pair this bearing to my car: using an (original) bearing that is not white-listed in Toyota HQ means that the car won't start. Fine, the guy on the corner is a handy guy, and he is able to break this protocol, meaning that the new bearing (that is made in Toyotas own factory, or by their own subsupplier) appears as "legal" seen from the car. My car starts, and FBI pays a visit to the car repair guy because he have jeopardized national security by violating the DMCA. The end-result is that we (society) allow Toyota to disrupt the natural competition and thereby have to live with their price and availability on easily servicable parts, not only by technical means, but by force (putting people in jail is something that society does, not Toyota).

The real issue is the connection between technical measures (encryption) and law (breaking the encryption may put you in jail). Of course, one may hope that Chinese manufacturers don't care about counterproductive western law practice and just manufacture the products that people want, that solves the day-to-day problems that people have, and that make our society just a little bit more efficient and a better place to live. I do hope so.

I think that society loose from this state-intervention in the free exchange of goods (excessive use of law). So Warner does not like me running AnyDVDHD in order to watch Harry Potter in HD over a VGA cable, or the forced poster saying that FBI may put me in jail for 5 years for some crime (that is totally irrelevant in the country that I live)? Fine, stop selling Harry Potter movies. It is as simple as that.

I see the point of copy-right and patent law as a way to encourage making content and publishing ideas. But our present western interpretation got it all wrong: the point is not primarily to make Microsoft or Sony or lawyers or whoever richer. The point is to make society better, to progress the arts and science, to give us better products at a better price and to reduce unemployment.

I am scared by the impression that the US actually protect its companies better than its citizens. That if you have the money you seemingly can buy a law or a president that fits your business model. The fact that whatever happens in the US tends to happen here in Europe a few years later.

-k

If that's your argument, you are on pretty shakey ground. There are quite a number of small companies that make video switching gear that is HDMI complaint. And isn't most of the low level HDMI stuff based on a chipset that someone would incorporate into their design? If you decide to get into any industry as a hardware manufacturer there are lots of costs you have to deal with, probably a lot worse than that one.


It's a little hard to reduce unemployement if your industry has collapsed by half over the last ten years due to theft of your product. You can't have it both ways. The point of copyright is to protect the creations of people who create intellectual property, so that they will create the products and companies that reduce unemployment and make society better off. If they cannot protect their investments that's when they won't see the light of day.

Try going to a venture capitalist and pitching a company that depends on an idea that you can't protect. Probably you won't get very far.


I'm not sure I see it like that. There was originally copyright law, it worked well. But, it turned out that the only reason it worked well is because consumers didn't have a means of breaking that law on a large scale. Unfortunately the internet provided them with that. When that happened, the protections that these companies have always been due basically vanished.

The original laws assumed that any piracy that could damage was for profit piracy that involved organizations and infrastructure that could be gone after legally, either by the feds or by law suits depending on the type of piracy going on. But that's no longer the issue. The issue is now millions and millions of people stealing content, and current laws just don't address that. There's no way anyone can sue millions of people.

So something has to give. IP creators cannot continue the way things are going. What has happened to the music business will happen to movies, and eventually to software. These are not small industries, and software of course is very important to our way of life and infrastructure. Not to mention that all of these industries are some of the few that this country actually has built up an advantage in, and other countries are ripping us off in a huge way, and now of course our own citizens have joined in the fun.

Ultimately copyright infringement is going to have to move from a civil issule to a criminal one because of the way it's changed. It would be like expecting grocery stores to deal with theft by suing people who steal from them. It's pretty crazy that if I steal a $1.98 something or another from your grocery store I can get a ride downtown in a police car. But if I steal $1980 worth of your intellectual property the only way to deal with me is to spend many times that over sueing me, and ultimately you'll lose even if you win. And of course you'll have people all over the internet talking about what an evil schmuck you are, harrasing people like that.

Please realize this judgement was rendered on appeal. This means the first judge agreed with K-Scapes position. K-Scape left the CCA license intact on their DVD Juke.

There's a famous saying in in gun advocate circles: Pardon me while I don't wait for the governments permission to protect myself.

I say to the movie industry: Pardon me while I don't wait for permission to protect my investment. I don't give copies away (I do however purchase a copy and give that away).

Digital copy isn't the same as the original from my understanding. If you get a BR title the digital copy isn't a BR quality. It is bit rate limited. Sorry but that isn't good enough.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. And for the bonus prize money question: How do we protect digital data? With a BACKUP. I've been backing up stuff since the 5.25" floppy disk drive was in vogue.

What you described is simple everyday nature of the business. The 2009 case stemmed from a potential customer paying someone to hack our protection wrapper.

What happened is the software wasn't working correctly (big surprise there) and a low level employee called us for support because our product wasn't working We switched up to another protection wrapper.

If you want to get up to bat you have to risk getting hit by the ball. The movie industry doesn't seem to understand this even though they have the historical hindsight to know this.

With the Pepsi, if you give it to me, you don't have it anymore. You don't take that 2L bottle and turn it into 2000L and give or sell it to 1000 others.

Buy a painting and make copies of it and someone will have a problem.

I thought we were allowed to make one back up of a movie we own?

I can understand where they are coming from but I think they need to find a happy ground for their customers that wants access to their whole collection without getting.

James

I would love to see your proof of this. I'm from Texas. And that comment sounded crazy even to me. Rick Perry is my governor. He says alot of crazy sh*t so I'm not surprised by crazy sh*t that people say when it comes to politics. That one surprised me.

I would love to see a poll to find out how many people that commented on this thread have actually illegally downloaded movies or music. Or who have movie servers, whether its a Kaleidascape or DIY, that have rented a movie, ripped, and returned it. And of those people, whether they support the ruling or do not.
If you guys invested 50 million dollars into a movie and it was being illegally downloaded, or rented ripped and returned, you wouldn't be happy about it. Especially if you lost several million dollars on the movie or broke even.
Money makes the world go 'round. It's not love, peace and brotherhood. People, like myself (I'm not wealthy by the way, I'm a middle class guy), want a return on their investment.

Interesting you bring up the music business. Music producers did not innovate. They did not react to innovations (music files/ipods). And then after the new technologies exploded, the music producers reacted in a protectionist way. They don't try to adapt, they try to control by trying to create legal ways they can shut down those who did innovate, so they can then dominate the innovated market.

That's exactly what's happening here. The movie business didn't see Netflix coming, didn't see cloud storage coming, HTPCs coming. Now they are trying to take steps to remove the companies that did in order to dominate the new form. They basically signed agreements with people that were not in the movie producers best interest because they weren't forward looking.


Arguing about CDs getting scratched is pointless. What K-Scape provides will exist, it will just be owned by the movie studios. It's just a matter of whose cloud it is. The movie studios want to control access to their product after the purchase. That way they can shape the market in the way they see fit, rather than let innovation happen by whoever is willing and able. It's consolidation, and it happens in most industries.



This is more a SOPA thing, but the grocery store can't just detain you and throw you in jail. Nor, if you parked in a private lot, make the lot detain you. Or more accurately, blow up the parking lot since it provided the space in which a thief stationed his/her getaway vehicle.
IP is a murky subject for sure. Although it seems it is already criminal, what with what happened to the megaupload guy.

Who's supporting SOPA:

http://finchclasses.blogspot.com/201...opa-while.html

Who supported DMCA:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-...t-act-dmca.htm

Who backed copyright extension:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyrig..._Extension_Act

The common backer of all those laws was....wait for it...the record companies and movie studios. It's not a secret record companies and movie studios lobby politicians to get protection that our founding fathers had not intended. The RIAA has given up on DRM and lawsuits againsts individuals because it was hurting sales, the MPAA needs to do the same because their physical sales are dwindling. Kaleidescape products are a closed system and people who can afford them are buying DVD's, I hope they appeal to the US Supreme Court so we can finally get a ruling on encryption and fair use.

I too would be interested in these results, but have a feeling that you wont find many people doing it illegally that answer that question in black and white.

That said, it leads me to a question that hasn't really been asked in this thread, but something that I have thought of in the past... What if you are the person getting movies from RedBox or Netflix, ripping the movies and rolling your own media server... How can it be enforced, specifically if you aren't sharing it? When it comes to the legality, someone can answer - "I bought the DVD, ripped my back-up copy, and my kid lost/broke the DVD." That is the purpose of the back-up copy as I understand it... So, how would anyone prove any different? I don't know how many people are spending the time to do this, but certainly see it as something particularly difficult for Hollywood to handle.

Unfortunately, with regard to the details of the ruling itself, I really don't completely follow what that does to the media server industry (I simply haven't read enough about it) - and more specifically those who DIY their own. I assume there would be no impact to the latter as of now.

Ok, I think most here agree that uploading a bit perfect copy of a movie to the Internet is wrong and should be illegal. I also think most of you can see the financial damage that would occur if this were to run unchecked.

So, what do you propose as a solution in preventing this yet satisfies the fair use rights?

Let's hear it. You don't like the current proposals and rules, what would you do?

Has nothing to do with the thread which is about the current, on appeal ruling, against k-scape.

K-scape won round 1, round 2 went to the CCA. Will there be a round three?

You are only half correct. You didn't finish the thought unfortunately. Copyright was never intended to have the effect of copyright in perpetuity.

Copyright was there to allow content creators:

1. Realize/maximize the most reward for original creation
2. Limit the time of protection as to spur more creative works
a> By encouraging the original rights holder to do something else
b> Allow works enter and be used out of the public domain

Disney borrowed quite heavily from the Public Domain and profited handsomely. What have they given back?

i agree. I want to do things legaly to protect my small investment in the dvd or cd I buy. I just want to easly back it up and put on my private server and keep it not sell it. I dont want to have to download some encription breaker and jump through a bunch of hoops to do it either. Make it just as easy as backing up my cd collection. You know like when I put in a cd I just bought and Itunes comes on and asks me if i want to download to my collection. something like that.

This is one of the oldest and most misleading arguments that ALWAYS gets thrown out in these arguments. Look, the fact that the music business didn't jump up immediately and start selling music online in absolutely no way affected the current situation. If they had, it would still be the way it is now. Everyone knows that there are legal sources. There is now an entire generation of kids who came into their music buying lives with iTunes already an established fact. But they still steal music by the truckload, because it never had anything to do with the fact they couldn't buy it, then or now. It has to do with the fact that one of them would require that they give up something else, and one doesn't. So they take the path that allows them to have the music and go spend the money on something else.


Try to go into the grocery store and openly fill up a bag of groceries and leave, and see what happens if they have anyone there physically capable of stopping you. And of course SOPA wouldn't in any way provide either of those capabilities to anyone either, so that's just hyperbole for the sake of demonization.


But it's not. It's extremely simple. People try to make it murky by bringing up lots of completely unlikely corner cases and then argue back from that to make out like just ripping off a song is now some gray area thing.

1. Buy your media legally
2. Don't share your media on the internet
3. If you make a copy for backup, treat it like a backup, not another working version of the media, i.e. don't rip it to your hard drive then sell or give away or lend the original.
4. #3 applies to rentals, you don't have the right to rip and keep rentals.

If you follow those simple rules and you have basically zero chance of having any issues.


That was organized copyright infringement for profit, and it also included other criminal charges. So that's not really related to individuals.

Well, there was that little thing called a large number of the most popular kids movies of all times, which millions of kids have grown up loving. That's like someone in another thread asking what did the music industry ever give the world. Well, all of the great music of the last 7 or so decades. Not exactly a small thing.

And people have to recognize that what copyright is mostly applicable today is not poems written from Waldon Pond, but entertainment created for commercial purposes. It's a lot more expensive than writing poetry, and very little of it is of the sort that is going to enhance the finer arts by going into the public domain. The only reason anyone would want it in the public domain is to get it for free, and almost none of it is going to have any value beyond even a 20 year copyright term unless someone contnues to put money into it to keep it a viable product.

So things are just different today in terms of how IP is created. Copyright was extended to reflect this change, and it's not permanent, though people keep saying that as though it's true. Anyone is always free to put their works into the public domain if they want. Why don't you put your software product into the public domain? Copyright reform starts at home, right?

As to encouraging them to make more, I don't think that the copyright length in any way discourages companies from making more product, at all. So that's not much of an argument for shorter copyright. Staying financially viable, and in fact having a surfeit of cash, is what encourages companies to invest in new product and create new jobs.

Who do you think would back copyright extension, the Farmer's Association? And what companies, vastly larger than the music industry and who are making vastly more money than the music industry from the flow of stolen content put in a lot of money to fight SOPA and to use their much greater influence and visibility (by blanking out web sites) to pressure the government not to pass the law?

Don't act like it's just the music and movie industry who is working for their own interests here. Companies like Combast and Google have a very strong interest in continuing the free flow of other people's work, because they benefit tremendously from it.

And ultimately it's the individual artists and workesr in those industries who are getting ripped off, though everyone always tries to make out like those industries consist purely of a small ground of incredibly rich people and nothing else.

C'mon your a software developer. You under stand timing and historical context.

So Disney IS allowed to benefit from the copyright laws (at the time a more reasonable time table for works to enter public domain) but NOW in 2012 others are not.

Disney can use some one else's creative works to build their company, but no one can use their creative works. That's called having your cake and eating it too.

I'm not debating Disney's contribution. I'm saying it's messed up that they got their start with someone else's work and when they finally figured out their own content they also figured out a way to close the door that they entered through behind them.


This has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. You're making excuses.


Copyright worked for a few hundred years with it's limits before hitting the public domain. I don't see why the old style (even post Bern) couldn't have worked.

Our Version 1.0 was written in 98. We are at version 4 and currently writing 5. I have no problem surrendering our 1.0 under the old school time line to the public domain under a sharing license.

No, that's called being alive at the time your stuff is under copyright. Their stuff will pass into the public domain when the time comes as well, and then 100 years from now, there will be another thread were someone complains that ExoComp built their stuff on all those Disney stories but now one else can use their creative works.

And, as I asked before, what was the creation date on those stories. The most famous one, that I just happen to know, is The Sorcerer's Apprentice, would which I think have been out of copyright under the current copyright period because it was created in the like the mid-to late-1700s or so.


It's absolutely valid. When copyright was a lot more about 'art', then it's a lot different from when it's almost completely about commerce, which is a much more expensive undertaking.


That's because putting out your version 1.0 won't do anything to reduce sales of your 4.0 because they aren't the same product. With movies and music they ARE the same product.

It's not misleading and it's not about selling music online. They didn't see it coming and they ignored when it got there. They didn't try to shape the market. They still really haven't gotten ahead of it. They didn't miss the record to tape or tape to CD, but they sure as heck missed CD to digital music files. Who knows what it would look like now if they hadn't? One can only surmise. My guess is they would've protected and desseminated their product themselves. Maybe they would've made agreements with amazon and itunes like they have now, or maybe they would've had their own service, DRM protected, where you'd pay per DL or something.




You didn't quote the whole paragraph, specifically the analogy of the private parking lot, which is what SOPA would enable.




It is murky. Not because uploading content onto a server is some kind of gray area. The VCR allowed people to break copyright, and to back up their movies. If the device allows for both, who is at fault for using the machine to do the former? And who is going to investigate and enforce copyright violations on the individual level? Who would want to go after their own customer base? Not to mention there are benefits content creators have when it is shared, in the form of enticing consumers to go out and buy stuff. You are more likely to buy a movie or song you like having heard it from someone else than to do it sight unseen/sound unheard. Doesn't seem so cut and dried to me. Not to mention, it seems to me in this case, unless I misunderstand, K-Scape did not resell anything, nor is it a filesharing site.

You seem to think I'm some apologist for music/movie sharers, but I assure you I'm not. I barely know how to download or upload stuff, don't want to, and am happy to pay for something I want.


Being an artist(visual) myself I support earning your pay for your creation. However, ultimately the people who are getting ripped off depends on who owns the rights, and how they got them. The individual artists could easily have been ripped off way before the content became shared.

The technology didn't exist to protect their product then, or now, so that wouldn't have happened.

So now you assume to understand someones motives of putting source code out into the public domain? You seem to miss the fact that there is intrinsic value in us putting 1.0 out there at some point. You keep equating everything back to a singular motive of profit. If you see everything as $$ related then all problems become $$ to you. If you can't see beyond that than you have my sympathies.

Oh dear... How many versions of Star Wars is out there now?

I'll let our respective points of view speak for themselves. Any thing more and we are just going round and round. Be interesting if this goes to the next court. Remember K-Scape had to have some standing as they won the first round of court.

That's what drives me crazy. That one can find acceptable to have "basically zero chance" of having any issues. I.e., laws are such that you can pay EVERYONE what they ask, behave the way you should, and STILL have A CHANCE to have issues. Because you are still a criminal, just not one that will be caught. You made the copy, so YOU ARE A CRIMINAL.
Think about it. Would you find acceptable the idea of buying a loaf of bread, pay the price, say goodbye to the baker, eat your bread where you want, when you want, and "have basically zero chance of having any issues?". I know I don't. I don't like the idea of being treated like a lucky criminal, when what I did was NOT WRONG.

Woah, wait, youu are changing the argument. You were complaining about their length of copyright, then you said you wouldn't care if you had to put out 1.0 of your product. And that's fine, from your perspective, because 1.0 will be so low function compared to 4.0 that it's no skin off your back to do it probably. Though I suspect your company won't actually do it.

But for them, there's no new version of almost all movies. The fact taht there are a number of Star Wars doesn't really change that in any realistic way. If it's free, it's free and they have a lot more to lose than you do.

They aren't trying to control your life. They are trying to protect their work. If you aren't threatening their work, then there's nothing to be gained by them messing with you. The problem is that they cannot know ahead of time who is honest and who is not. SO they cannot make up one set of rules and say, OK, these apply to honest people and these apply to dishonest people. So they have to try to have legal ammunition against dishonest people, and because a key aspect of what those people are doing is ripping the media so that they can share it or keep rentals or keep copies of friend's rentals and so on, it's hard for them have one rules that says honest people can rip and dishonest people can't.

Maybe someone will invent it for them.