DVD CCA is trying to put Kaliedescape out of business by changing their licensing

Quote
'" that the reason the DVD CCA sued Kaleidescape in the first place is that the organization's influential board members didn't have products to compete with the Kaleidescape server"

Who is/are those influential board members? Microsoft?

Apparently other CE manufacturers.

Is this a green light to do an HD Kaleidescape?

Not necessarily. They tell me that they're waiting for more of the HD war dust to settle.

I have to think that the AACS agreement has been polished to insure that Kaleidescape-like activity can be more tightly controlled. After all, this Kaleidescape conflict has been going on for several years now.

Although, many may be "grandfathered". Let's keep our fingers crossed that this will allow further development/entry in this market.

Yee-ha! I hope they win their countersuit as well.

While it feels good to see the agressor not prevail, it is even nicer to see a bully just flat out get their teeth kicked in.

As a shareholder in K, is is really nice to have what they had been saying all along come out in a decision by the courts.

For DVD, perhaps, but grandfathering doesn't apply to HD. Again, it's a completely separate agreement.

And they are a member of both consortiums

That's the first good news on the DRM front I've heard in a long while. Kudos, Kaleidescape!

Hopefully they will be able to bring their products to Australia (and other countries) soon too.

This is a long time coming expected result. I had a feeling from way back when this thing first started that K was in the clear. Of course, as a K owner, I was banking on it. However, when you heard things like the DVDCCA arguing about the "spirit" of the contract, it seemed like they didn't have a case. If you're making that argument, it's likely you are doing so because certain specific wording isn't in there. As such, and affirmed by the judge's decision here, K didn't violate the contract terms.

It will be very interesting to see what happens going forward. Seemingly, we could see this market open up with new competitors using the same route that K took. What would be more interesting is if we also see major software publishers using the ruling to provide legal ripping tools on computers. I know, CSS-less tools are out on shelves now, but I'm talking about seeing mainstream big boys like Apple, MS, Adobe, etc offer legal DVD ripping tools with CSS keys. I don't know if the specifics of this "loophole" could be used for software solutions, but it would be cool. Having DVD ripping in something like iTunes would really change things for the better.

As for HD, I doubt this changes things much and may even serve to delay things. You have to think that the DVDCCA's lawsuit against K was considered when the HD-DVD and BR formats were being finalized. As such, you'd expect that contracts for key usage for those formats specifically forbids doing what K did. Beyond the lawsuit, they had to be keeping the future in mind a la MMC. It would be dumb to have a situation where manufacturers could offer content extraction solutions to consumers via loopholes in the key contract instead of through MMC. After all, MMC is likely to be an additional revenue stream for the studios and they'd want to protect that. So, this ruling could have the content owners asking more questions to make sure that the same doesn't happen with these HD formats before they sign off on MMC.

Who knows when we will see MMC ratified into the final AACS spec? It looked like it would happen last Summer, but here we are almost a year later and nothing. I don't even see it being discussed in industry publications. That's not good. You have to wonder if the new crop of online video content distribution models and advances made in HD-DVD and BR ripping tools have cooled the content owners' interest in MMC. Man, I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if MMC stays delayed for quite some time.

Jeff

Aus has differnet laws.

Great news for K!

Does anyone have a link to the ruling?

BTW, based on the article it doesn't sound like good news in terms of HD-DVD/BRD because it sounds like it was just a technical thing that the part discussing unauthorized copying of DVDs was not part of the contract.

So it doesn't sound like news either way in terms of the HD formats and servers. I guess no news is good news.

So their big beef was that K could rip a copy-protected DVD to a hard drive.

K is infinitesimal compared to the user-base running a product like AnyDVD.

- Andy

K had licenced the CSS system. Any DVD and all the likes are flat out illegal.

I realise this, apparently they say they are working on it, hence why I said I hope it comes here.

Q^3, the term is Mandatory Managed Copy...

Best,

If it is Mandatory, then where is it? Tongue in cheek....

One thing I have not understood re: K licensing...Is it possible for new entrants to get the same license deal that K got? Or does K have the only license that was written they way it was?

Thanks,

Good question.

New entrants would likely NOT get the same license deal that K got. Given that this license was found to not contain something that the DVD-CCA thought (or hoped like hell the judge would decide) was in there, it has most likely been changed.

The other question that this raises, though, is, "Did other companies with licenses from the DVD-CCA have the same contract that K did?" There's a possibility that this may be the case, or at least that the substantive parts of the contract were the same. And this is good news, because at the very least it creates an increased possibility that other companies could create products similar to what K has.

Actually, one of the articles I've read suggests that it's not all that easy to change the terms after the fact. I'll bet new licensees get the same terms.

But K also has some patents on the process they employed to exploit the loophole they found, so I don't really know how feasible it will be for others to produce competitive servers without at least doing some licensing deals with K.

all in all good news... if the result is opening the door for cheaper competitors to flood in.

There are many other DVD server systems out there (though still pretty expensive) will they be sued or will they be more aggressive with trying to sell? I guess I'm still not sure why Kscape was sued and not these companies

http://www.stack9.com/main.php
http://www.inteset.com/
http://www.axonix.com
http://www.amx.com/products/category...diaServers.asp


The first three just seem to be fancy HTPC's while the AMX system appears to be a re-branded Kaleidescape system.

the others (save AMX) did not have licences with the DVDCCA so there is no contract to sue over. Those ones all do not decrypt DVD's. you buy the system then "you" get a thrid party software that does it for you.

Amx MAX is a different system that was also designed uniquely to do its job. It is however (for home use at least) a very distant second as far as its operation, flexibility, and user experience. THe DVD CCA is currently talking to them to confirm compliance with the contract.

THis was recently reported during the K trial

First,

I applaud Kaleidescape for seeing this through, and not trying to settle. As a businss owner, company ending lawsuits are a very, very scary ordeal.

Now that the dust has settled, it seems to me that K-scape may be the ultimate looser in this battle. The suit allows not just K-scape, but every DVDCCA licensee (which is every major electronics and software vendor) to interprete the license the same way. According to dvdcaa.org ther are over 6000 licensee's under that same contract.

I would be SHOCKED if cyberlink / intervideo / insert your favorite chinese 30 dvd player manufacturerr / didn't see this as an opportunity to bring an affordable ripping system to the masses.

I would think so too, but it remians to be seen what is exactly in the CSS licensing contract that gives the DVDCCA recourse to prevent that. In other words, what rights do they have to amend the contract? How much notice is required and would it impact future hardware/software products only (rather than existing products)? Did they change their standard licensing contract for all new licensees after the K litigation got going?

You'd have to guess that they did explicitly change the contract wording to cover themselves after the K lawsuit being filed for all new licensees. The question is about existing folks. Certainly, if they do not have such a recourse for them, you'd almost certainly see the same loophole being used very soon (unless folks wait for the appeal outcome to let K do all the legal heavy lifting and legal expense incurrment). I'm curious to see how it all plays out.

Personally, I'd love to see this area opened up and even an end come to the DMCA's stranglehold over fair use rights in certain formats. The resulting products and solutions would really be impressive.

Jeff