MPAA Countersues 321 Studios

Squash writes "321 Studios, makers of DVD X-Copy, is being Counter-sued by the MPAA. You may remember them filing suit to allow thier software to be produced and sold. Interesting point: the MPAA wants to claim all profits from sales of the software, which is now being bundled with some DVD burners."

Please Obey The Formula for soviet Russia jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the point of the IN SOVIET RUSSIA jokes is to reverse the process. Considering 321 Studios is being countersued by the MPAA, a better post would be:

IN SOVIET RUSSIA
You countersue the MPAA

Except that this doesn't apply either, considering people do countersue the MPAA.

Re:I want to be able to backup my DVD's...

[drinkypoo]

If you are paying more than three dollars a piece for DVD-R media, you are paying too much. Five bucks is still a pretty reasonable price for rewritable DVD media. You should be able to get both for half of that if you search and use the cheap stuff. Using cheap media is pretty save in CDR/CDRW land these days, I dunno about DVD-R/DVD(+/-)RW.

Anyway there's no point in buying any commercial software for this sort of thing, all you have to do is wait a while.

For those who have children and are wanting to copy DVDs to give to the kids, allow me to suggest using DVD2SVCD (at least on windows) to make SVCDs for them. You do have to pay for an mpeg2 encoder but it's relatively one-click (you do have to fiddle with bitrate values to make the best use of the CD capacity but this is not a necessary step) and it lets you use cheap-as-heck CDR media, or for the kids who are slightly more with it about respecting media, CDRW.

DVD2SVCD (my personal choice of software for this purpose) can be found at http://www.doom9.net [doom9.net].

Re:Anything like this for Linux?

[RandySC]

Visit VCDHelp.com [vcdhelp.com] where they have a Linux forum.

Re:Dual Layer DVDs

[Fulcrum of Evil]

anyone know if its possible to buy blank dual layer dvds and a combatible burner?

No, it is not possible and it will not be possible. Dual layer discs are pressed as 2 discs and glued together.

Review of DVDXCopy

[AllynM]

review of DVDXCopy is here [cdrinfo.com].

its an interesting read. they are actually enforcing fair use to some extent. it doesnt allow copying a copy (as long as its attempted with DVDXCopy), and inserts disclaimer warning screens at the start of each backup. sure teh die-hard hacker is going to copy it by a different means anyhow, but this program is tailored to joe-user that just wants a backup of his dvd and could care less about a warning screen at the start of his movie. it seems they made the program as restrictive as possible, covering the necessary fair use bases without overly-annoying the end user in the process.

This may even make the MPAA look bad should 321s lawyers bring up these facts in court.

Look out VCDHelp.com!

[NewtonsLaw]

Hell, some people (no names :-) have been ripping DVDs to DVDR and CDR disks for ages using freely available shareware.

There are even some bloody excellent websites like VCDHelp.com [vcdhelp.com] and Doom9.net [doom9.net] which explain the whole process in simple to follow steps and provide discussion forms for those who have questions or problems.

What's the MPAA going to do now? Force these sites to charge a subscription and demand that all the revenues be handed over to them?

Hey, maybe the MPAA *have* found a new business model -- let people help others make backup copies of your wares and then sue them for huge sums.

Probably sounds pretty damned good from a movie exec's perspective -- let others do all the work then just raid their wallets at your leisure.

EUCD in the news

[basic70]

The beer-free morning newspaper Metro [metro.se] in Sweden had an article [metro.se] (pdf, on page 16) yesterday about Denmark introducing EUCD, the EU version of DMCA.

It was described as a law that makes it illegal to make mp3s of your own CDs. Since it is an EU directive, I doubt any of the member countries have much choice but to add some law of this kind.

Here is another interview and how you can help

[MartijnH]

Here is another interview of the CEO of 321 studioos and how they would like you to participate in their companies cause.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news2.php3?ID=5389 [cdfreaks.com]