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Kaleidescape CEO Speaks Out About CSS Lawsuit
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Feb 14, 2005 05:34 PM
from the fighting-the-forces-of-nonsense dept.
from the fighting-the-forces-of-nonsense dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Engadget has an interview with Michael Malcolm, the CEO of Kaleidescape, which you might remember as the high-end DVD jukebox manufacturer that was sued by the DVD Copy Control Association for violating its CSS license.
Despite the fact that anyone who can afford a $27,000+ DVD jukebox also usually ends up buying
hundreds of movies to load onto it, the DVD-CCA wants
them to redesign the Kaleidescape to require the presence of
the physical DVD disc in the drive during authentication and playback.
Besides defeating the whole purpose of having a jukebox in the first
place (none of their jukeboxes allow for copying, streaming, or sharing
DVDs), Malcolm says he can't find any clause in their CSS license which
would require them to implement this "feature" anyway and they're about
to file a counter-action against the DVD-CCA."
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They're afraid of what - DVD swapping? (Score:5, Funny)
With the proposed protection feature, they'll have to bring out their DVDs for the exchange too.
Re:They're afraid of what - DVD swapping? (Score:5, Funny)
~phil
What they are afraid of (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what they're afraid of, and they're probably right.
Re:What they are afraid of (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think they're right to be afraid of the all of two people who actually by this thing.
Re:What they are afraid of (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What they are afraid of (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What they are afraid of (Score:5, Insightful)
I've donated over 100 movies in the last year. I'll bet the DVD consortium will just love that.
How much are you going to get on a used DVD on E-Bay? Considering damn near every new DVD is $15 at WalMart (Lord of the Rings and multi-disc sets being the exception), what difference does it make?
Hell, I've filled in a lot of my "must have" collection from Walmart spending $10 a disc, including tax. They're now an impulse buy.
The Kaleidescope product isn't exactly a threat to that.
-Charles
Re:What they are afraid of (Score:5, Insightful)
I just loaded my DVD into my Jukebox... I don't need the DVD anymore, so I guess I'll go sell it on ebay or give it away..." That's what they're afraid of, and they're probably right.?
If you RTFA you would note that they covered this. In the current storage medium, this system costs $40-$60 in hard disk space, per movie. It is cheaper to buy two DVDs. This could be a concern in the future, but don't fool yourself, that is not what this lawsuit is about. This is about a loophole that was not dreamed up by the big media companies when they went with DVD as their DRM format. The idea is to sell multiple copies of every movie for multiple locations, and multiple new players. If you can just store an exact image of a DVD on a new player, why buy another copy in DVD-purple-ray-extreme-DVD3 format in a few years? And if you can back them up, there goes all the new copies to replace worn, scratched, broken, or misplaced movies.
Thank god (Score:4, Insightful)
One day everyone will realize that the bully just had a self-esteem problem. Let's hope that day comes soon.
When you are trying to put a lock on air ... (Score:4, Interesting)
ALMAFUERTE
Re:When you are trying to put a lock on air ... (Score:5, Funny)
Forgotten passwords (Score:4, Insightful)
"I forgot my password. Can you reset it?"
"Sure, what's your password?"
Mac OS X has "jukebox" feature, too (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet another blow to Web Standards! (Score:5, Funny)
Kaleidescape + Netflix or blockbuster subscription (Score:4, Insightful)
What are they scared of??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why sure, I'm going to buy a $27,000 machine to copy DVD's that I actually bought, because I can't afford them. That would be much smarter then using a $400 PC to get them off of Bittorrent.
Once the **AA's decide to embrace digital distribution instead of attempting to squash it, they'll make the same killing they have off every other technology they fought at first. Remember, radio and, later, the cassette tape were going to be the end of the music business. We're tired of hearing that the sky is falling. Start adapting your business model to technology, and quit telling us to adapt technology to your business model.
George Lucas Guilty of Pirating his own films (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess Lucas is guilty of pirating his own films . . . The concept of extreme protection of digital content is really getting out of hand when someone like Lucas can't legally "backup" his films onto another media. I don't really understand this when no one prosecutes the average Joe from copying a CD to tape or CD to MP3 player for convenience . . . Isn't this all that the Kaleidescope box does? Copies from one media to another for ease and convenience?
If you can do it with music, then why can't you do it with movies?
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Yet Another Linux/DVD Post (Score:4, Funny)
This quote is the one that made me laugh out loud, and shows that we (meaning the Linux/Slashdot/techie crowd) just aren't getting through to the proper people so that changes can be made. [Note: TT is "The Tech" and JV is "Jack Valenti"]
During all his time presiding over the MPAA, he didn't even realize the enormity of the problem. That sends the message that word justisn't getting out. This case, should Michael Malcolm be successful and gain some ground, may finally allow Linux users to legally play DVD's they bought with their own money.
The DVD-CCA are more than just nonsensical. (Score:5, Informative)
I was one of the good number of people named in the DeCSS case. I was offering a mirror of DeCSS on my site, in the hopes that people would be inspired to build a Linux DVD player package around it (or, at a minimum, that they could have used the Windows binaries to rip DVDs and then play them under Linux).
They sent me an email saying that because I hadn't responded to their earlier email, they were taking me to court.
Only problem is... I grepped my entire mail spool forwards, backwards and sideways (I never delete mails to my home email box, except spam, and even then rarely; I like being able to search for anything I've received) and could not find any previous email.
I called them, emailed them, etc., trying to ask them why they are claiming that I received a previous email when I didn't. Naturally I got nowhere.
I ended up having to sign an agreement basically stating that I'll never license or sell CSS technology. Over a lie of theirs.
(Not like I would license or sell their shit, but a sufficiently slimy lawyer-- and they have plenty-- would be able to argue that selling a used DVD-ROM drive (or a used DVD!) on eBay violates the agreement I made with them...)
Re:27k? 400 dvd carousel $300 (Score:5, Insightful)
dont get me wrong i'm not going to buy one, but the is alot more to it.
Re:Forget about the lawsuit, this product is crap! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Forget about the lawsuit, this product is crap! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure OSS could whip up something similar, but if you are buying this you just want it to work and you want someone to yell at then you can't get the cover art for "Hope Floats"
I'd never thought about the legal aspects of it, because it seems to me like fair-use backup. The DVDs are stored encrypted, so there isn't anything amiss there.
Price is irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rich people don't know better.
Know better? They don't give a shit. When your house costs $10 million, and you've got $500,000 worth of custom-installed home theater gear, plasma screen TVs, multiroom audio and video, etc., an additional $27k or even $100k isn't that much to spend to ensure that you can watch any of your movies from any of your screens any time you want. It's a helluvalot more elegant and intuitive than some hack-it-together-yourself DVR or DVD caching box. Besides, you're going to be taking your family on a holiday to Barcelona or Shanghai or Aspen during the couple of weeks it takes to get that whole thing installed, configured, tested and debugged. And you probably will pay Kaleidescape the money to duplicate your entire DVD collection onto the hard drives so you don't have reload them yourself, or have your personal electrical engineer spend a week loading your DVDs onto the system.
Besides, if I'm some rich guy who's spent that much on his house and electronics, I'm showing off my latest "I'm cooler-than-you" gadgets to my other ultra-rich friends before we head off to cruise the Mediterranean in my private yacht. The people who buy this are the same people who buy the Ford GT (~$140k), the Mercedes SL65 AMG (~$140k), the Bentley Arnage T (~$250k), the Maybach 57 ($~$330k) or the Porsche Carrera GT (~$440k). The cost is irrelevant--it's all about the cool.
BTW: The CEO of the company I work for has recently bought both a Ford GT (~$140k) and a Mercedes SL65AMG (~$140k). That's to go along with the BMW 760Li (~$90k) he already owns, his $14 million Learjet, his $12 million house, etc.
BOO FUCKING HOO (Score:5, Insightful)
YOU created this monster. Just like South Park's "Walmart" episode--who is number 1? YOU are.
The "threat" of DVD has been known for years. The DVDCCA came up with consumer-hostile garbage from day one: CSS, Region Encoding (aka RESTRAINT OF TRADE), and Macrovision in every pot (sorry, under every TV). YOU BOUGHT INTO IT. You just HAD to have your fucking "Matrix" DVD, didn't you? Nevermind all the problems with DVD--look at DIVX! HAH what fools! Right.
And now we have "big brother" DVD-CCA clubbing people over the head for violating their bullshit license for their bullshit "encryption" which has already been compromised 100 ways from Sunday. We STILL have region encoding despite the fact that it IS restraint of trade. And YOU allowed it. Every one of you that ran out to get a DVD player and filling your shelves with boxed-sets of whatever--you allowed this to happen.
So do NOT bitch about the DVDCCA. You fucking gave them the power. And you know what? Now that you let them stick their foot in the door JUST A LITTLE, they're going to try and see what ELSE they can get away with...the "broadcast" flag, the bending-over of TiVo...it's going to get worse because YOU, the drooling hordes, couldn't stop for ONE moment to say "hey, this is just a candy-coated fish hook!" Nope, GOTTA have that latest anime collection! Just GOTTA get that Matrix DVD Boxed Set!
Now go ahead--do your Slashdot duty...whine about the DVDCCA and how they "don't get it." Contradict me by saying "so? You can just get a hacked player!" (Yeah, and Apex is SUCH great quality too *snort*). Somehow tie Bittorrent into the conversation (it's just not slashdot if you're not blathering about how great bittorrent is). Mod me down to nothing. Continue preaching to the choir.