Ruling Prohibits Kaleidescape From Selling, Supporting Movie Servers 136
Stowie101 writes "Kaleidescape has lost its drawn-out legal battle with the DVD CCA. A judge has issued a permanent injunction that prohibits the sale and support, including product updates, of existing DVD movie servers. 'As part of the injunction, Kaleidescape and its dealers can no longer offer technical support for products that are already in the field, meaning existing servers can receive no updates or repairs.' Kaleidescape has filed an appeal and 'believes that under California law the injunction order should not come into effect unless the California Court of Appeal affirms Judge Monahan's decision.'"
This comic seems appropriate (Score:5, Interesting)
My only disagreement is this:
Just because the DVD won't be available until the fall is not justification to download it freely. Oftentimes cable channels like HBO want to play the show over-and-over several times (for subscribers) before releasing it to everyone else. Movie studios do the same thing (release to theaters first; DVD later).
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones [theoatmeal.com]
Ummm .... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I can do this with Apple TV. At one point, I did this with my XBox.
Things like Slingbox have allowed you to stream your media to your TV for years.
Why is this industry incapable of recognizing that users would prefer to have a juke-box with their movies? Especially people with kids I should think.
In this case, it sounds like the product tried very hard to not be helping illegal copying.
Re:Kaleidescape is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Their theory of operation, not good enough to save them from the MFIAA, was that the rip was DMCA compliant because it didn't break any encryption at all, just made a bit-for-bit backup copy of the DVD in question. Then, upon user request, the encrypted bitstream from the disk image would be fed to an ordinary, licensed, decoder, same as any DVD player, with all the usual i's dotted and T's crossed(in terms of restricted outputs, macrovision, etc.)
Team content(for reasons unclear) declared a bitter war of attrition against a boutique luxury product purchased largely by cinemaphiles with huge movie collections that they used to enhance their enjoyment thereof, despite the fact that the pirate kiddies of the world weren't even inconvenienced in continuing to pile up multi-terabyte franken-NAS piracy servers.
Foolish, vindictive, and shortsighted. Not that that's a huge surprise.
Yet Another Out-of-Control Judge (Score:4, Interesting)
I see this as just another out-of-control (I won't go quite as far as bought off) California judge that the 99% of us would be far better off if s/he were removed from the bench permanently. With judges like this I'm surprised that we ever got as far as being allowed to have our own electric lights. S/he surly would have killed of the VCR if ever given the chance, likely along with the cassette and reel-to-reel decks as well if they had recording abilities. S/he would likely take out your DVR as well, given the chance.