Kaleidescape Loses DVD Ripping Appeal Against DVD CCA

What the? Actually its no surprise. Music & Movie industry have not made a single intelligent move regarding technology.

Hacked apple TV’s & ‘work arounds’ are the future i guess.

So what happens with DVD-R manufacturers?

Is there a lawyer in the room who can explain the ramifications of the re-examine and subsequent injunction?

Does this mean no more new kaleidescape systems can be sold?  Old Kaleidescape systems will be shut down and rendered useless?  Something else?

Thank you.

IMO Everyone needs to STOP buying music and dvds untill the “powers that be are broken.” Greed is killing this country (and world) as we know it.

It’s simple- let them keep their movies.
Stop buying DVDs, stop downloading and forget the theaters. Their decline and demise will be the reward for their greed and lack of regard for the people who have supported their industry.
It shouldn’t stop there either- the Manufacturers need to become united and tel them there are no more technical barriers preventing both fair use and their rights to co-exist. Stop selling DVD players and Media Centers, this will involve more than Hollywood, and at that point the $$ will be big enough where they will need to make considerable concessions. If we can do this, they will see an increase in revenues, new markets will emerge and more people will share in this expansion.

Chances are it means that Kalidescape will have to adopt a similar model to the other media server companies, where their product does not actually do the disc to hard drive copy of copyrighted material out of the box.  You will have to purchase AnyDVDHD or some sort of similar product from a company overseas, where the MPAA, and CSS cannot do anything. 

This does remove the appearance of legality from the equation however, and I would expect industry lawyers to go after these other companies next.

Everyone needs to wait and see if the injunction is granted. This issue will be going all the way to the Supreme Court. At the heart of ths issue in not the language of the agreement, which, by the way, had nothing about decodeing CCS material in the original agreement signed by KAL. Rather, this issue has to do with the right of an individual to make a personal copy of a product he/she has purchased. We owe KAL some gratitude for fighting the good fight for all of us. Their system is a closed system. There is no getting the copy off the HD in any usable state. They have a great case and I believe in the end, they will prevail and, in turn, allow other inventive companies to enter the space. In the meantime, they will have to convince dealers and consumers to continue to invest in the product. Tough road to hoe.

Supposedly, RealDVD had a similar protection wrapper, and the files were tied to the computer.  I understand that KAL isn’t a windows based system, which would make it even harder to pull files off of the hard drive, but honestly, it could be done if someone decided the payoff was worth it.  I think the reality is that a ‘hacker’ wouldn’t spend their time trying to get the files off of a K-scape server, as there is basically no pay off.

None of this will stop the lawyers however.
I’ll keep pulling for KAL however, as personal copy rights might just win the appeal.

Ha, this is pretty funny. The cat was let out of the bag years ago. The MPAA isn’t going to get it back in that bag now.

What I don’t understand is why would anyone pay for a solution like this when there are plenty of very good free solutions on the internet?

Quoted by ej:

“Is there a lawyer in the room who can explain the ramifications of the re-examine and subsequent injunction?

Does this mean no more new kaleidescape systems can be sold?  Old Kaleidescape systems will be shut down and rendered useless?  Something else?

Thank you.”

The appeal of the original ruling basically puts KAL and the MPAA back at square one. All the arguments will be made again. A lower court could indeed see it KAL’s way and rule again in their favor.

The way that arguments end up at a supreme court is if you appeal it all the way. Basically you keep saying that the lower courts have gotten it wrong and you keep bumping it up.

I hope the courts find in KAL’s favor again.

I have used Quicktime to cut the credits out of High Def movies…DUN DUN DUNNNNNN… Ok, now everybody go out with your pitch forks and torch’s and take down Quicktime too, they are just as bad as Kal, Kal just does it for you without having to think! The concept is empowering, how many time’s do you need to be reminded that you cannot copy something and see the same movie previews? 2 times? 4 times? 5 times? It almost as if we are forced to be reminded constantly of our restrictions. If these things were ending up fully loaded on craigslist and flooding the market, it would be one thing, but they are not, they are going to families and avid movie lovers because they provide a real service to anybody who wants to enjoy the illusion of being fully immersed in a movie experience without being reminded what the latest movie preview is or how much copyright infringement cost them. Another thing to note is the complexity involved in taking full advantage of KAL’s high resolution capabilities and professional installation is usually required unless your an integrator yourself!

As a DIY’er, I’d be pretty happy if I built something that worked problem free 95% of the time.  As a husband with a technophobic wife, and two small children, I need as close to 100% uptime as possible, and I need it to be easy enough for my children to use (which my K-scape is). K-scape does not run on Windows, and probably boasts a 99.98% uptime.

I’m not knocking the free stuff out there that allows people to do something similar to K-scape, but the simple fact is, none of it works as well, or as elegantly. While a K-scape server is expensive, It passed the wife acceptance factor, which really, who can put a price tag on

@ Modaman:  The MPAA is not looking to put the cat back in the bag, they want the courts to rule that you are not legally entitled to copy a DVD, then if/when they catch you, they can sue you for ridiculous sums.  People will still copy DVD’s, it’s just too easy to do it.  The threat of a multi-million dollar lawsuit might damper some people’s enthusiasm to do it however.

I believe that personal usage should apply here, but I do not have the bank account or killer law team to persue this case on my own.  Therefore I hope K-scape continues to fight, and I hope they win. While I realize the odds of the MPAA bashing down my door to sue me is miniscule, I don’t want to be breaking the law, regardless of how I feel about it.

The poor mans way is to use a product like AnyDVD HD from Slysoft and a Movie front end.

You could use Microsoft’s Media Center and the My Movies Plug-in with AnyDVD HD.

AnyDVD HD will strip the css/aacs/bd+ and the pay version of My Movies will even encode to an .iso image and grab cover art.

I have well over a 100 DVD’s (a small collection compared to others). I hate having to handle them. I would rather a large juke box (like my music) and from the comfort of a couch flip through cover art, sort and browse by categories, an on and on and on…

I like a lot of others purchase our movies and music.

Thanks to the MPAA and RIAA I only purchase used copies. They simply won’t see my $$. There are a few independent artists that I will buy from directly. I like knowing where my money goes.

Quoting Paul:

“The MPAA is not looking to put the cat back in the bag, they want the courts to rule that you are not legally entitled to copy a DVD, then if/when they catch you, they can sue you for ridiculous sums.  People will still copy DVD’s, it’s just too easy to do it.  The threat of a multi-million dollar lawsuit might damper some people’s enthusiasm to do it however.”

This has nothing to do with an individual copying a DVD. For starters this is a contract dispute. This has nothing to do with Fair Use doctrine or the DMCA.

KAL sees the contract in one light, The DVD CA sees the contract in another.  This is a straight up fight about how the licensing is interpreted.

@ Mark:  While the lawsuit started over the contract dispute, I have to believe that Fair Use and DMCA will be dragged into it sooner rather than later.  If KAL wins the contract dispute, the next legal avenue for the other side will be to persue fair use and the DMCA.  If KAL looses, they would probably bring fair-use into the legal mix as a next step in the appeal process.

The KAL case will probably be a landmark case for our industry, and with such huge dollar amounts riding on the outcome, expect this one to be tied up in courts for years.

Hi Paul,

I thought that CSS was completely intact with their approach however. I didn’t think KAL’s measures were in any way compromising the CSS protection schema.

Something has go to give with the DMCA and Fair Use at some point. I would love to have a senators kids ruin an entire collection of Blu-Ray/DVD’s.

Any how I just picked up Batman begins for $0.88, Iron Man for $2.87 and The Dark Knight for $3 used on DVD. Take that MPAA. First Sale Doctrine is still alive and kicking.

Sure do love it when old ignorant judges that can’t even use a computer take away our rights of Fair Use.

This isn’t even about trading or downloading. This is about a person making personal copies for convenience. Something the MPAA and RIAA want to stop at all costs. They want control so they can hold on to the last thread of greed and power.

@John:
Well the Judge hasn’t done that… yet.  As Mark rightly pointed out, this is over wording in a contract.  When KAL won their initial lawsuit in 2004 the judge (now retired) ruled in their favor saying that the ambiguity in the contract worked in CSS’s favor.  With the appeal, the new judge on the case, disagreed with the original judge, nothing more. 

Personal copy rights have not entered into the KAL trial yet, but I would expect them to soon.

Sorry, the ambiguity workede in KAL’s favor not CSS’es.

Its about time Kaleidescape was included with the rest of the world, there was no reason why Kaleidescape should be legal and all other DVD copying software is illegal. Kaleidescape this was a long time coming.