Rich Fiscus
3 Nov 2007 17:04
A new recommendation from Warner Brothers, Disney, and Fox would amend CSS licensing prohibit copying DVD content to a hard drive. The proposal would allow copies to be made only with approval from the copyright holder for the DVD. And of course it would require a device using a legitimate CSS license to do so. This is the second such amendment, although the previous attempt, rejected almost a year ago, wouldn't have required studio permission for the copies.
Although this may seem like a potential winfall for consumers, Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm, sent a letter to members of the DVD-CCA (the licensing body responsible for CSS) threatening an antitrust lawsuit if the changes are approved. Kaleidescape is the only company to make a CSS licensed device that would be affected by the licensing change.
The Managed Copy Amendment states that "Products shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a playable, persistent copy of CSS Data.” The proposal, as well as another amendement nearly identical to one withdrawn in June of this year after Malcolm sent a similar letter will be considered at a meeting of the DVD-CCA's Copy Protection Advisory Council on November 7.
The June proposal was apparently designed to make an end-run around a judge's decision in March stating that Kaleidescape's home media servers, which are capable of copying protected DVDs to an internal hard drive for playback, don't violate the current terms of the CSS license. It would add language to the CSS license stating “DVD Products, alone or in combination with other DVD Products, shall not be designed to descramble scrambled CSS Data when the DVD Disc containing such CSS Data and associated CSS Keys is not physically present in the DVD Player or DVD Drive (as applicable).”
Source: Press Release