Rich Fiscus
18 Dec 2007 15:50
The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) filed a brief with the California Court of Appeal hoping to overturn a lower court's decision that Kaleidescape isn't violating the CSS license by selling home servers that store DVDs on a hard drive.
Kaleidescape's case is unique because it's the first instance of the DVD-CCA going after one of its licensees' products. At issue is whether the technical specifications delivered to Kaleidescape after they entered into the license agreement and paid the requisite fee are an enforcable part of the licensing contract. The DVD-CCA considers the technical document, which apparently requires the original DVD to be present for playback, is part of the license agreed to and puts Kaleidescape in violation.
Although eventual implementation of managed copy, meaning a DRM controlled system to copy content to a computer or mobile device, is in the works for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, there are no plans to allow basic disc copying for any of the major video formats. In addition to appealing the California court decision in favor of Kaleidescape, DVD-CCA members have drafted two different amendments to the license that would eliminate the question of the technical document by adopting requirements that the original DVD must be present at the time of playback.
In June, and again in November, Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm threatend an anti-trust suit should the new provisions, which would effectively force them to stop selling their flagship product, be adopted. In June the issue was dropped, but no action has been announced on the November proposal. In part Malcolm's objection to the most recent proposal is that while it allows some form of managed copy, it doesn't require content owners (ie studios) from allowing their DVDs to be copied in any form.
You can read the entire brief from the DVD-CCA on their website.