MPAA Sues Over DVD To iPod Transfer

17 Nov, 2006 at 9:18am ET Article published in Tech

It is legal for you to own a DVD. It is also legal for you to load that DVD on your portable media player. However, the Motion Picture Association of America says that it is illegal for you to pay someone else to do it for you.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York, Paramount Pictures v. Load ‘N Go Video, the MPAA member companies have sued a small business for loading DVDs onto personal media players (e.g., iPod Video) on behalf of customers.

According to the suit, Load ‘N Go sells both DVDs and iPods and loads the former onto the latter for customers who purchase both. The company then sends the iPod and the original DVDs to the customer. So the customer has purchased every DVD, and Load ‘N Go just saves them the trouble of ripping the DVD. The movie studios’ suit claims that this is illegal, because ripping a DVD (i.e., decrypting it and making a copy) is illegal under the DMCA. The suit also claims that this constitutes copyright infringement.

Haven’t we seen this before? Apply a law in a ridiculous manner and it will eventually be ignored completely. Who benefits from that?

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation: DeepLinks

Comments

17 Nov 2006 ~ 9:34am Cyclonite Just add it to the pool of idiocy that surrounds the MPAA and RIAA.
17 Nov 2006 ~ 12:03pm Garg Pretty soon they'll be busting into people's houses when you have some friends over to watch a movie. With newfound powers under the DMCA, they'll arrest your friends and execute you on the spot for violating the public viewing rules.
17 Nov 2006 ~ 1:17pm Madball

Gargoyle wrote:

Pretty soon they'll be busting into people's houses when you have some friends over to watch a movie. With newfound powers under the DMCA, they'll arrest your friends and execute you on the spot for violating the public viewing rules.

And they should! You're freeloading friends need to buy their own damn movie if they want to watch it. Think about the movie studios, guys. They aren't made of money you know.

jk
Down with the DMCA
18 Nov 2006 ~ 3:28am Jengo

Madball wrote:

And they should! You're freeloading friends need to buy their own damn movie if they want to watch it. Think about the movie studios, guys. They aren't made of money you know.

jk
Down with the DMCA

lol, i thought you were serious for a second there
18 Nov 2006 ~ 2:37pm muddocktor Yep, that's about the most stupid thing I've read lately, and I have read some pretty stupid stuff too.

RIAA and MPAA can just kiss my assets.

Stuff like this is what makes everyday folks want to pirate songs and movies, just to stick it to these asshat greedy bastards.
18 Nov 2006 ~ 2:41pm shwaip Seeing the difficulty that most people would have getting the video off the ipod, it seems that this would be one of the places that they wouldn't mind having a fair use copy stored...
18 Nov 2006 ~ 9:34pm djshowdown so they now create a situation where these ppl will have to educate themselves on ripping which in turn could lead to some ACTUAL piracy

load n go seem to have been providing a worthwhile and useful service and by shutting this down the MPAA have forced the customers to seek alternatives

they really arent smart are they?

if i was one of the customers, the first thing i would be doing is my research on how i could transfer dvd movie onto my portable media player