As Expected, MPAA Sues Movie Streaming Site That Uses Connected DVD Players
from the who-didn't-see-that-coming dept
When Zediva launched, we already knew it was going to face a legal fight from the MPAA and the movie studios. The company lets people stream movies they want to see, but tries to get around the legal licensing issues by only streaming directly from internet connected DVD players, playing legitimately acquired DVDs. Their argument is that it's really no different than renting a movie and bringing it to your own DVD player. And, perhaps, the Cablevision ruling in the US on remote DVRs gives them some support for their position. But, there was no way the industry was going to just let this go by without any sort of fight. And, so, the MPAA has now sued the company claiming that it's a "sham," and that Zediva is running an illegal video-on-demand service without the proper licenses. In some ways, this case could also impact the attempts by cloud music players to stream legitimate content without a license as well.All of these situations -- the remote DVR, the remote DVD and cloud music players -- all involve the entertainment industry demanding extra payments for how you use legitimately purchased content. It's really quite amazing what a stunning sense of entitlement the entertainment industry has here. Even if you've legitimately purchased their content, they want to limit what you can actually do with it unless you pay another licensing fee. It's really quite ridiculous and shows the level of desperation these firms are reaching.
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Remember the divx player?
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I guess the MPAA is trying to expand the old "lease instead of buying" bit from the digital world to the real world. You no longer own your DVDs...
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You can rent the physical DVD to your friend. So far, the MPAA has not tried to say otherwise. What they are saying is that you cannot make the movie available on the internet and stream it to others without a license. I think that is crazy, but let's go with it for a minute.
Zediva worked around that by using physical DVD players connected to servers so when someone was streaming, they were streaming the playing DVD. Basically, they made the cable between your TV or computer and the DVD player infinitely long and connected it to a DVD player with a mechanical library of DVD's.
The whole thing is a crazy mechanical Rube Goldberg contraption to do something that should be really easy to do with digital files. In the end, it should serve as an example of why these laws and licenses make no sense anymore.
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Don't ignore them all...
WARNING
If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don’t you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can’t think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you’re supposed to read? Do you think everything you’re supposed to think? Buy what you’re told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned……
(source: )
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Dammit Mike!!!!
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One interesting thing of note is if http://www.zediva.com/ wins legally, it opens the flood gates to some really cool apps and business models. Imagine people sharing DVD's in a vast distributed online library. It also has the potential to wipe out Netflix and most video on demand services.
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Actually, I think netflix probably doesn't want Zediva to win. It opens up the door to everyone and their mother streaming video of DVD's they own. It also opens up the possiblity for an open source app for people to share one or more CD's or DVD's. Imagine 20 million people doing this and "lending" CD's and DVD's to others, all indexed and cataloged. It would wipe out all VOD services.
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I'm not sure what they are using, but it seems reasonable to me to think that their solution can easily be less costly than the lease, electricity, and payroll of a traditional brick-and-mortar movie rental store.
The stupidity of all of this is that it could be done for a fraction of the price with digital files and that savings could be split between the customers, Zediva, AND THE MOVIE STUDIOS and everyone would be better off.
Those brainless #$%@#$s.
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Pathetic. Troll harder paytard.
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I get it if you mean the MPAA / Movie Industry as they are spending money on legal teams that should be being spent on new innovative business models for their customers, but for Zediva they are only a dvd rental store and have paid the same costs as your local Blockbuster to rent movies to its customers.
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Unfortunately, very, very soon people will be able to stream anything to anywhere without the need to pay anything to anyone, then I want to see what those people will use as an argument to say people can't do it despite the fact that it is legal and people will do it on their own, with something they supposedly paid for.
I see a future full of pirates everywhere, you just can't scape that label, copyrights will manage to turn the entire population of earth into outlaws and that is priceless.
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Unless you call spending needless time and money on defending yourself "something".
Zediva is a small startup that is now defending itself against an opponent with virtually endless legal and financial resources. The MPAA does not need to win a lawsuit to "win", they need to bankrupt Zediva or force them into a settlement - and that can easily happen even if Zediva is on completely solid ground - and some crazy rulings say they are not (I think they SHOULD be).
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Missleading again little mikee
You are again misleading people into your viewpoint. The problem here is that this company is NOT streaming One DVD to ONE viewer. They are streaming the SAME DVD to multiple viewers at the same time. They are also likely CACHING the DVD for streaming as well.
It is NOT the same as RENTING. If you RENT a DVD then it leaves someones possession, goes to yours, you watch it and return it. There is a LONG time where the owner is without the DVD and must buy additional DVDs to keep renting to multiple people at the same time.
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
*streaming to multiple unauthorized viewers
*caching for streaming
And aside from your fast and loose use of words like "misleading", what is your totally-non-shill-and-honest opinion about the insane hurdles that the MPAA would like to keep in place?
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
Where did you get that? Everything I have read from the company suggests otherwise. (Not that I expect a shill like you to actually cite a source)
"They are also likely CACHING the DVD for streaming as well"
According to the legal ruling about the Google cache, caching is not copying. In fact, if it is, every time someone plays a DVD in their computer, they have violated copyright.
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
Proof or STFU.
They are also likely CACHING the DVD for streaming as well.
Not illegal.
It is NOT the same as RENTING. If you RENT a DVD then it leaves someones possession, goes to yours, you watch it and return it. There is a LONG time where the owner is without the DVD and must buy additional DVDs to keep renting to multiple people at the same time.
All this conjecture depends entirely on whether Zediva is allowing multiple people access to the same DVD at the same time. Again, proof or STFU.
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
That's certainly possible, but what evidence do you have of this?
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
Didn't really seem worth going past the title in this case.....
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Re: Missleading again little mikee
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See the little paytard sitting on a fence, one theft and one is rent
While you scream and whine about infringement being theft and those who argue against you point out how nothing physical has been stolen, you have the audacity to try and use the SAME EXACT argument to defend rentals:
"It is NOT the same as RENTING. If you RENT a DVD then it leaves someones possession, goes to yours, you watch it and return it. There is a LONG time where the owner is without the DVD and must buy additional DVDs to keep renting to multiple people at the same time."
Hypocrites are always wrong at least half the time.
I hereby label you the shill-troll title of Master Shitroll!
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A whole new industry that does movies and then lets people use and watch them with current technology as they see fit.
Now I'd pay for that. That might actually get me interested in watching movies again.
but alas, this crap is getting old. I can live without Movies. I've found some serious deals at Borders with them going out of business.
You know the more I step away from the TV, the more I realize... I don't really miss it.
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You get lots of stuff there for free and can watch it on lots of devices.
Frankly, the stuff appearing there is of higher quality than most of what comes out of Hollywood these days.
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Media meet History
Just the smallest of tweaky tweakies to their current licensing models will surely assure them of many years of continued income without reckless capital diverted to prevent their own growth.
" Here's a current movie and television show image list with the rental fee and time limits in the right columns. Just select your image and enter the code into your television, computer, cell phone or media player to begin watching"
DVD's are ass.
b-bye
\r
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http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
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For the content providers, though, they have a huge financial interest. Also, because there are only a few players, the opportunity for free-riding is very small.
This outcome is very predictable: It's very hard to get motivated to send letters like that.
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So then I tried to find an unauthorized source for it. Since it's a fairly obscure book, I didn't have much hope. Eventually I ended up on a site which claimed to have it (well, a version of it, not sure which one) and they had download links listed as TXT, PDF, etc. Ever hopeful, I clicked on the PDF link and it downloaded a zip file with the name of the book. However when I unpacked it, it was an installer for some program and a text file with instructions. Apparently you're supposed to install the program, which will then give you access to their online library. I immediately deleted it.
I was just struck by the ridiculousness of it. They want you to jump through hoops to view a simple document file! Something that should be incredible simple is needlessly complicated by a company wanting to impose control.
It seems like that's happening with everything today, videos, music, books, software, electronics, you name it. Everywhere you turn, things that should be easy and simple to use are being made more complex just so that a few aging companies can feel like they're still in control.
It makes me sick.
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