Second Court Rules DVD Copying Software Illegal

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 5, 2004 - 6:46am.

New York -- A second federal court has ruled that 321 Studios' software that allows users to make copies of DVD movies violates copyright law, and ordered the company to stop selling its DVD X Copy application. Following a California federal court's ruling last month that declared St. Louis-based 321's software illegal, last night the Southern District Court of New York also ruled in favor of the Hollywood movie studio plaintiffs, who argued that the software facilitated piracy. The company has maintained that DVD X Copy allows users to make back-up copies of DVDs that are within their traditional "fair use" rights for goods they have already purchased. While the company said on Friday that it plans to appeal the rulings, it has recently released a new version of DVD X Copy stripped of its ability to defeat the encryption scheme on DVD movies -- while noting that the missing "ripper" may still be easily found elsewhere on the Internet.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040304/cgth078_1.html
http://www.321studios.com