Appeals Court: DVD-Copying Kaleidescape Device Illegal

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 13, 2009 - 3:35am.

San Jose, Calif. - A federal appeals court has overturned a favorable ruling for Kaleidescape, a maker of high-capacity DVD home video servers, and ordered a lower court to make another determination on whether the devices violate a license for the studios' DVD encryption technology. The 6th District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA), a standards body created by the Hollywood movie studios that own the encryption technology on DVDs, which had argued that the Kaleidescape machine circumvents that encryption to copy DVDs to its server.

The DVD CCA said it intends now to seek an injunction against the distribution of the $10,000 Kaleidescape machines at the trial court level.

For its part, Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm told Wired.com the company will ask the California Supreme Court to review the case.

The market for software and devices that can make back-up copies suffered another blow this week, when a federal judge in San Francisco found that RealNetworks' RealDVD software violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/pt09r (PDF of ruling)

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/08/judge-rules-against-realdvd

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10308493-93.html

http://snipurl.com/pt087 (Wired.com)

http://snipurl.com/pt15y (DMW previous coverage)