

Federal court to order film service Zediva shut down - nextparadigms
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20086666-261/federal-court-to-order-film-service-zediva-shut-down/

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js2
From David Pogues' review[1,2] from earlier this year:

 _Yes, America may swamp Zediva’s big rack of DVD players, and yes, the
M.P.A.A. may squash it as it has squashed hundreds of movie-downloading
college students. Until then, fellow movie buffs, let us celebrate a brave
step forward into the new age of compromise-free streaming movies._

Too bad it was the M.P.A.A. that doomed it and not being overrun by America.
:-(

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/technology/personaltech/17...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/technology/personaltech/17pogue.html)

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334332>

_"Judge Walter's decision is a great victory for the more than 2 million
American men and women whose livelihoods depend on a thriving film and
television industry," the MPAA said in a statement._

"Gag me with a spoon" as they used to say…

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onemoreact
That sounds exactly like an idea I had for a video rental service. I was
thinking of having a virtual DVD drive connected to remote DVD's and renting
things out for 48 hour time periods. Granted, I assumed you would be sued but
I am currious why they lost. After looking into it you would either be making
copy's of the content or have DMCA issues but this seems to come down to
public preforamance issues.

Edit: On second thought
[http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/03/16/that_zediva_thing...](http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/03/16/that_zediva_thing_its_so_not_going_to_work)
suggests that
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6496522323472709...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6496522323472709052)
is probably a limitation.

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username3
_Zediva's argument that the service isn't really transmitting copyrighted
movies over the Internet but is more akin to one person lending a physical DVD
to another--just using the Web to accomplish that task--was rejected by
Walter.

"The Zediva service transmits performances of Plaintiffs' copyrighted works
'directly under the language of the statute,' Walter wrote._

Sounds like Slingbox and music lockers.

~~~
VladRussian
i'm wondering what would be the outcome when/if the Internet was used for
teleportation of DVD disks - would it constitute "public performance" or
completely legal Netflix DVD-by-mail type service with USPS replaced by
teleportation?

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larsen161
If Zediva really has a DVD and player for each film they are showing at any
given time then it is exactly like a DVD rental service via mail. If there's
10 people watching a film right now and they only have 10 discs, me being the
11th person would not be able to stream that movie until someone else finishes
(returns) one of those 10. Netflix is a streaming service where they have a
'single' copy of a film that they can stream to an 'unlimited' number of
people at any given time.

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teyc
In Australia, the telco Optus is offering a PVR service, to record free to air
movies and play it back over wireless. The media companies are starting to
scream copyright as well.

I couldn't help thinking that the law isn't very well placed to handle the
digitalisation of information. For instance, fashion design is not
copyrightable, but a business method is. What if you had an algorithm that
generates a fashion, then which law gets precedence?

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davidu
This can't be surprising to anyone. Trying to use technicalities to skirt the
law rarely works out with any meaningful success.

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jamesteow
"Trying to use technicalities to skirt the law rarely works out with any
meaningful success."

Sarcasm, correct?

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pyre
Movie studios are involved, yes. E.g. they are well known for their
accounting/legal maneuvers to try and avoid paying people a percentage of
movie profits by claiming that the movie didn't turn a profit, even if it is
one of the highest grossing films in history (i.e. Stan Lee and Spiderman).

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ig1
Isn't this the same argument that mp3.com used ?

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pyre
This is taken to an extreme though. I doubt that mp3.com had a physical stereo
for each person trying to play music on the site.

