Zediva Shut Down By Federal Judge, MPAA Parties! 189
AlienIntelligence writes "Looks like the loophole that Zediva founded their business model on evaporated. Zediva's biggest problem was getting over a 1991 ruling against a similar method of transmitting copyright works. Zediva has vowed to appeal the ruling."
Zediva clearly forgot the Golden Rule (Score:5, Insightful)
He who gives gold to Congressional and Presidential election campaigns makes the rules.
And $111 million [opensecrets.org] is a lot of gold.
Dumb ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Twenty years ago, it was decided this wasn't legal. They decided to do it anyway and were shut down. This somehow makes content owners evil.
Do I have the facts straight?
No binding precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing about the ruling in On Command was binding on this court, so I'm not sure why everyone thinks the argument was ridiculous. I think it's absurd to construe the prohibition against transmitting copyrighted acts to "the public" as encompassing this activity. How is someone sitting at home on their computer "the public"? It is clear that Congress intended, by this phrase, to prohibit transmitting of copyrighted works to the public at large, not to individual people for individual use.
It's legal to rent DVDs to people. It's legal to rent DVD players to people. It's legal to rent DVDs, DVD players and viewing space to people. But it's not legal to rent a DVD and DVD player to someone to use at a distance. That defies logic.
Re:Who didn't see this coming?? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Only one person can rent a DVD at one time, meaning that if Zediva bought 20 copies of a movie, only 20 people can watch it simultaneously. Still, Zediva saves money because it could serve many more customers with the same physical copy of a DVD than a company that has to mail out a DVD and wait for its return. "
So they're not using a single DVD to broadcast to multiple people simultaneously; they are basically a renting organization that is very similar to RedBox except it is done through streaming and online purchasing but the limitation is still a 1:1 ratio of viewer-to-physical dvd copy. Ask yourself this: if Redbox has 20 copies of a movie and every day 20 people rent it and return it (some the same day, some after a day or two), how is this different than Zediva's business model other than the online factor vs. physical stand?
"transmitting"? (Score:4, Insightful)
How is "transmitting" the video over the Internet any different than "transmitting" it over an HDMI cable from a local DVD player to a television? In both cases, bits are being moved, and only one person has access to them.
I hate how convoluted copyright law has become.
Re:Who didn't see this coming?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we stop using the word "broadcast" to refer to long-distance, point-to-point communications, please? If we keep using these terms wrong, we shouldn't be surprised when judges arrive at absurd conclusions about laws which are concerned with "broadcasting".
Re:Zediva clearly forgot the Golden Rule (Score:3, Insightful)
There's an easy - really, really easy workaround for all of this.
It's time for everyone to just say "fuck it" and stop sending these fuckers money.
Go to the Pirate Bay [thepiratebay.org] or any other torrent site of your choice, and download all you want FOR FREE.
That's right, it's totally and completely FREE. No charge. FREE.
You only have to pay for your connection to the internet.
FREE!