Petteri Pyyny
18 Sep 2003 12:52
Two Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures (owned by Viacom) and 20th Century Fox (owned by News Corp), have sued several small software developers and distributors in the U.S. for selling tools that allow backing up copy-protected DVD-Video discs.
Studios have filed suits against Tritton Technologies, QOJ, World Reach and Proto Ventures and studios are seeking a premilinary injunction in order to stop the sales of their tools and unspecified amount of damages under the controversial DMCA law.
DMCA outlaws tools that allow circumventing copy-protection technologies, such as CSS. Previously studios have attacked against distributors of freeware tool DeCSS and against the 321 Studios, the creators of DVDXCopy.
Most of the companies now sued are simply selling DVD backup products via their websites and according to various sources, some of them simply sell packages made out of freeware tools. At least one of the companies in question, QOJ, has managed to get itself into virtually all known spam blacklists in the world with their domain copiesanything.com. Tritton is the only one of the companies now sued that has brick-and-mortar distribution deals with major retailers in the U.S.
More information:
BusinessWeek
Wired