James Delahunty
23 Jan 2006 7:17
A company called TVMyPod is raising legal questions by selling video iPods to its customers that are pre-loaded with TV shows or movies that the customer wants. The company can fill your iPod with content that is available to buy on DVD. After it has copied the content to the iPod, it sends it along with the original DVD to the customer. TVMyPod co-founder Vijay Raghavan said most people haven't got the time or technology to convert their movies and TV shows to put them on their iPods.
The vast majority of retail DVDs contain copy protection and under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) it is illegal to circumvent these protections. However, Raghavan insists that the company's methods to not use any decryption. He also commented that moving content to the device is a one way transfer and since the customer gets both the original and the copy, it is legal under the fair use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act.
"It's kind of an obsolete law since Congress was not taking into consideration portability," Raghavan said. "These players are exploding on the market, but the legality of it can sometimes be in a gray area." TVMyPod isn't actually charging for its services yet, so all customers have to pay is the cost of the iPod and the price of the DVD as it appears on Amazon. The company does plan to introduce set prices however, and also is looking into a subscriptions service to keep content up to date. Customers will also soon be able to send in their own iPods they bought elsewhere.
Source:
Boston.com