James Delahunty
3 Nov 2008 19:57
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has announced that once again a court has ruled against a DVD player manufacturer for violations of the Content Scrambling System (CSS) agreement. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that the plaintiffs are allowed to review and test any new or re-engineered product incorporating the copy protection technology before it can make it to market.
The court issues a permanent injunction banning Gowell Electronics Ltd. from violating the CSS license agreement. It is the result of lawsuit brought against the company in June by the MPAA alleging breach of contract and it is the ninth case in which a court has sided with the MPAA members in preventing future violations of the CSS license.
The MPAA estimates that it loses $11 billion per year from the sale of pirated goods and illegal copying. CSS is a (weak) prevention against copying that was beaten a decade ago and is present on pretty much all retail DVDs on the market.