DVD copying: keeping lawyers in demand

Sometimes I wonder how there could possibly be so many jobs for
lawyers “¦ but then I start researching my next column and all
I can find is lawsuits.

A company named 321 Studios has done the inevitable; they have
authored a program that allows exact copies of DVD movies to be
made on any DVD burner. This is an identical operation to copying
an audio CD on your computer except that DVDs have copy protection
software, which DVD X Copy (the product in question) cleverly
sidesteps. 

The program simply plays the entirety of the DVD, decoding the
encrypted data as if it were being played, but it intercepts the
audio and video information and records it instead of actually
displaying it. Amazingly, the program doesn’t lose any of the
menus or special features nor does it degrade the quality at all.
The only caveat is that commercially produced DVD’s can hold
over 9 gigabytes of data while store-bought DVDs can only hold 4.7
gigs of data. In this case, you simply have to split the DVD
onto two discs.

I don’t know what I’m more pissed off about — that
the Motion Picture Association of America is suing 321 Studios over
their product or that I probably won’t get my hands on the
program before it disappears. Actually, in this case, 321 Studios
was pretty sly in that they preemptively sued the MPAA, demanding
that the judge acknowledge that their technology does not
technically disable CSS (content scramble system) copy
protection. 

This stay has allowed 321 to release their $99 program, but the
program could disappear by the time spring break rolls around, so
you best jump out there and get it while you can before it passes
like gas in the legal wind.

In DVD X Copy’s favor is the fact that various security
features are built into the copies that you make with it. When you
buy the program, you have to register it for it to work, and every
copy that you make will have an identifier that can be traced back
to your registered copy of DVD X Copy. This is to protect against
sharing the copies with others (which is illegal).

To that end, any copies that are made with DVD X Copy have a
notice placed at the beginning of the DVD saying that the movie is
a copy and therefore cannot be duplicated. This protection scheme
is almost identical to that used by minidiscs, which have been
popular in Japan (and my house) for a decade.  

For the sake of consumers, let’s hope that programs like
DVD X Copy are successful and that they don’t lead to illegal
file sharing, which will just hike up DVD prices. Let’s hope
that DVD X Copy isn’t doomed to a Bleemesque (Bleem was the
short-lived program that allowed Playstation games to be played on
PCs) fate of just being the cool program that could have been
awesome had it succeeded. I would start another sentence with a
“let’s hope” at this point, but I haven’t
got one. I’m over it.

As DVD burners pierce into CD burner price territory and the
popularity of DVDs increases, I see some form of DVD copy software
making it through the great fair-use prophylactics that are the
MPAA’s lawyers. And in the mean time, I think I’m going
to law school.

E-mail Esposito at [email protected] if you have any
questions about life, love or the pursuit of better technology.