I just got this email this morning from Kaleidescape:
Dear Kaleidescape Dealer,
Six weeks ago, I wrote to explain that Judge William J. Monahan of the California Superior Court had filed a tentative decision in favor of the DVD CCA. Thursday, Judge Monahan filed his final decision on the matter, again in favor of the DVD CCA. Kaleidescape has appealed this decision, since we have always believed, and continue to believe, that our products fully comply with the DVD CCA's licensing agreement.
Judge Monahan entered his statement of decision and injunction order on March 8, 2012. Kaleidescape filed its appeal on March 9, 2012. Kaleidescape believes that under California law the injunction order should not come into effect unless the California Court of Appeal affirms Judge Monahan's decision. Kaleidescape is confident that when the Court of Appeal reviews the facts of this case, particularly in light of the complete absence of any harm to the DVD CCA or its members, it will reverse the trial court decision. The appeal process may take one to two years.
Since Cheena and I founded the company in 2001, we've been focused on bringing consumers a fantastic experience for enjoying their movie collections. We've invested in building one of the most comprehensive databases of information about DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, including high-resolution cover art and bookmarks for starting movies, scenes, and songs. We've developed two award-winning user interfaces, including one specifically for young children. More recently we released CinemaScape for 2.35 screens and our iPad app. All of these innovations make it more fun to enjoy a movie at home, which leads our customers to purchase even more movies from the motion picture studios.
We believe in a balance between consumer rights and copy control. We strongly believe that individuals have the right to make personal copies of movies they own so they can watch them instantly on any television in their home. We also believe in respecting and protecting the rights of the content creators. So we carefully designed our product not only to preserve the CSS scrambling on the original DVDs, but also to add encryption for greater security. We built a closed system that cannot be used to copy DVDs to or from the Internet, to writable DVDs, or to mobile devices or computers. We built a feature that detects rental DVDs and prevents them from being copied. We required and continue to require that our customers agree to only copy DVDs that they rightfully own, and to reaffirm this agreement each time they copy a disc.
This combination of business practices and technology has been so effective that after years of searching for evidence that Kaleidescape's customers use their systems to steal movies, the DVD CCA admitted in writing that we have done no harm to any of the motion picture studios or to the DVD CCA itself.
We won our first trial in 2007 when Judge Leslie C. Nichols of the California Superior Court found that Kaleidescape's products comply with the CSS license agreement. The DVD CCA appealed to the California Court of Appeal, who in 2009 sent the matter back to the California Superior Court for this second trial.
We appreciate your support through this prolonged struggle, and look forward to working with you to continue improving the way families enjoy their movie collections for years to come. We will continue to keep you informed.
If you are interested in reading the full text of the injunction order, it can be found here.
http://www.kaleidescape.com/files/legal/DVDCCA-vs-Kaleidescape-Injunction-Order-20120308.pdf
Sincerely,
Michael Malcolm
Chairman, Founder and CEO
Kaleidescape, Inc.
Dear Kaleidescape Dealer,
Six weeks ago, I wrote to explain that Judge William J. Monahan of the California Superior Court had filed a tentative decision in favor of the DVD CCA. Thursday, Judge Monahan filed his final decision on the matter, again in favor of the DVD CCA. Kaleidescape has appealed this decision, since we have always believed, and continue to believe, that our products fully comply with the DVD CCA's licensing agreement.
Judge Monahan entered his statement of decision and injunction order on March 8, 2012. Kaleidescape filed its appeal on March 9, 2012. Kaleidescape believes that under California law the injunction order should not come into effect unless the California Court of Appeal affirms Judge Monahan's decision. Kaleidescape is confident that when the Court of Appeal reviews the facts of this case, particularly in light of the complete absence of any harm to the DVD CCA or its members, it will reverse the trial court decision. The appeal process may take one to two years.
Since Cheena and I founded the company in 2001, we've been focused on bringing consumers a fantastic experience for enjoying their movie collections. We've invested in building one of the most comprehensive databases of information about DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, including high-resolution cover art and bookmarks for starting movies, scenes, and songs. We've developed two award-winning user interfaces, including one specifically for young children. More recently we released CinemaScape for 2.35 screens and our iPad app. All of these innovations make it more fun to enjoy a movie at home, which leads our customers to purchase even more movies from the motion picture studios.
We believe in a balance between consumer rights and copy control. We strongly believe that individuals have the right to make personal copies of movies they own so they can watch them instantly on any television in their home. We also believe in respecting and protecting the rights of the content creators. So we carefully designed our product not only to preserve the CSS scrambling on the original DVDs, but also to add encryption for greater security. We built a closed system that cannot be used to copy DVDs to or from the Internet, to writable DVDs, or to mobile devices or computers. We built a feature that detects rental DVDs and prevents them from being copied. We required and continue to require that our customers agree to only copy DVDs that they rightfully own, and to reaffirm this agreement each time they copy a disc.
This combination of business practices and technology has been so effective that after years of searching for evidence that Kaleidescape's customers use their systems to steal movies, the DVD CCA admitted in writing that we have done no harm to any of the motion picture studios or to the DVD CCA itself.
We won our first trial in 2007 when Judge Leslie C. Nichols of the California Superior Court found that Kaleidescape's products comply with the CSS license agreement. The DVD CCA appealed to the California Court of Appeal, who in 2009 sent the matter back to the California Superior Court for this second trial.
We appreciate your support through this prolonged struggle, and look forward to working with you to continue improving the way families enjoy their movie collections for years to come. We will continue to keep you informed.
If you are interested in reading the full text of the injunction order, it can be found here.
http://www.kaleidescape.com/files/legal/DVDCCA-vs-Kaleidescape-Injunction-Order-20120308.pdf
Sincerely,
Michael Malcolm
Chairman, Founder and CEO
Kaleidescape, Inc.