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After reading the opinion, I am worried. Frankly, I always thought the reason for the initial Kaleidescape win was weak - a rather pedantic interpretation of the license agreement that ignored a bunch of other, equally persuasive, stuff.
While the case goes back to the trial court, it seems that the CSS agreement requires a physical disk be present when the content is displayed, if only for CSS key verification.
The question is my mind, does K have enough political allies (in Congress and in Hollywood) to save its bacon, since the DVDCCA are a bunch of unreasonable idiot lawyers? If not, this company is toast. Well, almost toast. It is possible Kaleidescape could quickly pirouette into a managed copy blu-ray device, and ink a deal with Netflix, Vudu, or Apple TV, to allow secure downloadable movies. But without access to DVDs, this would still probably kill Kaleidescape.
OR, Kaleidescape could update its software to eliminate its ability to even read CSS encrypted DVDs. That would presumably put it beyond the reach of the DVDCCA.
Then K owners could just use an easy to use free, easily downloadable program (NOT WRITTEN BY Kaleidescape or in any way associated with them) that would read in a CSS encrypted DVD, strip out CSS and write out an unencrypted DVD. I'm sure such a program already exists. Heck, the appeal court concurring opinion went out of its way to point out the absurdity of this case wrt such available software.
In any case, I think I'll upgrade my system to the new 3U servers now if they still have that 5U to 3U upgrade program available since I have a feeling we'll be using our systems without Kaleidescape being around in a year or so...
Wow this can't be good... I have had my system less than 3 months and forked over a pretty pennies for it...Does this mean I need to hurry and buy another mini player and more drives before everything goes to hell in a hand basket? Will my system still work after "k" goes bye bye? :[ ok who is going to repair the system when the drive fails? Oh man this can not be good....DUH
Well, technically it is the DVD CCA that is suing Kaleidescape and not the studios. The film studios are only 1/3 of the DVD CCA, I think.
With regards to the iTunes reference, downloadbale films are probably not going to use CSS so that is actually something the DVD CCA would not like to see.
That seems like an even worse position to fight from than their current one.so now I get it a little better that although the studios are driving some of this behavior, the "competition" in the playback and server categories are probably driving it a little more. Appears to be a little "you do this better than us, so we don't want you to do it"
I just read that the next version of iTunes might support DVD ripping and Apple may be ready to get into selling flat screen televisions............