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Motion Picture Studios File Suit To Stop Ripping of DVDS to Portable Video Players

By Eric Sinrod

Just when you thought it might be safe to rip DVDs for use on your personal video player, such as an iPod Video, the motion picture studios have just filed a federal lawsuit in New York to put an end to such practices. While the motion picture studios certainly have financial and legal might behind them, the question remains as to whether they will prevail in their lawsuit.

In Paramount Pictures v. Load 'N Go Video, the motion picture studios have brought legal action against a small company that has loaded DVDs onto personal video players for its customers. Specifically, according to the lawsuit, Load 'N Go Video sells DVDs and iPods to its customers, and loads the DVDs onto the iPods for customers who purchase both. The motion picture studios assert that this practice violates the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The motion picture studios describe in their complaint that before releasing their copyrighted works in DVD format, they employ a Content Scramble System (CSS), which is an encryption-based DVD access control and copy prevention system that provides for protection of copyrighted content. According to the motion picture studios, the service of Load 'N Go Video of copying DVD content and then loading it onto the portable video players of its customers involves circumvention of CSS in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

DVDs, as noted by the motion picture studios, are five-inch wide optical disks that contain recorded material in digital form. DVD technology, they add, has substantially improved the clarity and quality of viewing of pre-recorded content, and thus presents a heightened risk of unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material because the material can be digitally copied and transmitted repeatedly without quality degradation. It is for this reason that the motion picture studios use CSS to prevent the unauthorized access to and reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works contained in DVDs.

As acknowledged by the complaint, the customers of Load 'N Go Video purchase DVDs and portable video players, and pay a charge to Load 'N Go Video for loading the DVDs onto the portable video players. The motion picture studios highlight that a license has not been granted to Load 'N Go Video to copy, distribute or exploit their copyrighted works or to circumvent the CSS.

All well and good in terms of the complaint filed by the motion picture studios, right? Well, perhaps and perhaps not. While the motion picture studios make technically valid legal points within the four corners of their complaint, there is another legal point of view that likely will be espoused by Load 'N Go Video, assuming that the case continues to move forward.

The key point for Load 'N Go Video will be that its customers purchased both the DVDs and the portable video players. Thus, Load 'N Go Video simply has saved the customers the time and hassle of themselves loading the content they paid for on the portable video players they also purchased.

Taking the motion picture studios' argument to its extreme, a buyer on his own could be subject to legal liability for at home ripping purchased DVDs onto a purchased portable video player without first seeking permission or purchasing the content again for specific use on the portable video player. One wonders whether a court would embrace such an argument taken to its extreme.

Load 'N Go Video likely will assert that it has engaged in "fair use" for copyright purposes, and that such fair use trumps the claims of the motion picture studios under the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

While Load 'N Go Video under these facts does have a defense to assert, one must keep in mind that the motion picture studios, like the music industry, have been very successful to date in seeking to protect their copyrighted works. Stay tuned to see how this case plays out.

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