Kaleidescape DVD Copying Case Goes to Trial
March 22, 2007 – 5:08 pmI’ve been following [this case](http://www.kaleidescape.com/company/legal.html) for a while, ever since I saw the Kaleidescape system at a home theater dealer.
*PC Magazine* is reporting that the case is now moving to trail. Kaleidescape is, according to the article, arguing that the copying done by their system falls under the “Fair Use” exception to copyright.
However, Kaleidescape is not being sued for Copyright Infringement, for which a defence of Fair Use might apply.
They are being sued for violating the terms of a contract. Namely, when they signed a contract to license the CSS playback system, they allegedly agreed to not do what they are doing.
So, I suspect this case will rest of the terms of the contract and the court won’t make a ruling on the broader question of fair use in relation to the DMCA.
If Kaleidescape had not signed a license for CSS, then their product would be violating the DMCA (bypassing a technological protection measure) and then they’d be liable to a copyright infringement lawsuit from the movie studios. That would have lead to a better test of a fair use for format shifting right than this case will be.
In my next post, I’ll explain more about what this system does and why the DVD Copy Control Association does not want it to exist (in my opinion).
