DVD software provider 321 Studios suffered another legal setback Wednesday when a New York judge granted a preliminary injunction barring the company from manufacturing, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in software that allows users to copy DVDs.
U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, in case 1:03-cv-08970-RO, sided with Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox Film in ordering 321 Studios to stop distributing products that violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Motion Picture Association of America says in a statement praising the court decision.
Representatives from 321 Studios, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film, and the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
321 Studios uses the freely available decryption technology DeCSS (De-Content Scrambling System) in its software, which allows users to access movies on DVDs that are protected by the CSS encryption technology.
Similar Situation
On February 20, a San Jose, California court sided with several movie studios when U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston ordered the St. Charles, Missouri, company to stop selling its DVD copying software after ruling it illegal.
Lawyers for 321 Studios have argued that the DMCA provisions are unconstitutional and obstruct fair use rights, and that CSS is not a copy protection tool but an access control tool.
The company has several versions of its product, including DVD X Copy Xpress, which sells for $70 and lets users back up a whole movie to a DVD. It has now been selling what it calls “ripper free versions” of its products without the DeCSS decryption software. The MPAA on Wednesday characterized such a move as a transparent ploy that allows users of 321 Studio software to “do indirectly what can’t be done directly.”
321 Studios is in the midst of a week-long “Fight for Fair Use” campaign. It has urged consumers to protest the San Jose court ruling though various means such as sending letters to their local newspapers, e-mailing and calling studio executives, and sending e-mails, faxes, or telegrams to Members of Congress encouraging them to support legislation to amend the DMCA “in a way that will protect Americans’ fair use rights in the digital future.”
The MPAA criticized 321 Studios’ “various publicity stunts” as efforts that only confuse consumers about what is legal and what is not.
