Hollywood Studios Join Legal Battle To Stop DVD Copying

January 15, 2000

Hollywood Studios Join Legal Battle To Stop DVD Copying

By DOW JONES

ight major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court in Manhattan claiming three New York men are operating Web sites that are proliferating a software program called DeCSS.

Related Article
DVD Lawsuit Questions Legality of Linking
(January 7, 2000)
DVDs Are a Step in Making the VCR Obsolete
(January 7, 2000)
Judge Rejects Effort to Block DVD Program
(December 31, 1999)

The software, which descrambles the DVD's protective coding called Contents Scramble System, is widely thought to have been developed by European hackers. The suit alleges the three men have posted the software to their Web sites and are exhorting users to make free copies of movies in DVD, or digital versatile disc, format.
"This is a case of theft," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America Inc., in a statement. "The posting of the de-encryption formula is no different from making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store."
The suit was filed by Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Tristar Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises and 20th Century Fox.
The studios are the leading distributors of movies in DVD format.
The action follows a similar suit brought last month in California by the DVD Copy Control Association, a group that represents the movie and consumer-electronics industries. That suit accuses 72 programmers and Web sites of distributing software that allows users to illegally pirate copies of DVD videos.
The studios' suit, which seeks injunctive relief and damages, names Shawn C. Reimerdes, Eric Corley, Roman Kazan and their respective Web sites.
Neither Reimerdes nor Corley could be immediately reached.
Mr. Kazan said he has been wrongfully named in the suit, as he owns a Web-hosting business, Escape.com, that hosts more than 1,000 sites.

Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today