By Ron Harris
Associated Press Writer Friday, December 20, 2002; 4:04 AM
SAN FRANCISCO –– Hollywood fought back against a maker of DVD copying software, saying the company is allegedly trafficking tools of digital theft.
Seven major motion picture studios filed a counterclaim Thursday in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California against 321 Studios, makers of DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy.
The software sold at stores nationwide allows the user to make a copy of a DVD to a blank CD or DVD by defeating the copy protections encoded onto the original movie disc — activity the studios say is a legal no-no.
The movie studios say the software contains the power of digital piracy, and asked the court to enjoin 321 Studios from selling it or distributing it further. The studios also seek damages from any proceeds derived from the company's software sales.
"It's like somebody selling a digital crowbar. It's like breaking into the castle if you will," said Patricia Benson, an attorney for the studios.
When 321 Studios' first product — DVD Copy Plus — came out and the company sought a declaration that it did not violate federal law, Hollywood shrugged and the studios simply sought to have the case dismissed, stating there was no "case or controversy."
DVD Copy Plus copies DVD movies to blank CDs, though in a compressed video format.
But with the advent of 321 Studios latest offering — DVD X Copy — the stakes are a little higher. The software allows the user to burn an exact copy of the original DVD to a blank DVD, without any diminished quality or "lossy" compression.
"When the second product came out and 321 Studios started marketing it very aggressively, the landscape kind of changed," Benson said.
The studios still hold that both 321 Studios products violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes illegal the distribution of any technology or device that allows the user to circumvent copy protections put in place by the content owner.
Elizabeth Sedlock, a spokeswoman for 321 Studios, says the company has sold about 150,000 copies of both software titles combined. The software titles may offer the user a hotly debated solution to making back-up copies of "Shrek," but it's not illegal, she said.
"We allow consumers to make a back-up copy of their DVDs," Sedlock said.
DVD movies commonly contain technology called Content Scramble System (CSS), a scheme to prevent the disc from being illegally copied. That CSS scheme has been defeated by a small bit of software code called DeCSS, short for decrypted CSS.
321 Studios software similarly gets around the CSS scheme, though the company sought to divert attention from the method it uses to do so.
"Whether or not (the software) decrypts is not the issue. It's whether the primary purpose of it is to decrypt — which it isn't," Sedlock said.
321 Studios won't give up the fight for what it considers the consumer's right to make "fair use" copies of their store-bought DVDs.
"We didn't choose this battle. This battle chose us and we're willing to fight it," Sedlock said.
321 Studios is based in Chesterfield, Mo. The studios that filed the joint counterclaim are Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Tri-Star Pictures, Inc., Time Warner Entertainment Company LP, Universal City Studios, Inc., and The Saul Zaentz Company.
