Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

One of the main appeals for media centers PC is the ability to store all of your movies digitally on a hard drive, eliminating the need to place a DVD in a player. Thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ripping a DVD is technically illegal. One brave company, Kaleidescape developed a media center interface to store and browse you ripped DVDs. From their website:

The Kaleidescape System simplifies the way you collect, manage and enjoy movies and music. Once your personal entertainment collection is stored on the Kaleidescape System’s fault-tolerant Servers, you can say goodbye to DVD and CD clutter and the frustration of storing and organizing your movies and music. And, since your Kaleidescape System uses high-speed networking to deliver your favorite movies and music throughout your home, you can instantly access and enjoy them when and where it’s convenient for you, your family or your guests.

It is not surprising that Kaleidescape got sued by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA). The DVD CCA, which licenses the Content Scramble System (CSS) for protecting DVDs, had claimed that Kaleidescape breached a contract when it created products that enable (indeed encourage) individuals to copy protected DVDs onto hard-drive servers. Surprisingly, Kaleidescape successfully defended themselves in the court of law. From CEPro.com:

As Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm explains, “The DVD CCA went on a fishing expedition for three years, trying to find a breach.” In the end, he says, Judge Nichols agreed that “nothing in the agreement prevents you from making copies of DVDs. Nothing requires that a DVD be present during playback.”

Why is this a big deal? Hopefully it will open up the market for software than can manage ripped DVDs. The big winner is Microsoft, who could benefit greatly from this ruling by making Vista Media Center manage and store all of your DVDs.