Media Wonk

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Who needs Kaleidescape? - April 2, 2008

The DVD-CCA is set to convene again in Los Angeles next week, where attendees presumably will learn whether the studios are still serious about including an anti-Kaleidescape amendment as part of the plan to introduce so-called managed copy for DVDs. For those joining us late, Kaleidescape makes high-end home media servers that let you transfer the contents of DVDs to a hard drive and then stream them over a home network. Although the Kaleidescape system does not circumvent the CSS encryption used on DVDs to prevent copying, and in fact is a CSS licensee, DVD-CCA sued anyway, claiming the CSS license does not permit the creation of permanent copies.

Last year a California state court disagreed, and the case is now on appeal. In the meantime, the studios in DVD-CCA have sought to amend the CSS license to close the loophole identified by the court and thus, retroactively make Kaleidescape's servers illegal. That's prompted threats of litigation from Kaleidescape on anti-trust grounds, forcing DVD-CCA into a game of legal chicken, which is where the matter currently stands.

While the studios ponder their next move in the Kaleidescape case, however, they might want to look around at what else is going on in the home server market. On Wednesday, for instance, Niveus Media launched the beta version of its forthcoming Niveus Movie Library software, which integrates movies from multiple sources into a single user interface for ease of access and uniform functionality.

Movie Library is designed for PCs running Microsoft's Windows Media Center platform in conjunction with Niveus's own media server hardware. The software lets you integrate your DVD collection, movies downloaded  from Vongo, Amazon UnBox and other sources, WMV files and movies recorded with the DVR function included with your Windows Media Center PC, into the user interface.

Although the Niveus system doesn't let you transfer your DVDs to a hard drive, you can connect a Niveus DVD disc changer to store your collection and control playback through the interface. It's also partnered with VideoGiants, who will sell you hard drives pre-loaded with movies licensed from Paramount, which can also be integrated into the UI.

"Niveus’ Movie Library is a great example of what our partners can build on top of the Windows Media Center platform,” Scott Evans, group manager Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices eHome Division said in a statement included in the Niveus press release. “We are highly encouraged by the level of innovation we are seeing from OEMs like Niveus.”

Microsoft, ironically enough, is a member of DVD-CCA, and therefore nominally a party to the suit against Kaleidescape. It was also the principal author within DVD-CCA of an earlier managed-copy plan that did not include the anti-Kaleidescape provision, but which was rejected by the studios.

Not that anyone is talking about suing Niveus, of course. Paramount has even licensed its movies to VideoGiants for including in Niveus servers.

Someone looking to make a point, however, might argue that the permanent archiving of movies recorded from television enabled by Microsoft's Media Center PC technology and incorporated into Niveus's user interface, falls outside the legal parameters of the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in the Betamax case, which sanctioned only non-archival recording for time-shifting purposes. It never envisioned using home recording as a means of accumulating a library.

Niveus has also partnered with RipTopia, whose digital processing service allows you to import up to 200 CDs worth of music at a time to a hard drive for integration into you home media library managed by Niveus software. That announcement came just last month, at a time when the record labels were openly questioning in legal forums whether consumers have any clear right to rip their own CDs.

The point Media Wonk is looking to make is that home media software is increasingly being archived, transferred, organized, streamed and even copied, using technology developed by leading U.S. technology companies, in ways that often tread the knife's edge of any clear legal authority. The notion that in such an environment the studios might effectively stop the sale of Kaleidescape-style home servers, or that doing so would gain them anything of value, seems increasingly far-fetched.
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