Hollywood Studios Sue to Stop
Alleged DVD-Pirating Software
By COLLEEN DEBAISE
Dow Jones Newswires
January 16, 2000
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NEW YORK -- Hollywood heavy-hitters have leapt into a legal battle already being waged against Web programmers who allegedly distribute software that allows people to make illegal copies of DVDs.
Eight major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit Friday in Manhattan federal court claiming three New York men are operating Web sites that are "proliferating" a software program called "DeCSS."
Trade Group Targets DVD Copying (Dec. 29, 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 disk, format.
"This is a case of theft," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America Inc. (www.mpaa.org), 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 Seagram Co.'s Universal City Studios Inc.; Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures Corp.; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Sony Corp.'s Tristar Pictures Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.; Time Warner Inc.'s Time Warner Entertainment Co.; Walt Disney Co.'s Disney Enterprises Inc.; and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
The studios are the leading distributors of movies in DVD format, including "Titanic," "The Matrix" and 4,000 other films.
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.
Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association, said the studios' suit could represent the first of many brought against those believed to be distributing the software. "We will continue to explore legal options that are available to us," he said.
The studios' suit, which seeks injunctive relief and damages, names Shawn C. Reimerdes, Eric Corley, Roman Kazan and their respective Web sites.
Neither Mr. Reimerdes nor Mr. 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 over a thousand sites. One of the sites named in the suit uses his fileserver, but wasn't created by him or his company.
Mr. Kazan said he didn't know who created the site and hadn't yet looked at it. He added that his company doesn't control the content of customers' sites. But, "if I knew it was something illegal I wouldn't host it on my server," he said.
Write to Colleen DeBaise at colleen.debaise@dowjones.com
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