Divx’s Stage6 Walks Closer To Piracy Plank
Stage6 owner Divx has suffered a legal setback in a copyright battle with Universal Music Group (UMG).
In a legal filing published February 5th,2008, Judge Dana Sabraw denied a request filed by Divx to prove Stage6′s legality outside of the UMG piracy trial.
To understand what this means we have to go back to when UMG first contacted Divx about Stage6.
The dispute started in 2006 when UMG sent a cease and desist letter to Divx. UMG’s letter accused them of providing pirated material on Stage6. UMG, however, did not provide a list of the infringing video’s, but instead expected Divx to review and remove all UMG content.
One month later UMG sent a second letter, but this time identified the specific infringing videos. Divx quickly removed the videos from Stage6 complying with UMG’s requests.
UMG and Divx sat in silence for 8 months until UMG sent Divx an offer. For 30 million dollars UMG would allow Stage6 to show UMG material legally. Divx balked at this deal and decided to chance any legal proceedings UMG would file.
Divx complies with all provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). UMG would have to question the DMCA’s safe harbor provision if they wanted to attack Divx directly.
With possible legal proceedings looming, Divx made a bold move and asked the courts to rule on whether or not Stage6 is protected under the safe harbor provision.
Six weeks after Divx’s legal filing, UMG made good on their threat and filed a lawsuit accusing Divx of digital piracy. This new legal case would allow UMG to regain control of the DMCA safe harbor lawsuit and caused Judge Sabraw to file a judgment.
Sabraw ruled that a separate trial would not be needed and wrote in the discussion section of the judgment that “the DMCA safe harbor analysis Plaintiff seeks here will be more completely and efficiently undertaken in the Central District, where the court will be able to determine Plaintiff’s compliance with respect to particular copyrights the Defendants identify in the course of those proceedings.”
Even though Divx’s lawsuit has been dismissed, they will still have an opportunity to defend Stage6 and the DMCA safe harbor provision in court.
This court battle gives the impression as though both sides will stick it out for the long run, potentially costing Divx significant legal fees.
Links: Stage6
Source: Stage6 Forums, Seekingalpha, Mashable, Technorati
User
With the hacking and also this lawsuit, I wonder how the moral is at Divx/Stage6.
Check out our article about the hacking here:
http://averad-blog.com/news/stage-6-hacked
DMCA and the coyright bastards are crime terroristen with he hack
buy no CD DVD go not in a cinema and the bastards are dead.
stage 6 for ever!!
Re Morale at Stage 6.
Good point there. I know how much people value and enjoy the interchange of video and information that is Stage 6. Without doubt the very best site of its kind, so of course its the one that gets targeted. There are already so many TV and Movie relay sites there that the cat is out of that bag.
And the moguls have only themselves to blame. None of them have prioritized making their video shows, and esp TV output, easily accessible to people around the world in return for a small fee.
The situation here in Canada is instructive here. Despite living within NAFTA and within reach of the US TV networks, I can neither view, nor download, any TV shows through the Canadian ITunes site (the only one I can use). Nor can I view any material on the US network’s websites. That nice new NBC site – sorry … no entry for anyone outside of the US. And the Canadian providers aren’t offering much on the web – most shows can only be see on air.
The other country whose materials I treasure and would willingly pay for is the UK. Having lived in London for more than 30 years, it would be really nice to be able to purchase and watch UK shows. I’d happily pay for access to episodes or documentaries if the amount asked was fair and reasonable. Can I buy access to the UK shows legitimately – the answer is, again, of course not!
I have to go to an ‘offshore’ provider and pay $40 a month to get access to UK TV, which I do with pleasure. But why can’t I get this direct from the TV channels themselves?
Some people believe that all entertainment should be able to be “shared” for free, and post shows to different boards, but this is a small group in comparison to the large numbers who pay to view a good quality episode of a show or a movie.
The recent US writers strike shows how slowly the worlds big entertainment providers are realizing, as they often comment in their programs, that we now live within a global distribution medium that can deliver high quality entertainment through downloads.
If protective barriers stop people getting the entertainment they want, they will find a way to get it some other way. Most of us would be happy to pay a reasonable amount, and probably accept some sort of DRM as well, to see the content they want to see when they want to see it. The BBC and US networks sit on enormous back catalogues of material that people like me would love to view……
It’ll happen some day but I’m not getting any younger and I can’t wait for them any more !
Feb 12th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
[...] UPDATE: New information about Stage6’s piracy lawsuit, check out “Divx’s Stage6 Walks Closer to Piracy Plank” [...]
Feb 25th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
[...] our article “Divx’s Stage6 Walks Closer To Piracy Plank” we looked at Universal Music Group’s lawsuit accusing Divx of digital piracy. Legal battles [...]