OK, there is nothing about this situation which isn't stupid. Zediva is a DVD rental outfit which allows you to "rent" a DVD, which is then placed in a DVD player and streamed to your computer. Why? Because the MPAA won't allow certain movies to be streamed online until a while after the DVD has been released because they think people will buy the DVD.
They also think that Zediva is exploiting a loophole in the copyright law. However, Zediva now has a heavy hitter copyright lawyer on its side, so let's see where this ends up. Of course, if the MPAA would just sell people movies on-line, we wouldn't really care about this, now would we?
Lets say hypothetically that this gets slapped down by the courts. What, then, if they changed their busines model to (a) accept DVD in the mail, and (b) stick it in the player and let it stream, all for a monthly fee. Then, users could sign up for Netflix, and have the movies sent to Zediva.
ReplyDeleteThis ridiculous mental exercise shows how silly and artificial the lines are that differentiate media by type.