I remember a service that put a physical DVD in an individual DVD player in a warehouse somewhere and streamed it to you. Essentially the same thing as this? Looks like it was shut down.
> Judge Walter also seemed unimpressed by Zediva's argument against an injunction. "Defendants claim, without any evidence, that an injunction would significantly harm, if not destroy, their business," he wrote. He ruled that the harm to movie studios from lost revenues outweighed any hardship Zediva faced.
That is ridiculous. "You are right, it would destroy your business, but it might hurt their bottom line a little bit".
How much evidence do you need? Our entire and sole business is this thing you are about to injunct. Do they have to prove they don't also grow magical money trees?
At first glance, it does seem like essentially the same thing.
I wonder if it makes any difference, the fact that broadcasting is putting out a signal for "free" to everyone in the first place, whereas the DVD's must be purchased in the first place -- so that they never started as anything public, unlike TV.
Just call it a rental; after all, renting DVDs is legal. But precedent has shown that it's not necessarily legal to outsource something that would be legal for you to do yourself.
It's strange that Zediva was engaged in public performance when it streamed a single DVD playback to a single viewer, but Cablevision was not engaged in a public performance when it streamed a single DVR's contents to a single viewer.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shut...