Media Maverick | Article Link
The suit has started the process that almost certainly will end with Zediva's demise.
"Zediva illegally streams movies to its customers without obtaining required licenses from the movie studios," the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said in a statement today. "Zediva claims it is like a brick-and-mortar DVD 'rental' store and therefore not obligated to pay licensing fees to copyright holders. But the DVD 'rental' label is a sham. In reality, Zediva is a video-on-demand service that transmits movies over the Internet using streaming technologies in violation of the studios' copyrights."
Zediva didn't immediately respond to an interview request.
Who didn't see this coming? Lots of better loophole-business models have come along that appeared to have a better claim on legality than this operation.
Most of those were sued into oblivion.
The MPAA filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against WTV Systems, parent company of Zediva, and CEO Venkatesh Srinivasan. The studios have asked for $150,000 for each infringed work. They also want the service shut down.
See, everybody wants free content. But all the wishful thinking in the world or poorly thought-out arguments aren't going to make that happen.
Some companies are using the Internet to create revolutionary, lucrative, and consumer-beneficial business models. YouTube is still around. Viacom is challenging the Google-owned company in court but YouTube has penned scores of partnerships with copyright creators. Netflix may not be the most popular company in Hollywood but it operates within the law. Some of these would-be challengers that try to shoe-horn their business strategies into a very broad reading of the law are begging for litigation.
Last month, I asked Zediva managers why their company would fare better in court than, say, ivi.TV. That's the Web-video company that came along before Zediva, that was successful at stirring some excitement before losing in court. A month ago, a federal court in Manhattan ordered ivi.TV to stop retransmitting broadcast TV programming over the Web.
This is what Zediva said: "Zediva is a DVD rental service. It lets a person rent a real DVD and a real DVD player, and control that DVD player over the Internet. It's just like a DVD player with a really long cable attached to it."
Ivi.tv streamed live TV to users over the Internet, arguing that the service was protected by licenses that the copyright laws grant to cable systems.
"Zediva isn't a cable system and doesn't rely on those special licenses that Ivi was trying to take advantage of," Zediva said. "Zediva is operating on the same principle that video rental stores have operated on for decades: once you buy a lawfully made DVD, you're allowed to rent it out to your customers."
So, I never see this DVD player? I didn't buy it but this service is just going to use this little thing called the Internet to connect me to the hardware--and this isn't Internet distribution?
I'm not a lawyer but I'm predicting this one is headed to a permanent injunction and forced shutdown, just like in ivi.TV's case.
Posts
