Movie Industry Sues More DVD Chip Makers on Piracy

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:16:46 -0700
Subj: Movie Industry Sues More DVD Chip Makers on Piracy

Movie Industry Sues More DVD Chip Makers on Piracy
Tue Aug 24,11:06 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040824/media_nm/tech_dvd_suit_
dc_3



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -  The representative for Hollywood's major movie
studios on Monday said its members have sued two microchip makers, alleging
they sold their products to makers of equipment that can be used to
illegally copy DVDs.


 The suits are the latest legal action by the Motion Picture Association of
America, which claims its members loose billions of dollars annually to
copyright piracy.

 The MPAA said the suits against Sigma Designs Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM - news) and
MediaTek Inc. (2454.TW) followed testing that it said proved the two were
selling microchips to companies, whose DVD players lack what the MPAA called
"appropriate security features."

 The suits were filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles.

 Sigma and MediaTek make chips to decode the Content Scramble System, or
CSS, which is the copy-protection system used for DVDs. Their licenses
require that they sell only to other CSS-licensed companies.

 A spokesman for Milpitas, California-based Sigma was not immediately
available to comment, nor was a spokesman for Taiwan-based MediaTek.

 The CSS license pact has aided the success of DVDs because it has provided
protection against illegal copying to copyright owners of movies, television
shows and other content sold on DVD.

 In July a California court issued a preliminary injunction barring ESS
Technology Inc. (Nasdaq:ESST - news) from selling its own CSS-decoding chips
to unlicensed makers of DVD players.

 The MPAA, recognizing the damage the advent of digital file-sharing did to
the music industry, has waged an aggressive campaign against movie piracy.
It has sued people and companies for purported acts of piracy and rewarded
movie projectionists for turning in people who make illegal recordings in
theaters.

 Last week it was dealt a blow as a federal appeals court said a number of
notable makers of file-sharing software could not be held liable for
copyright infringement. They had been sued by movie and music companies who
claimed they should be held liable because of how their software was used.

 

--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com



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