Is Zediva"s Online DVD Rental Service Legal?
NOTE: Since the following article was posted, the Zediva service has been discontinued, which is discussed in following article: Zediva Ordered to Permanently Shut Down. The information contained in the article below is preserved for archive purposes.
Zediva believes that it has found a loophole in the copyright law. When a movie is released in the stores, Zediva actually buys copies of the DVDs that are accessed from their website and played on a DVD player for each viewer.
Its belief is that its viewing members are customers, just as in any brick and mortar video rental store.
Zediva further claims that because each person is watching only one DVD at any given time, this is no different than renting the actual disc. The company defends their position by likening it to streaming content from one DVR to another.
According to an article posted by the San Jose Mercury News - copyright lawyer Bob Garrett cites a case of a hotel in California that let guests access a DVD player at the front desk. Basically, a movie was being transmitted to each room and every guest was watching the same DVD. This was considered a public showing of the DVD and a copyright infringement.
In a case where guests could borrow a DVD from the front desk to play in their rooms, the court found that it was not a violation of copyright law.
One could imagine that Zediva would argue that its service is like the second case here. In the first case, many people were watching the same DVD in different rooms.
In the second case, it was a one-person-per-one-DVD experience, similar to Zediva's offering.
While the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is not commenting on Zediva's service, we can bet that their lawyers are looking into ways to maintain control of movie streaming availability. It will also be interesting to see how lawyers interpret the Zediva service and how it fits into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
UPDATE 4/5/2011:MPAA Sues Zediva - Claims Streaming DVDs is Copyright Infringement.
For a complete look at Zediva, check out our entire article series on this innovative online DVD rental service.
Zediva believes that it has found a loophole in the copyright law. When a movie is released in the stores, Zediva actually buys copies of the DVDs that are accessed from their website and played on a DVD player for each viewer.
Its belief is that its viewing members are customers, just as in any brick and mortar video rental store.
Zediva further claims that because each person is watching only one DVD at any given time, this is no different than renting the actual disc. The company defends their position by likening it to streaming content from one DVR to another.
According to an article posted by the San Jose Mercury News - copyright lawyer Bob Garrett cites a case of a hotel in California that let guests access a DVD player at the front desk. Basically, a movie was being transmitted to each room and every guest was watching the same DVD. This was considered a public showing of the DVD and a copyright infringement.
In a case where guests could borrow a DVD from the front desk to play in their rooms, the court found that it was not a violation of copyright law.
One could imagine that Zediva would argue that its service is like the second case here. In the first case, many people were watching the same DVD in different rooms.
In the second case, it was a one-person-per-one-DVD experience, similar to Zediva's offering.
While the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is not commenting on Zediva's service, we can bet that their lawyers are looking into ways to maintain control of movie streaming availability. It will also be interesting to see how lawyers interpret the Zediva service and how it fits into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
UPDATE 4/5/2011:MPAA Sues Zediva - Claims Streaming DVDs is Copyright Infringement.
For a complete look at Zediva, check out our entire article series on this innovative online DVD rental service.
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