Yes, it is understandable that the movie studios don't want their DVD movies to be saved locally to consumers' hard drives -- let's face it, many copy and then distribute those movies to their friends, and so on, and so on ...
But, is this any different than what has been permitted to go on for years and years when it comes to music? No. The courts, for years, have permitted companies to sell software that gave consumers the ability to take their music CDs and burn them onto their local drives -- under the mantra of "fair use" (in other words, essentially for their personal use -- to archive it and to be able to consume their purchased tracks on other devices).
So, how can a court rationalize these two very different legal treatments of essentially the same issue? That is the intellectually perplexing aspect of the court's decision. The court's legal doctrine seems legally suspect -- movies are being treated differently than music simply because it is too late to regulate music and the genie is out of the bottle. Again, while I "get that" real world decision, I don't get how the courts can rationalize it.
The federal court that granted the studios' preliminary junction concluded:
"While it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally-owned DVD on that individual's consumer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies."
Wow -- now THAT really makes sense, right? Consumers have the right to do it -- but, they legally can't get the tools they need to exercise that right? Right?
Quite frankly, I am not sure what the "right" answer is in all of these cases -- music or motion pictures. But the courts are flat out wrong.
And, at the end of the day, the genie already is out of the bottle and consumers are copying music, movies and more to their computers for all kinds of reasons -- many valid, many not. And that reality ultimately rules the day ...
