321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc.
| 321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| United States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
| Full case name | 321 Studios, Plaintiffs, v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios Inc., Defendants. |
| Citations | 307 F.Supp.2d 1085 (2004) |
| Judge sitting | Susan Illston |
| Case holding | |
| both of DVD Copy Plus and DVD-X Copy violated the DMCA and that the DMCA was not unconstitutional. 321 Studios was enjoined from manufacturing, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in any type of DVD circumvention software. | |
| Keywords | |
| DVD ripping software, DMCA | |
321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc., 307 F. Supp. 2d 1085 (N.D. Cal. 2004), is a district court case brought by 321 Studios seeking declaratory judgment from the court that their DVD ripping software, i.e. DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy do not violate the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), or, in the alternative, that the DMCA is unconstitutional because Congress exceeded its enumerated powers, these provisions are unconstitutionally vague and/or violate the First Amendment.
The District Court for the Northern District of California rejected 321 Studios' claims for declaratory relief, holding that both DVD Copy Plus and DVD-X Copy violated the DMCA and that the DMCA was not unconstitutional. Simultaneously, the court granted an injunction to enjoin 321 Studios from manufacturing, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in any type of DVD circumvention software.
321 Studios was a private company that marketed and sold software and instructions for copying DVDs. DVD Copy Plus consisted of an electronic guide explaining how to create backup copies of DVDs, two pieces of free, publicly available software, and a CD burning application. This software allowed users to copy portions of DVDs onto CDs regardless of whether they were encoded using Content Scramble System ("CSS"). DVD X Copy created backup copies of DVDs onto a user's computer that could then be burned to a DVD. DVD X Copy used a CSS key to access the data if a DVD was encoded with CDD.
The defendants were mostly made up of members of the Motion Picture Association of America ("MPAA"). As a result of the claim of unconstitutionality, the United States joined the suit as an intervening defendant.
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