321 Studios folds.

[Bob W]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20040804_13.html?MONEYSCOPEad=true

What I find strange is that there are many companies producing similar software but 321 seems to be the one to get all the legal problems.

[djelimon]

Which country are the other guys based out of?

Courts outside of the US may not be as friendly to Big Media - for example, the recent ruling in Canada that being in a p2p network and letting people D/L stuff is okay.

[vitualis]

321 Studios was the only one producing a commercial DeCSS program... not to mention they pre-emptively sued the movie industry. They had it coming.

Regards.

[andydd]

DVD X copy was always crap anyway. There were/are far better and cheaper (ie free) tools out there.

To me the outcome was pretty inevitable.

[smearbrick1]

Slightly relevant:

I was in Wal-Mart the other day, and happened by their value software section. They had a software package for a DVD ripper!!! I couldn't believe it. After all of this with 321 Studios, Wal-Mart (of all places) is selling software to bypass CSS. The amazing thing is, whoever distributed the package, was very proud of their software. The package said right on it "back up you dvds to cd-r or dvd-r using this package."

[ViRaL1]

Wal-Mart wouldn't do that. Their all about integrity and family values.


and guns.

[QuaiBoy]

Too bad. 321 was the lightning rod of the DVD backup industry, taking the spotlight off of all the freeware floating around that does what it does. Kind of like Kazaa takes the heat off of WinMX.

-Evan-

[GabeB]

I'm sure the CEO made a few easy million dollars off of all the people that refused to learn to back-up their DVD's on their own (free software). It just shows you that if you make something popular and easy enough you will rake in a crap load of money. He probably has it sitting in a foreign account by now.

[BobK]

> After all of this with 321 Studios, Wal-Mart (of all places) is selling software to bypass CSS

It may not be the same one, but I saw a DVD Ripper in WalMart a while ago and it would not bypass CSS. If you read the box closely it only ripped unprotected disks.

[ViRaL1]

I don't know if they started carrying it after the ripper was removed, but my local Wal Mart carried DVD X Copy Xpress.

[Sam Ontario]

> After all of this with 321 Studios, Wal-Mart (of all places) is selling software to bypass CSS

It may not be the same one, but I saw a DVD Ripper in WalMart a while ago and it would not bypass CSS. If you read the box closely it only ripped unprotected disks.

Correct me if I am wrong. You simply copy the disks with Windows file explorer with unprotected disks, no need for any ripper.

[DVD_Ripper]

DVD X copy was always crap anyway. There were/are far better and cheaper (ie free) tools out there.

To me the outcome was pretty inevitable.

Ditto... but they packaged it up nicely for the consumer. The user didnt have to think about it.

[BobK]

> Correct me if I am wrong. You simply copy the disks with Windows file explorer with unprotected disks, no need for any ripper.

Just because you don't need it doesn't mean people won't sell it.

[ViRaL1]

DVD X Copy was designed to copy CSS protected disks. Although you can view VOBs in Window$ (from a non-encrypted disc), I don't believe just a straight file copy will yield a disc you can watch in a set top player.

[vitualis]

Also DVD-9 --> DVD-5...

Regards.

[proxyx99]

Wal-Mart wouldn't do that. Their all about integrity and family values.

and guns.

Ha Ha. Isn't your name Walton by any chance?

[BobK]

> DVD X Copy was designed to copy CSS protected disks. Although you can view VOBs in Window$ (from a non-encrypted disc). I don't believe just a straight file copy will yield a disc you can watch in a set top player.

Show of hands- is that news to anyone?