MPAA Kills More Innovation; Zediva Shut Down Permanently
Found on Techdirt on Monday, 31 October 2011
Zediva, if you don't recall, let people rent movies remotely. It would load them up in a DVD player that you could log into. It legitimately bought the DVDs and used them just as you would at home if you rented a DVD and brought it home. The only real difference here was that the DVD player was at a central location, rather than your home. In a very weird ruling, a court determined that the length of the cord determines if something is infringing.
If you want to get a sense of the future under E-PARASITE/SOPA: this is it. Except it's even worse. Chris Dodd and the MPAA won't even need to go to court, they can just send a single notice to the payment processor for Zediva, and the plug would be pulled. Dead.
So I keep telling people how greedy and censor-happy the industry is. I keep telling people that thanks to them, their choices and market freedom gets limited. By doing so, I make people re-think their stance towards this industry, knowing that some now don't hand over as much money to them as before.