Disney's attempt to prevent Redbox from buying its discs for rental and resale may have blown up in the House of Mouse's face. The Hollywood Reporter describes how District Court Judge Dean Pregerson sided with Redbox to shoot down a Disney-mandated injunction. In addition, Pregerson contended that Disney may itself be misusing copyright law to protect its interests and its own forthcoming streaming service.
If you're unfamiliar with the backstory, Redbox didn't have a deal in place to procure Disney DVDs and Blu-rays for its disc rental kiosks. So, the company simply bought the discs at retail, often snagging combo packs that include a DVD, Blu-ray and a download code for the movie as well. Redbox would then offer up the discs for rental, and sell on the codes at its kiosks for between $8 and $15.
Such a move enraged Disney, which includes language in its packaging and on the website demanding that users must own the disc if they download a copy. But this is where Pregerson began to disagree, saying that Disney cannot dictate what people do with copyrighted media after they have bought it. Specifically, that there's no law, or explicit contract term, that prevents folks from doing what Redbox did with Disney discs.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/22/disney-redbox-lawsuit/
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:37AM (1 child)
It remains to be seen whether the decision was "sensible" if you favor a permissive approach to use of copyrighted materials as you wish. In fact, it actually does sound a bit like the old "but-on-a-computer" trick, since the digital version was considered quite differently from the physical media by the judge.
It's interesting that the summary here skips the next sentence of the Engadget article, which makes this perfectly clear: "Although it's possible that Disney can amend the wording on its packaging in future to make its objection to reselling legally binding."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:28AM
It cannot be legally binding if it violates the 1st sale principle. Considering they lost on principles, I don't see them winning with revised language.