When it comes to content delivery such as music and video's, Australia is in a global backwater with several major movie studios and music companies refusing to license their content for sale in Australia over the Internet.
Companies like Microsoft with their media centre offering have refused point blank to deliver either an electronic program guide or content. The only PC company to deliver content has been Apple with their iTunes store. Also in the running is Telstra with their Bigpond offering along with some fringe players like TiVo with their Blockbuster offering.
What the movie and music companies fear is that Australians will RIP down their content and illegally distribute it or store it for future use, which is why Foxtel refuses to allow storage to be attached to their set top box. They have also disabled the USB port.
However, this could change if two major court cases currently underway in the USA go in favour of Real Networks who manufacture a low cost DVD ripping software offering and Kaleidescape who manufacture a storage server which is already sold in Australia.
Both companies are fighting to sell hardware and software that make the copying and storage of content easier.
Two years ago, I reported that a US judge ruled that Kaleidescape could sell a line of media servers that allowed ripping a DVD to a hard drive. Last year, we reported that Real Networks was also in court fighting for the right to sell their $29.95 DVD ripping software.
In June, a state appellate court heard an appeal brought by the DVD Copy Control Association, a plaintiff in both the case against Kaleidescape and RealNetworks.
Click Here: $6M DVD Ripping Argument To Be Made This Week
Both cases concern fundamentally the same technology and arguments: whether both companies have the right to manufacture a product that rips DVDs to a hard drive, and if that capability violated the DVD CCA's contract or some other copyright law.
