Zediva is being sued by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA). The DVD streaming service which disguises itself as a traditional rental service is being sued for providing “public performances” of movies.
If you’re unfamiliar with Zediva, the service works by allowing users to rent a “ DVD player ” and movie from the company over the internet. According to Zediva Faq:
“When you rent a movie on Zediva, you are renting both a DVD and DVD Player in our data center. During the period of the rental, the DVD and the DVD Player can only be used by you.”
The MPAA believes (it has not been proven in a court of law) that Zediva has no right to rent a DVD player to a customer while streaming movies across the internet.
While Zediva may have a “unique” method for delivering movies, it will be up to a court of law to determine if the company’s methodology is in violation of public performance and copyright laws.
It will be interesting to see how the MPAA frames their arguments since Blockbuster (and other video rental stores) back in the day use to rent VCR’s and eventually DVD players to customers along with movie rentals, yet the MPAA never attacked Blockbuster for their methodology.
What do you think about the Zediva system?
