Conductor used our news submit to inform us about an article at pcwelt.de. We grabbed the original press release to this article and translated it ourself. This is the reaction of the German software publisher S.A.D. to the accusations of the IFPI :
S.A.D. in reaction to accusations from IFPI
Deep into their bag of tricks, the German record industry watchdog group, the IFPI digs into their bag of tricks with yesterday's press release titled: "MovieJack does not rip anymore".
06.02.2004 This headline is misleading, the preliminary injunction does not concern the software "Movie Jack" distributed by S.A.D but only the "Copy Count" patch and the injunction was not even initiated by the IFPI.
The reason for such false reports, is the alliance's
president Gerd Gebhardt is concerned about the ability to make a private copy of copyrighted content. The purpose of such publicity is to cause predjudice for the upcoming court case with offensive statements, the courts will also have to deal with.
In order to set the record straight, S.A.D. clarifies: Indeed S.A.D. received a preliminary injunction on Wednesday. However, the software MovieJack was not affected, only the Patch "Copy Count" that may not be offered from now on. MovieJack & Co. are still sold by retail markets and by S.A.D. and of course they are legal.
In respect to the preliminary injunction S.A.D.makes this statement "What is important here and will always be in future cases is interpetation of the law and not press releases such as Mr. Gebhardt, who is not even able to strike the right tone" according to an S.A.D.'s press release.
The applicant at the discrict court in Munich was not even the alliance themself as expected in the press release, but rather, it was eight individual companies ("BMG Deutschland GmbH", "BMG Berlin Musik GmbH", "edel records GmbH", "edel media & entertainment GmbH", "EMI Music Germany GmbH & Co. KG", "Sony Music Entertainment (Germany) GmbH & Co. KG", "Universal Music GmbH", "Warner Music Group Germany Holding GmbH") from the music industry. The tactics of the alliance using press releases makes S.A.D. think that this is just an effort to drive up the cost of defense when combined with the eight companies each filing as well in court.In this context it is very funny, that starting with eight prosecutors the costs would not rise anymore, so it was cleverly taken advantage of the cost limit. The lawyer's office Waldorf, who got much attention recently, will be thankful for that.
S.A.D. disagrees with the Phonopgraphic Alliance already celebrating their victory over so called "cracking tools" for just issuing a preliminary injunction. Until now, the sueing companies did not have to make accurate damage claims that result from copies. An appeal by S.A.D. concerning this matter will give those companies of the music industry the opportunity to do this. So now we can learn of the impact a movie ripper is for the music industry profits. More than this it will be interesting, why Sony does not sue Sony to inhibit Sony drives being able to copy a Sony music CD with a Sony copy protection. By the way, this is something Movie Jack would never be able to accomplish, because this is - as its name says - merely something for friends of private video copies.
Even if S.A.D. had to retract their "Copy Count" patch, I am sure there will be several places where you can still download it. Otherwise you will surely find different software that allows you to read copy protected DVDs. Feel free to read the original press release in German at the S.A.D. website.
You may of course also write your comments in our Legal Issues Forum on Club CDFreaks.
Source: S-A-D.de
