321 Studios cease operations (1 Viewer)

[Keith Paynter]

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http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/#2

321 Software Tosses in the Towel

321 Software, whose software for copying DVDs won PC Magazine's award as the best product of 2003 but was denounced as a tool for piracy by the Motion Picture Association of America, reached a final settlement with the MPAA on Tuesday. Already in its death throes following an unsuccessful battle against the MPAA that resulted in its bankruptcy, 321 signed an agreement with the studios to cease selling its software anywhere in the world and to make "a substantial financial payment." The MPAA said that it would use the settlement funds for its antipiracy education program. In announcing the settlement, outgoing MPAA chief Jack Valenti said, "321 Studios built its business on the flawed premise that it could profit from violating the motion picture studios' copyrights." Software developers and PC publications who maintained that the 321 software had legitimate uses viewed the settlement otherwise. "Movie Studios Extract Pound of Flesh from 321," blared a headline in Britain's Computer Buyer magazine. The technology news service IDG News called the settlement a "postmortem deal," and observed that one of 321's final corporate acts would now be "paying off the companies that drove it to extinction."

While 321 Studios started the 'backup' software phoenomenon, they have lost only to see dozens of other companies take their place.

 

[Chris Hovanic]

suckie... nuff said

 

[ClintS]

Im glad I never bought the program, you have to have a key code issued from them to activate the software. So basically everyone who bought it is now hosed. If they ever loose their harddrive or change computers they have lost the software key.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

One down, many more to go.

 

[Don Black]

All the content monopolies are doing is forcing people to use the more radical tools created via the hacker/open-source community. It's not like the real pirates use 321's stuff anyway...

 

[Alf S]

Glad I went the freeware route.

 

[DaveGTP]

I will just note this is another company shut down by legal costs rather than actually losing the battle.

Too often this has become the fate of anyone who provokes the wrath of corporations. Bleem! bit the dust pretty quickly when Sony came down on their heads.

You don't have to be right, you just have to have enough $$ to crush small companies into the ground with legal costs.

An ongoing trend, and not a good one.