U.S. movie streaming Zediva sued for copyright violation

2011/04/06

BEIJING, April 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Zediva, the online movie streaming service, is being sued for copyright infringement by six Hollywood studios, media reports said Wednesday.

Lawyers for the Motion Picture Association of America, an organization representing the major Hollywood studios, claim that Zediva's operations violate the studios' right to "publicly perform" their works.

"Zediva's mischaracterization of itself is a gimmick it hopes will enable it to evade the law and stream movies in violation of the studios' exclusive rights," MPAA associate general counsel Dan Robbins said in a statement.

Although Zediva calls itself a DVD-rental operation, the company doesn't ship DVDs to customers through the mail, like Netflix Inc. and similar services. Zediva's discs sit in players at the company's Silicon Valley data center, and the movies are played on-demand whenever a customer places an order.

Because it hasn't had to pay those license fees, Zediva has been able to offer rentals at much lower prices than other services. Movies rented from Zediva can be viewed for as little as one or two dollars a piece.

The studios argue that every time Zediva transmits a movie online it constitutes a "public performance," which is something Zediva isn't legally allowed to do without obtaining specific required licenses from the movie studios.

MPAA lawyers are calling on a Los Angeles federal court to order Zediva to stop its online film service and pay 150,000 dollars for every movie streamed.

Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal are among the MPAA members concerned.

(Source:news.xinhuanet.com)