Mozaex Hoping to Capitalize on Streaming Server That Plays Blu-rays

Media server company Mozaex has begun shipping the Chroma multi-room media server, which the company said is the first server to include both iTunes and a Blu-ray player. Chroma includes iBLU, which supports iTunes content and Blu-ray movies and iPlay, a feature that allows users to play their iTunes audio and video content using Apple’s iPad and iPhone remote apps. Mozaex said that its $2,995 server, which also supports UltraViolet, “legally plays Blu-rays and DVDs without an expensive, complicated disc changer.”

In the news release announcing Chroma’s availability, Mozaex referred to the copyright lawsuit competitor Kaleidescape lost against the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) earlier this year. A judge ruled that Kaleidescape breached its contract with DVD CCA by selling a product that makes a copy of protected DVD content on a server and allows it to be played back without the disc being present. Mozaex is hoping to capitalize on Kaleidescape’s misfortune and is letting its own and Kaleidescape dealers know that “ours is fully legal, sold all over world, and beyond just a non-disc changer solution,” CEO Douglas Kihm told Consumer Electronics Daily. Kihm said Chroma is the “first integrated server that’s combined with the iTunes store that can use any i-device to control playback."

Kihm said Mozaex “continues to be contractually compliant and legal” since its server doesn’t ship with DVD CCA’s or other unlicensed decryption software. It ships with proprietary decryption software to play DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but no software to transfer the content from disc to server is included. Mozaex asserted that because Mozaex servers don’t ship with unlicensed decryption software, they don’t require a “cumbersome and expensive disc-changer to play movies.” That’s a solution Kaleidescape has had to employ in its Blu-ray servers, and likely, now its DVD servers, to be legally compliant. Mozaex’s said it believes the court ruling against Kaleidescape “reaffirms that Mozaex products are legal since Mozaex does not make, traffic, or provide unlicensed decryption software.” Mozaex also said it believed the recent copyright court decisions involving Kaleidescape and RealNetworks affirmed that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) “does not prohibit the use of decryption software for legal purposes which includes storing content you own for your own personal use."

Mozaex servers can’t be used to legally store and distribute DVD content. But Kihm told us its servers are no different from the hundreds of millions of Windows Media PCs sold that haven’t shipped with, or don’t require, “unlicensed decryption software to be installed or used to play a wide variety of local and online media.” The company’s position is that it’s the user’s responsibility to obey all copyright laws and that Mozaex does not promote or approve of the unlawful use of its products. Kihm cited a court interpretation of the DMCA as follows: “A reading of the DMCA makes it clear that its prohibition [of decryption software] applies to the trafficking in and marketing of devices that would circumvent encryption technology, not to the users of such technology.”

DVD CCA spokesman Greg Larsen told us that Mozaex isn’t a Content Scramble System (CSS) licensee and is “therefore not authorized to implement CSS in its products.” He said DVD CCA “is not aware of any licensed and compliant CSS playback product (including software) that can be used to lawfully enable the uses of CSS that were at issue in either the Kaleidescape litigation or the RealNetworks litigation. Both the California state courts and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of DVD CCA in its enforcement of the CSS License against licensees who have used CSS to create copies of CSS-protected DVDs for playback, instead of playing back such DVDs directly from the DVD."

Mozaex servers come with licensed software to play DVDs and Blu-ray discs, Kihm said. The installation of decryption software is only necessary if a user wants to load DVD and Blu-ray content to the server, he said, which Kihm holds that courts have determined is legal for personal use of content users own. That is possible “if a user wants to be responsible for obeying any copyright laws and using decryption software for legal purposes -- which includes not loading content they don’t own or taking content and distributing it to people that don’t own it,” he said.

On the decision to make Chroma UltraViolet-compliant, Kihm said it was a logical extension to add UltraViolet to Walmart’s Vudu service, which also runs on the Chroma server, and UltraViolet adds a layer of mobility. “You authenticate your content on UV, and that content is then available for download on a mobile device,” he said, adding there’s a “big need for ubiquitous entertainment.” While UltraViolet is a new service “and hasn’t been fully tested and vetted yet,” in Mozaex’s tests, UltraViolet “runs really clean,” Kihm said. “It doesn’t have the breadth of library of iTunes -- or the quality -- but it’s most useful for the mobile environment,” he said.

Mozaex is also working on a lower-cost server solution that will enable tech-savvy users “who don’t own mansions,” to build their own server products for $1,000 or less, Kihm said. The company is opening the architecture to make the product available to more users, because “even $3,000 is too much for thousands of people who just want to store media and play stuff,” he said. Additional details will be available in coming weeks, he said.