Samsung Under Cartel Attack

[GhostShip]

Intresting item here for those that may buy one of these products second hand.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200602/kt2006021919273711910.htm

Samsung Electronics, Asia’s most valuable high-tech company, is scrambling after multiple U.S. movie studios reportedly took the Seoul-based firm to court, alleging glitches in its DVD players.

Over the weekend, Bloomberg news reported Walt Disney, Time Warner and three other major film makers filed the lawsuit against Samsung in U.S. court.

They claimed that Samsung’s DVD players allowed consumers to avoid encryption features that prevent unauthorized duplication and demanded a recall of all the problematic products, Bloomberg said.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that the movie industry lost $5.4 billion last year due to piracy.
In response, Samsung refused to confirm the high-profile suit that involves Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios on top of Disney and Time Warner.

"In fact, we do not exactly know the contents of the lawsuit and the intention of the plaintiffs. We have yet to receive the complaint,’’ a Samsung spokesman said.
He guessed that the film makers take issue with DVD-HD841, which Samsung had sold in the United States between June and October 2004.

"If so, I do not know why the movie studios are complaining about the products, of which production was brought to an end more than 15 months ago,’’ the spokesman said.
"We stopped manufacturing the model after concerns erupted that its copy-protection features can be circumvented by sophisticated users,’’ he said.

I envisage a rush of folks chasing after this "Glitched" machine  

[..Ñøßߥ..]

This is possibly the most ridiculos lawsuit i have ever seen, if they are going to take on Samsung over this, the other multi billion pound electronic companies had better brace themselves, as i can honestly say i reakon there are players in all manufacturers catalouges that can be chipped or used to get around region protection and various encrytion, some even from using certain button patterns on the remotes.This should be interesting i look forward to seeing how these movie companies proceed.

Personally i hope the judge realises what a farce this is and throws it out.

[GhostShip]

I suspect the Cartel will be relying on a licencing agreement that would have been signed before allowing Samsung to manufacture products under the DVD banner.

This case should this be given more publicity, it will be I hope a wake up call for those who have not been watching the behind the scenes deals, that allow the cash grabbing cartels to create artificial monopolies to force up prices.

Punishing Samsung is a stupid move, a goverment backed company such as themselves is liable to pay for a long and noisy fight against a foreign agressor.

[Lysander]

I hope this case explodes too. The worst that could possibly happen is that the judge tells Samsung it needs to stop producing the DVD players that it's already stopped producing. Meanwhile all these people wh want to break copyrights will know how to do it and that DVD player will suddenly become a wanted item, which means that no one will be buying Samsung's newer products, which means that Samsung can then sue the MPAA for being responsible for their lost profits :LOL: