321 Studios was established in 1999 in St. Charles, Mo. and almost since its inception, the company was hampered by controversy. Although these DVD burning products were highly popular with consumers, the major Hollywood studios claimed that DVD X Copy violated copyright rights. Anticipating a lawsuit by the Hollywood studios, 321 Studios filed a pre-emptive complaint in April of 2002 against eight Hollywood studios. 321 Studios contended that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) (a law that prohibits the circumvention of CSS copy protection technology) violates consumers Fair Use rights as described in Copyright Act of 1976 under the doctrine of 'Fair Use'. Specifically, the Fair Use provision gives individuals limited rights to copy certain types of copyrighted material. The 321 Studios lawsuit included MGM Studios, Tristar Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, Universal City Studios, The Saul Zaentz Company and Pixar Corporation as defendants.

In May of 2003, seven of the Hollywood studios (MGM Studios, Tristar Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney, Universal City Studios and The Saul Zaentz Company) counter-sued 321 Studios, claiming that the DVDXCopy products violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

In the end (on February 23, 2004) Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District Federal Court for California ruled that 321 Studios products violated the DMCA and ordered an injunction that stopped the sale of DVD X Copy products in the United States. 321 Studios proceeded to remove all products from the US retail stores and from the DVDXCopy website. The ruling caused 321 Studios to shut down with the company finally shutting its doors in August of 2004.

Similar to the way the legal 'death' of music downloading website Napster spawned the creation of dozens of new file sharing sites, the death of DVD X Copy has spawned the creation of dozens of new DVD copying programs. There are several mainstream DVD software products that claim to copy DVD movies - namely from companies like Nero, Roxio (Creator, Toast) and Corel (DVD Copy 6). These products, however, are more for burning data and music to blank DVD and CD discs and are not recommended for copying DVD movies. They are not pure DVD and video burning products and do not have an integrated method for users to copy all DVD movies. In terms of pure one-click DVD copying products, literally dozens of programs have emerged as potential replacements for DVD X Copy. Some of these DVD software programs include DVD next Copy, 1 Click DVD Copy, DVD Cloner, DVD Wizard Pro, DVDtoDVD Copy, DVD Fab Platinum, DVD Cloner, DVD95 Copy, ICopyDVDs2, CloneDVD and many more. Of these DVD copy products, only two have emerged as true successors to DVDXCopy: DVD next Copy and 1Click DVD Copy.

DVD next Copy Pro is essentially the exact same program as DVD X Copy Platinum, except its faster, more powerful and has many advanced features like the ability to copy any DVD movie to iPod, Zune and PSP. Like DVD X Copy, DVD next Copy comes with a full retail box and a 90-day unconditional satisfaction guarantee. 1 Click DVD Copy is also highly popular because of its ease-of-use, reliability and speed. What sets these two products apart from all other DVD burning programs is: customer support, proprietary cutting-edge technology and industrys best software developers. Because millions of downloads of 1 Click DVD Copy and DVD next Copy are sold each year, these two companies can finance the industrys best customer support as well as update the programs in real-time - ensuring that both software titles can copy all the latest DVD movies.

One thing is for certain: DVD X Copy is gone forever. As per the DVDXCopy.com website, there are no authentic copies of DVD X Copy product in the market. Because of its enormous popularity and continued brand strength (even 5 years after the company closed), some consumers are still being tricked into buying old and/or cracked versions of DVDXCopy. These programs are cracks, are not supported and will not work with Microsoft Vista no matter what claims or guarantees are provided by the sellers. If you are looking for an alternative to DVD X Copy Platinum, try DVD next Copy or 1 Click DVD copy, or even one of the more inferior products listed above before you consider buying an old version of DVD X Copy. Furthermore, you can check out a complete list of the industrys top ranked DVD copy software, including side-by-side comparisons and in-depth reviews at: DVD Copy

Author, Gary Wang is a freelance writer and product reviewer for technology products. DVD Ipod movies.

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