Redbox Sues Disney Over Copyright Misuse

Redbox has officially filed its suit against Disney's home entertainment group, claiming that it has purposefully used aggressive tactics to prevent the movie rental service from renting or selling its DVDs and digital movie downloads.

In its suit, Redbox claims that Disney has interfered with its relationships with both suppliers and consumers, and making false accusations that Redbox is not legally allowed to sell digital copies of films. The kiosk service is also arguing that Disney is trying to raise the prices customer pay in order to help its own offerings.

"Disney baldly seeks to stifle competition and eliminate low-cost options in order to maximize the prices it and its retailers charge consumers," Redbox claimed in the suit filed today in Los Angeles. "Stopping Redbox's sale of Disney products is a means to that end, which is an unhappy one for consumers."

According to Redbox, Disney has opposed them from the time the company began. Even when other studios got on board, Disney remained in opposition, claiming that Redbox's prices were too low. Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, threatened to alter prices for Disney titles and insisted that Redbox not sell the company's films for at least 28 days after they're released.

To get around this, Redbox began buying Disney movies at full price, then selling/renting the DVDs, Blu-rays and Digital Copies separately. Redbox then claimed that Disney reached out to distributors and tried to get them to stop selling to the kiosk service.

"Defendants' actions are harming Redbox's lawful sales of Disney digital movies," Redbox claims in its suit. "And the impact of that harm is not limited to the reduced revenue from those lost sales. Redbox's entry into the digital market is being harmed as well. Because Disney is impeding Redbox's ability to sell Redbox's lawfully acquired Disney digital movies, consumers are being dissuaded from looking to Redbox as a source of titles that are in high demand."