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Court orders RealDVD halt
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 6th October 2008
RealNetworks' commercial DVD ripper is to have its distribution suspending pending a court hearing on Tuesday.
According to NewTeeVee, a series of Hollywood studies have filed suit against the company claiming that the software violates copyrights they own – despite, it would appear, the fact that the software not only retains the digital restriction management placed upon a DVD but adds a whole new layer of restrictions of its own when used to rip a commercial disc.
The court hearing the case has ordered that RealNetworks suspend distribution of the RealDVD package until this Tuesday, to allow the presiding judge to review all the paperwork before making a decision. While this isn't much of a surprise, it certainly casts the company's latest software venture in a bad light – and prevents people who have got their hands on codes for free trials from downloading the software until the judge gives the go-ahead.
With many freely available packages on the 'net that offer all the advantages of RealDVD with none of the DRM – and no pretensions as their legality – it's hard to see RealNetworks gaining much support from the community. That said, it's a hard one for the studios to argue too: despite the software ostensibly being designed to remove copy protection systems present on commercial DVDs, the software is expressly designed not to make it easy to copy major movies but instead merely to make the process of watching films you have legally purchased easier and more convenient.
Do you hope that the studios fail in their attempts to prevent the sale of RealDVD, or is it RealNetworks' own fault for attempting to commercialise something that those in the know have been enjoying the use of for quite some time? Share your thoughts over in the fourms.
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Comments (9)Stats: 0.043 seconds
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screw RealNetworks.
Hope they get their asses sued for being money grabbing ****s.
Edit: Your profanity filter doesn't filter the four letter man-meat reference :B
/ot
Can't say i'm surprised that they are getting sued the movie industry really can't see beyond the end of its cheque book, its so desperate to keep control of its old business methods in an age where they are becoming less and less relevant and applicable.
Every time I say it near kids or ladies, I get a physical slap or a verbal one >.>
'nuff said.
Yeah, unfortunately it's not that easy. While backups themselves are legal, breaking the copy protection isn't. The debate really is whether the DMCA has the legal ability to override the rights granted by the fair use act. Of course like any other geek I think the DMCA is a load of BS, but I still wouldn't sell software to break it.
(in the US of course - it's different everywhere).
As I understand it there's DRM introduced in the digital copies that the Real software creates, though.
If I'm right about that, then this doesn't make it any easier to rip for distribution than say, ImTOO does, but Real has more money :/