Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"On RealDVD's product site, a message now reads: "Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood Movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of DVDs for your own use." Last week, Real filed for a declaratory judgment on its RealDVD product in anticipation of a suit that was filed later that same day by the MPAA. The filmmaking group charged Real with willful violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in making a product that illegally bypasses copyright protection."

When lawsuits start flying back and forth, it's not uncommon to see products get temporarily pulled until the dust settles, and that's exactly what's happened here. I guess I should have picked up a copy while I could - the concept definitely interested me, even with all of my DVD ripping tools. The question is, will we see this product offered again?

"The RIAA and music labels gained a bit more notoriety when one of its associates, Sony BMG's head of litigation Jennifer Pariser, remarked during a case, "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'." Now the MPAA, which typically follows closely in the RIAA's footsteps, is suing software maker RealNetworks and making similar remarks. In a similar mentality, which some say punishes the paying customer, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, the Walt Disney Company and Sony have all filed suit against the company, which claims it only wants to provide content owners with a means of backing up their DVDs."

This isn't surprising to me, and hopefully it's not surprising to RealNetworks either, because I want them to mount a vigorous defense. If RealNetworks has the fortitude to pursue this all the way, this could be the type of case we've been waiting for: something that would set the legal precedent needed to allow the legal proliferation of DVD copying tools. I haven't purchased RealDVD myself, but by all accounts they seem to have followed all the rules necessary for maintaining the copyright protection on the DVDs - they're just taking the encrypted bits from the plastic platter we call a DVD and moving those bits to a hard drive. As if on orchestrated cue, the movie industry reacts like the ignorant buffons they are, launching a lawsuit against RealNetworks. I hope RealNetworks fights this to the very end!