7:20pm EDT, Thu Sep 2

RealNetworks Loses DVD Copying Decision

By: The Online Reporter
Publish Date: August 14, 2009

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A federal judge has ruled in favor of the movie industry and against RealNetworks, saying that company’s RealDVD program violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the terms of the DVD CSS license that Real possessed. The preliminary injunction barring RealDVD from being sold will remain in place, according to Judge Marilyn Patel’s ruling, and the DVD CCA is also entitled to some injunctive relief. Patel said that the DVD copying products “by their very nature open a veritable Pandora’s box of liability for Real.” The decision brings to a close both RealDVD and Facet, a set-top box designed to allow consumers to burn DVDs to a hard drive. Real has yet to say if it will appeal, but it likely will. Many observers believe an appeal will fail, citing the fact that Patel took the arguments of the DVD CCA at face value, and subsequent judges are likely to as well. Patel’s main reason for her ruling came from what she saw as a willful infringement on the part of Real. The judge said that Real knew about anti-copying restrictions and technologies that were put in place by the studios and that Real actively worked to find a way around them. This willful action meant that Real violated the anti- circumvention provisions set up by the DMCA, as well as the CSS contract it had signed. Patel’s ruling concluded that RealDVD was developed “primarily” to circumvent the CSS technology, and that “Real has admitted its intent upon initial development was to create a software product that copies DVDs to computer hard drives so that the user does not need the physical DVD to watch the content.” Real got into trouble because it didn’t maintain the anti-copying protections its contract required and because it actively made a workaround for the ARccOS and RipGuard securities — these are two third-party technologies that add small errors into DVDs to keep them from being accurately copied. And while fair-use claims were raised throughout the trial, the judge reached an interesting conclusion. Patel said the DMCA doesn’t forbid backing up of content for users, but it does prohibit the tools that are used in creating the backups.