Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying

April 24, 2009 By PAUL ELIAS , Associated Press Writer
Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying (AP)

Enlarge

FILE -- A Dec. 19, 2003, file photo shows the RealNetworks headquarters in Seattle. On Friday, April 24, 2009, in federal court in San Francisco, lawyers representing Hollywood will argue that RealNetworks Inc.'s DVD "ripper" is an illegal digital piracy tool.. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren/FILE)

(AP) -- Hollywood calls it "rent, rip and return" and contends it's one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry's annual $20 billion DVD market - software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it.

On Friday, the showdown over the issue will take place in federal court in San Francisco, where an army of lawyers representing Hollywood will argue that RealNetworks Inc.'s DVD "ripper" is an illegal digital piracy tool.

The company, in turn, will say the $29.99 software that allows DVDs to be easily copied to computer hard drives is legitimate.

The same who shut down music-swapping site Napster in 2000 because of copyright violations will preside over the three-day trial, which is expected to cut to the heart of the same technological upheaval roiling Hollywood that forever changed the face of the music business.

The movie studios fear that if RealNetworks is allowed to sell its RealDVD software, consumers will quickly lose interest in paying retail for DVDs that can be rented cheaply, copied and returned.

Their lawyers argue the software violates a federal law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes software and other tools that enable digital piracy illegal. They also contend shoppers will widely condone such illegal behavior if RealNetworks' product is allowed on the market.

For its part, the Seattle-based company says its RealDVD product is designed to simply let customers back up a purchased DVD and that the software allows for only one copy to be made.

The company argues that the contract it signed with the DVD Copy Control Association, which equips DVD player manufacturers with the keys to unscrambling DVDs, allows RealDVD because the software doesn't alter or remove anti-piracy on DVDs like illicit software that is easily obtained for free online.

RealNetworks says its product legally fills growing consumer demand to convert their DVDs to digital form for convenient storage and viewing.

In October, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel temporarily barred sales of RealDVD after the product was on the market for a few days. At the time, the judge said it appeared the software did violate federal law against digital piracy, but ordered detailed court filings and the trial to better understand how RealDVD works.

The industry's lawsuit has incurred widespread wrath from bloggers, digital rights advocates and groups on both sides of the political spectrum, including former Republican congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and the left-leaning Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The industry's critics accuse the studios of stifling innovation as they attempt to develop their own copying software.

"It's all about control," said Cato Institute scholar Timothy Lee. "No one is allowed to innovate in the DVD space without industry permission."

The industry, through the Motion Picture Association of America, counters that its goal is to stamp out piracy. It says it welcomes legitimate attempts at innovation.

"RealNetworks acted in bad faith by taking a license to build a DVD player and instead built a copier that violates the circumvention rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by enabling consumers to copy DVDs illegally," said Greg Goeckner, the MPAA's top lawyer. "Our objective is to get the illegal choices out of the marketplace and instead focus constructively with the technology community on bringing in more innovative and flexible legal options for consumers to enjoy movies."

Regardless of the trial's outcome - and the judge isn't expected to rule immediately - some predict that Hollywood control over digital copies will continue to wane because of the proliferation of illegal software online.

"If Hollywood wins, I don't think much changes in the real world," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Anybody who wants DVDs copied can download software for free in 10 minutes."

©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

DGBEACH
Apr 24, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
Have these guys been living in a cave for the past 5 years? I can download a FREE DVD ripper from any of a thousand sites, and do the same thing.
Making the ripped movie available to other people afterwards, in my opinion, is what is wrong...after all I would have paid to view that movie! And for those who would contend that I only paid to view it once, well I can view that same dvd as many times as I want while I have it, so what's the difference?
Paradox
Apr 24, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
I recently purchased a DVD that supposedly had a "free download Digital Copy". What it really was, was another scheme to to squeeze out a few more bucks, as you have to pay $1.99 FOR THE DOWNLOAD. It is such a racket! Although I agree that people should get paid for their products, I think that they go a bit too far in the copy protection bit.
docknowledge
Apr 24, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
What I hate about the current Internet situation is that if I take pains to "register" or make small payments for goods or services, I never know whether I'm playing right into the hands of someone who's trying to get my personal information or is selling something protected by copyright that they've stolen.

After having been in Second Life for awhile, I'm finding that many of the "freebies" are actually stolen. I contacted one owner, they asked me NOT to make an issue of it, because they were afraid of retaliation.

The online business situation overall is so confusing, most people don't even have an idea whether they're breaking the law or not.
KBK
Apr 24, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
In Canada, the laws of the land state that if you RENT a DVD, you have PURCHASED the RIGHT to VIEW this film in a PERSONAL SENSE, if and WHENEVER you DESIRE.

In Canada, if it has been rented it is FULLY LEGAL AND CORRECT to make a copy of ANY DVD you have viewed..or decide to view later...hell..1000 personal copies, if you desire. As long as they are all for the persons immediately in your household. Some can be at the cottage too.

Our copyright laws -WORK-(meaning: not corrupted by corporate influence), as we have a very controlled lobby system (it does not exist), unlike that of the us which is sadly but clearly, now, - fundamentally corrupt and a fascist state.

The clinical descriptive for the word fascism: when governments and corporations collude to work against the will of the public, for the benefit of the persons in the government and corporations. Thus the US at it's core, and in all ways, is a fascist state. It's fucked --and it's going to take work of an extreme and directed nature to fix that course.
VOR
Apr 25, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
the idiotic american movie/music industry far, far overprices dvd's/cds. Their so called 'drm problem' is self-created. So they rightly get little sympathy from the general public. In reality copying dvd rentals prevents almost NO future rentals. And it prevents FEW dvd purchases. Why? Because for most people the purchase prices are way too high and this is a real barrier. If the supply of free was cut off that doesnt mean they would go out and buy! They would watch some other form of media! This is the essence of all this crap, that Movie and RIAA doesnt want to discuss or face up to. They claim all these 'loses', but thier 'estimates' are rediculously overbloated lies since most people that obtain copies for free would SELDOM or NEVER pay the prices they ask. They are NOT 'lost' customers. They are simply employing access they would not otherwise have. We would all be glad to pay reasonable prices. Like maybe about a third of current prices! Not that rental prices are too high, but purchase prices are. The industry should consider that if they made prices only a few times the rental costs, then they could actually compete with rental! MOST OF THOSE (mostly 1x)RENTAL CUSTOMERS are potential BUYERS-and the price can still be significantly above the rental cost. Price just has to make sence instead of the current NONSENCE.
Rank 2 /5 (1 vote)
Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Calling function with no input argument
    created13 hours ago
  • Force free body diagram problem on gym equipment
    created14 hours ago
  • Empirical data regarding shower heads and water
    created22 hours ago
  • feed hold button on CNC lathe
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • RFAC in Fortran
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • dynamics 2/32
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - General Engineering

More news stories

Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.

Technology / Internet

created 7 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 13

Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets

Users of Google smartphone wallets were being warned on Friday that there is a way to crack pass codes intended to thwart thieves from going on illicit shopping sprees.

Technology / Internet

created 6 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created 16 hours ago | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

New power source discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 15 hours ago | popularity 4.8 / 5 (25) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 15 hours ago | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 22 | with audio podcast


Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...

Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins

Researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered a startling feature of early brain development that helps to explain how complex neuron wiring patterns are programmed using just a handful of critical genes. ...

The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly ...

Could Venus be shifting gear?

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the ...

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

(PhysOrg.com) -- The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other ...