Audio Video News

"RealNetworks' RealDVD should be called StealDVD," asserts the general counsel of the Motion Picture Association of America.

"This is not a product that enables Internet piracy," says the general counsel for RealNetworks.

Who's right will be up to the courts.

The suits and countersuits are flying over RealDVD, a DVD-copying application recently introduced by RealNetworks. Six studios are suing the company via the MPAA. They include Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner. RealNetworks has filed a pre-emptive counter-suit, partly based on the Kaleidescape case, asking a judge to declare its product legal.

At issue is whether RealNetworks has violated its license to use DVD's CSS encryption. The company argues that its process copies DVDs bit for bit, including CSS, but without actually breaking CSS. The decryption is then provided in a licensed software player.

"RealNetworks knows its product violates the law and undermines the hard-won trust that has been growing between America's movie makers and the technology community," the MPAA told Reuters. The MPAA suit accuses RealNetworks of violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by defeating CSS.

"We are disappointed that the movie industry is following in the footsteps of the music industry and trying to shut down advances in technology rather than embracing changes that provide consumers with more value and flexibility for their purchases," RealNetworks retorted.

But the CD model may in fact be the MPAA's biggest nightmare. The studios fear that the same kind of technological change that devastasted the major music labels may be in store for them. After all, whether or not RealDVD violates the letter of the law, it will undeniably make it easy for consumers to copy rented or borrowed discs at a fraction of their normal rental or purchase prices.

See coverage from Reuters, the Associated Press, and ArsTechnica.