Right around the time the world’s financial markets started to collapse, back in 2008, RealNetworks, the folks behind RealPlayer, released RealDVD. It was a short-lived piece of software that made making DVD movie backups fairly painless—too painless for Hollywood, which immediately took RealNetworks to court, claiming all sorts of copyright infringement hokum. That’s all in the past now, for RealNetworks has settled with the six “major” Hollywood studios to the sum of $4.5 million. Ouch. → Read More
Yesterday, August 11, wasn’t just Joe Rogan’s birthday. Nope, it was also the date when a judge in San Francisco ruled that RealDVD was illegal, and reiterated that it was illegal to manufacture or traffic software that makes it possible to copy DVDs. So, every time you fire up DVD Copier on your PC, make a copy of a DVD that you bought, well, you’re breaking the law. The DMCA just keeps on giving, doesn’t it? → Read More
What’s another phrase for, “meh, who cares?” That’s what I’m thinking when I read that the MPAA tried to argue in court that making a personal copy of a DVD is illegal under the DMCA. Is it shocking to people that the MPAA would argue in favor of its own interests, possibly at the expense of the your ability to make rip a DVD? No. No it’s not. → Read More
Remember RealDVD, Real Networks’ attempt to legitimize DVD copying, only the movie studios freaked out because they didn’t understand what the software was all about? Well, Real still thinks it has a good chance of winning the lawsuit it faces. Lawsuit out of the way, it’ll go on selling RealDVD like nothing ever happened. → Read More
Like Achilles, it looks like RealDVD has lived a short but glorious life. Its name will echo for eternity. And so on, and so forth. Right, so that judge that RealNetworks was so confident would rule in its favor did the exact opposite, ruling in favor of the movie studios. The temporary injunction on the sales of RealDVD will go on indefinitely; the odds of RealDVD coming back, especially before Christmastime, now look pretty gosh darn slim. With this sentence, the judge seems to have sealed RealDVD’s fate: I’m not satisfied that in fact this technology is not in violation of the DMCA. That’s quite the innovative statement coming from the judge. Now all we have to do is wait for the record labels to work this line of thinking to their favor. You know, “If the judge says you can’t copy a video discs, why should you be able to copy an audio disc?” Hooray for America. → Read More
The RealDVD saga continues, quickly becoming one of the more interesting tech stories of the past few months. As we already know, both RealNetworks and the MPAA have been suing each other left, right and center over the past two weeks. Well now Real has issued an official statement, one sure to send shivers up the spines of the MPAA’s lawyers. We are confident that the Court will determine that RealDVD complies with the DVD CCA license agreement, and that it is not in violation of any copyright laws. From this, it does look like RealNetworks is prepared to fight this out, at least initially. Should the judge rule in the studios’ favor, who knows if RealNetworks will deem it worth all the time, money and energy to fight. I dare ask: maybe RealNetworks created RealDVD with the knowledge that the MPAA would sue, giving it the chance to play damsel in distress. Then, we’d all feel sorry for the company, yada yada yada. → Read More
Note that I have nothing against Mr. Norris per se. You just knew this was going to happen. Sales of RealNetworks’ RealDVD have been suspended while Real fights Hollywood in court, forever. You already know what Hollywood’s beef is, that RealDVD allows people to illegally copy DVDs blah bah who cares. Rent, rip and retun all you want, I say. Take this line from the MPAA’s lawsuit: Motion pictures and television programs require substantial investments of money, time, effort and creativity by hundreds or often thousands of people… Oh, please. It’s a bunch of overpaid people pretending to be other people in front of a camera, acting. No lives are saved and America’s position in the world is not enhanced. Boo hoo, Hollywood. → Read More
Today should be a happy day for Real, having just released RealDVD, the DVD-copying-for-the-masses Windows app. But now there’s lawsuits involved, and lawsuits make Baby Deity unhappy. RealNetworks has gone to court to get a judge to declare RealDVD A-OK. This comes after some saber-rattling by several Hollywood studios, several of which threatened RealNetworks over the sale of RealDVD. Something about copyright infringement or some other nonsense. It’s pretty silly when you examine just how lightly RealNetworks treaded with RealDVD. RealNetworks went to all this trouble to not only preserve CSS on RealDVD’d image files, but it added an additional layer of DRM to prevent RealDVD image trading. So now we wait for the technologically ignorant court system to digest all the facts. → Read More
RealDVD hasn’t even been available for more than an hour and already Hollywood studios are upset about the ramifications it could have on the industry.
According to a statement released by RealNetworks, it has filed suit against Hollywood studios asking the court to rule that RealDVD “fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement.” The suit was filed against DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Twentieth Century Fox to name a few.
In its defense, RealNetworks claims RealDVD “allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers” and “does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs.” It was also quick to point out that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM that locks the user to their own computer to make the program even more stringent. → Read More
Real Networks announced that RealDVD, its latest solution allowing users to copy DVDs onto their hard drives without facing legal troubles because the ripped copy keeps the DRM, is now available on the company’s site.
We profiled RealDVD a few weeks ago and found that it may suit some of those who want to create a media server and don’t mind DRM, but the software’s hefty price tag of $49.99 for your first license ($29.99 as an introductory offer) and $19.99 for the additional four licenses if you want to watch the films on five computers, should be enough to shy many away. It does have a 30-day free trial so you can try it out though. → Read More
As anyone with a lick of tech knowledge knows, ripping a DVD onto your hard drive is, well, frowned upon by the “Powers that be” in the motion picture industry. Realizing that, RealNetworks has launched a new solution called RealDVD, which lets users copy DVDs onto their hard drives without facing legal troubles. Even better, it only takes about 20 minutes to do so. Sounds great, right? There’s only one catch: it keeps the DRM.
After copying the DVD onto your hard drive, you can’t transfer the movie to a friend’s computer, so you’ll be stuck using your own. Much like iTunes, though, RealDVD lets you authorize five computers to play the movies on the hard drive. → Read More
