RealNetworks Throws in the Towel, Concedes Total Defeat
RealNetworks Throws in the Towel, Concedes Total Defeat
Posted 03/04/2010 at 8:14am
| by Paul Lilly
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RealNetworks tried to fight the good fight against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), but in the end, someone had to lose, and that someone is RealNetworks.
A U.S. District Judge has issued a permanent injunction barring RealNetworks from selling RealDVD, the company's controversial DVD copying software. In addition, the two sides reached a settlement offer that will also have RealNetworks forking over $4.5 million to the movie studios to pay for legal fees.
"We are gratified by the successful conclusion of this important matter," said Daniel Mandil, the MPAA's general counsel. "Judge Patel's rulings and this settlement affirm waht we have said from the very start of this litigation: it is illegal to bypass the copyright protections built into DVDs designed to protect movies against theft."
Pursuing the case further likely would have cost the company in excess of $10 million, no doubt a deciding factor in conceding defeat and agreeing to the settlement, no matter how much we might not like it.
"We are pleased to put this litigation behind us," said Bob Kimball, president and acting CEO for Real. "This is another step toward fulfilling our commitment to simplify our company and focus on our core businesses. Until this dispute, Real had always enjoyed a productive working relationship with Hollywood. With this litigation resolved, I hope that in the future we can find mutually beneficial ways to use Real technology to bring Hollywood's great work to consumers."
More like this
kris79
March 05, 2010 at 6:37am
I guess alot! Another bank account stuffed - overseas naturally.
Look,
until the digital rights crowd gets a lesson from D2D, ROKU (Netflix), Impulse,
etc. they're going to continue to get ripped off. When you can keep your
software stuff on a link provided by those companies, to be downloaded
at any time, or upgraded at your convenience, why the hell would anyone
want another piece of plastic for the dog to chew on or otherwise meet
an untimely end as a kid's Frisbee? Why aren't they working as hard to adapt to the 21st century and make some money to boot? You'd think that the shekel
makers in Hollywood would get a clue. I'm getting pissed off now - hello ANYDVD? Oops! - must have mistakenly misplaced another 20 DVDs of (add the title of the latest film here) at the bus stop... If all who were pissed about digital rights were so absentminded, it wouldn't take long for MPAA and corrupt judges to have to look for another source of income... Rant no more
Keith E. Whisman
March 04, 2010 at 8:24pm
I suggest we all start a grass roots thing and start pestering our law makers to protect our fair use rights and to abolish the Digital Millennium Copyright Law in favor of a more reasonable law that protects the consumers right to purchased goods as well as the copyright holders rights.
As far as I know a copyright is meant to keep other people from using your designs to make money without permission and to keep others from claiming it's their invention. So that said how is it a violation of law to make a copy of a movie as long as I'm not selling it and claiming I made it and making money from it? I'm not making a copy and selling the copy. So how is it wrong for me to make a copy of Jurassic Park to put on my cell phone after I legally purchased a retail boxed DVD from WalMart? It doesn't make sense. Just because thousands even hundreds of thousands of people make bootleg copies to sell on street corners does not justify infringing on my rights to fair use.
So in the words of Thomas Jefferson
MPAA go FUCK YOU ASSHOLE. That goes to Bill Clinton as well for pushing the Digital Millennium Copy right law.
Velox
March 04, 2010 at 2:49pm
Both want to shake every penny out of our pockets they possibly can. In the end, just another victory for Apple.
VoodooChicken
March 04, 2010 at 12:19pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbA4Me4tmgU#t=0m55s
----------------------------------------------------------
Look behind you! A THREE-headed monkey!!!!!!!!
RockyTopper
March 04, 2010 at 11:35am
Duplication of purchased discs should be completely legal, but this sets a precedent where such programs as Anydvd, DVD Shrink, and Handbrake may become illegal. I for one am very disappointed by this ruling, and fear for what's coming.
bloodgain
March 04, 2010 at 12:09pm
Out of the 3 programs you mentioned, only AnyDVD circumvents copy protection. In fact, it does pretty much nothing BUT circumvent disc copy protection. It's already counter to the DMCA in the US and similar rulings in the EU and Great Britain, but they are protected by running their business outside of any areas where they can be prosecuted for it. The other 2 do not actively bypass any copy protection, and so they are safe.
The difference with RealDVD was that it removed CSS protection, but replaced it with much more secure DRM in the ripped and encoded videos. They cicumvented CSS only technically, but technically any DVD player has to circumvent it, just with a license. RealDVD had a license (I believe that's correct), but Real was accused of misusing and it was pulled.
Neufeldt2002
March 04, 2010 at 12:16pm
Not sure on handbrake, but DVD shrink has old css removing capabilities, not sure on newer.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I wanted a signature, but all I got was this ________
compro01
March 04, 2010 at 10:17pm
Handbrake doesn't have deCSS capabilities in of itself, but it will work with DVD43 to do that, so I believe handbrake is in the clear, and even if it wasn't, I believe handbrake is out of France, so the US DMCA is irrelevant.
bloodgain
March 04, 2010 at 3:00pm
It appears you are correct. Development has been stopped, however, which means newer encryption cannot always be bypassed without another program. I was under the impression that the DVD decryption had been removed in a previous version, but I guess I must have been thinking of a different application (what? I don't remember now, but I know it was similar or related to DVD Shrink). The only reason Shrink is still around and not under the legal gun of the MPAA is that it has been decentralized and generally has to be tracked down with a Google search.
Caboose
March 04, 2010 at 3:07pm
There was also DVD Decryptor. I found that if DVD Shrink didn't do it, Decryptor usually did. Until I bought AnyDVD HD for *ahem* archiving my Blu-Ray movie collection!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
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