RealNetworks has announced that they have settled their outstanding lawsuits with the major Hollywood studios over their Real DVD ripping software, effectively killing the product off after making just 2700 sales.
Additionally, Real will pay $4.5 million to pay off the legal costs of the litigation.
“We are pleased to put this litigation behind us,” adds 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.”
The settlement also terms a permanent injunction that will block RealDVD and similar technologies forever from sale in the US or abroad.
The $30 USD software application allowed users to make a copy of their DVDs and it play it back on their PCs, allowing for, what Real thought, were legal backups. Clearly, Hollywood did not agree, despite the fact that Real’s backups also included DRM to stop sharing of the backups.
Result for: realdvd
RealNetworks has appealed the recent court ruling that blocked it from selling its RealDVD copying software.
The company never got to sell one unit of the software before they were taken to court by the media industry, with full backing by the Hollywood studios. Real was served with an injunction in August, banning sales of the software and of an upcoming set-top that incorporates the technology.
U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled at the time that RealDVD circumvents the CSS copyright protection of the discs, thus violating the DMCA.
At the same time, Patel rejected the “Fair Use” argument the company was making, despite Real’s claim that they were simply giving customers the chance to exercise their right to make backup copies of movies they own.
The appeal trial is set to start November 9th and should garner big media attention.
Result for: realdvd
A federal Judge has stung RealNetworks badly by issuing a preliminary injunction preventing the company from selling its RealDVD software, which costs $30 a pop. Additionally, the company’s prototype DVD player, Facet, will now also be blocked from sale. RealDVD allowed consumers to make copies of their DVDs onto their computers, while Facet is a HDD-equipped DVD player. The company has maintained that the software is entirely legal.
This case became important because it can answer the question of whether consumers in the U.S. are allowed to make copies of their DVD movies. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) regards Facet and RealDVD as tools of piracy that could cost the industry a lot of money, and claimed they were illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Real argued that because it has licensed Content Scrambling System (CSS) from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA), that its software and prototype DVD player do not break provisions surrounding the circumvention of copy protection, disregarding ARccOS and RipGuard.
“RealDVD makes a permanent copy of copyrighted DVD content,” U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel wrote in her decision, “and by doing so breaches its License Agreement with the DVD Copy Control Association … and circumvents a technological measure that effectively controls access to or copying of the Studios’ copyrighted content on DVDs.” Real, of course, said it was very disappointed with the Judge’s decision. The MPAA on the other hand called it a victory for the creators and producers of movies and TV shows.
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