RealNetworks on Wednesday was studying an injunction issued by District Court Judge Marilyn Patel in California and mulling its next legal move.<\/p>\n
“We are disappointed that a preliminary injunction has been placed on the sale of RealDVD,” the Seattle-based digital media speciality firm said in a release.<\/p>\n
“We’ll determine our course of action and will have more to say at that time.”<\/p>\n
Patel is presiding over a legal battle between RealNetworks and film industry titans that argue selling technology to copy DVDs is being an accomplice to piracy of movies and television shows.<\/p>\n
“This is a victory for the creators and producers of motion pictures and television shows and for the rule of law in our digital economy,” Motion Picture Association of America chairman Dan Glickman said.<\/p>\n
“Judge Patel’s ruling affirms what we have known all along: RealNetworks took a license to build a DVD-player and instead made an illegal DVD-copier.”<\/p>\n
Glickman added his belief that throughout the development of RealDVD the company “demonstrated that it was willing to break the law at the expense of those who create entertainment content.”<\/p>\n
RealNetworks has countered that DVD buyers are entitled to make backup copies of digital films or shows they purchase.<\/p>\n
RealNeworks software lets people copy digital films or other DVD content onto computer hard drives.<\/p>\n
RealNetworks began selling the RealDVD software in September of 2008 for $29,99 (about R250) a copy but sales were cut off after a few days due to a temporary restraining order issued as litigation in the case began.<\/p>\n
Patel’s ruling extends the block on RealDVD sales.<\/p>\n
The DVD copying software was referred to by RealNetworks as “Vegas” as a play on a widespread Las Vegas tourism marketing campaign based on the notion that stories of wild antics transpiring in the gambling city remain there.<\/p>\n
“Had Real’s products been manufactured differently, i.e., if what happened in Vegas really did stay in Vegas, this might have been a different case,” Patel wrote in her ruling.<\/p>\n
“But, it is what it is. Once the distributive nature of the copying process takes hold, like the spread of gossip after a weekend in Vegas, what’s done cannot be undone.”<\/p>\n
There is nothing to limit the number of times a DVD can be copied using Vegas or to prevent rented or borrowed DVDs from being duplicated, the judge said in a written ruling.<\/p>\n
“While it may be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally-owned DVD on that individual’s computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies,” Patel wrote.<\/p>\n
“Importantly, such tools are unable to distinguish between personal use copies of personally-owned DVDs and other sorts of copies for other purposes; commercial, personal, or otherwise.”<\/p>\n
Film studios signed onto the case against RealNetworks include Paramount, Sony, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Brothers.<\/p>\n