RealDVD Program Violates DMCA, Breaches CSS License, Judge Rules
RealNetworks was studying its legal options after a court slapped a preliminary injunction against the sale of its RealDVD copying software. The Tuesday judgment could affect a similar case under review, involving Kaleidescape’s home server copies which DVDs for storage on a hard drive (WID June 18 p3).
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By enabling consumers to copy DVDs to PCs, RealDVD violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the license for DVD’s Content Scramble System, ruled Judge Marilyn Patel of U.S. District Court, San Francisco. RealNetwork’s software also was found to foil copy-protection systems like Sony’s ARccOS and RipGuard by Rovi, formerly Macrovision, the court said.
In finding for the MPAA and CSS-licensor DVD Copy Control Association, which sued RealNetworks, the judge granted a preliminary injunction against the sale of RealDVD, pending a full trial. RealNetworks has been under a temporary restraining order since Oct. 3, two days after trial versions of RealDVD went on sale. Patel concluded hearings on the preliminary injunction in May (WID May 22 p6). Shortly beforehand, RealNetworks filed a separate antitrust suit against the MPAA studios (WID May 15 p3). The case is pending.
“We are disappointed that a preliminary injunction has been placed on the sale of RealDVD,” RealNetworks said. “We have just received the judge’s detailed ruling and are reviewing it. After we have done so fully, we'll determine our course of action and will have more to say at that time.” No date has been set for trial.
The DVD-CCA and MPAA applauded the injunction. The group said it’s “committed to enabling high quality entertainment to be available for use at home and elsewhere. The ability to make that entertainment available depends upon a set of guidelines upon which all participants in these industries can rely.” MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman said, “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.”
Patel’s ruling said that because RealDVD circumvents CSS, RealDVD violated the DMCA’s provision against such circumvention. And because the software creates a copy of a DVD on a hard drive, RealNetworks violated the CSS license, which the DVD-CCA says prohibits such “persistent” copies. According to the association, the original physical DVD must be in device for playback. That has been at issue in the DVD-CCA’s case against Kaleidescape. On Tuesday, Patel enjoined RealNetworks from trafficking in any device or service that “circumvents or otherwise fails to protect against access to, duplication of, and/or redistribution of CSS-protected and copyrighted DVD content.” She ordered the company to file a report under oath within 30 days detailing how it would comply with the injunction.
RealNetworks was ready to sell RealDVD last October as a $30 download for use on PC hard drives, and had developed a prototype set-top DVD player with hard driving using the same copying software. With RealDVD, consumers would be able to copy DVDs to a PC’s hard drive -- but not transfer the content from the hard drive to removable media or through the Internet. Consumers could transfer copied DVDs to another PC, such as a laptop, by purchasing additional “licenses” for RealDVD at $20 for use in the secondary devices. Individuals were limited to the purchase of five RealDVD licenses. Under RealDVD’s end-user license agreement, consumers were to copy only DVDs they owned, not rented or borrowed ones. That was unenforceable, the MPAA, DVD-CCA and court agreed.