Judge Hears RealDVD Case

Copying DVDs of movies have been going on for years, but in the strictest sense of what laws are enforced, there hasn’t been a company legally able to operate selling general DVD copying software. Real Networks have attempted to reverse this last year and the copyright industry has barred the sale of their software at least until todays court hearing.

Late last year, Real Networks launched RealDVD which is suppose to allow users to copy any DVD they wish. The launch, at the time, confused many observers at the time given that any DVD copying developer that attempted to start up in the United States was effectively forced out of business or forced to develop something else and abandon their DVD copying project thanks in part to the efforts of the MPAA. The act of copying a DVD has since remained, essentially, an illegal act even though millions of people already do so.

Of course, it wasn’t a huge surprise when the MPAA lashed out against RealDVD and dubbed it “StealDVD” in October of last year. Not even a week later and the MPAA got a court to to ban the sale of RealDVD until a set court date.

In January of this year, Real Networks said it was confident that they would beat the MPAA.

Now, we’ll see if that confidence holds up. Today comes word from a Wall Street Journal blog that a judge is now hearing the case against Real Networks. Meanwhile, according to the report, the MPAA has launched their own version of DVD copying where the DVDs come with copy protection – essentially giving the model a 6 month head start. The special DVDs are far more expensive then the protectionless counterpart.

On both sides, there are fundamental questions being raised. One might look at this and say, “If the movie industry truly wants to stop piracy, why not offer legal alternatives or bolster fair use in ways that give consumers real options on what they can do with their content they paid for?”

In terms of preserving content, the best thing one can do is move the content from one medium to another on a regular basis. Therefore, if something happens to the original container of the content, the data isn’t lost.

Unfortunately, win or lose, by the time a ruling is made, DVDs are even further into the stages of going obsolete in favour of Blu-Ray discs. While the format could possibly be out of date, the ruling could have wide ranging consequences. What if backing up a DVD is ruled to be a fair use much like it being fair use to copy a TV show onto VHS? Some, however, remain sceptical saying that the DMCA already covers copy-protected material – saying that it is illegal to circumvent copy protection (circumvention is something Real Networks denies because the copying also copies the content protection as well) Since both sides do have a point, it’ll be interesting to see how this case turns out.

[Via Slashdot]