Hollywood vs. the $30 DVD copier

[jkwest]

Hollywood vs. the $30 DVD copier

LAST week saw the start of a trial that pitches Hollywood studios against the technology industry, and whose outcome could change the face of home entertainment. The trial, in San Francisco, centres on a $30 software package published last year called RealDVD (www.realdvd.com).

RealDVD, marketed by RealNetworks, allows DVD owners to copy their discs onto a computer or laptop. RealNetworks insists that RealDVD is not a hacker's tool, because it not only maintains a DVD's copy protection technology (known as Content Scramble System, or CSS), but adds an additional layer of digital rights management technology that, in effect, locks the copied DVD to the hard drive.

Users can't copy, upload or export the DVD copy. RealNetworks argues that the software allows consumers to carry their DVDs on a laptop while leaving the original discs behind, or file DVDs by, say, title or genre. "Consumers expect flexibility with the digital content they've purchased," says Rob Glaser, RealNetworks' chief executive.

RealDVD offers the same features that millions of people are using today with music libraries such as iTunes. But Hollywood is keen to protect the DVD market, which last year was worth almost $US22 billion ($A30billion) in the US. The Motion Picture Association of America (www.mpaa.org), which is representing six big studios (including Disney and Sony) in the trial, has described RealDVD as "StealDVD" and says that it opens the way for consumers to illegally copy DVDs. It cites the "3R" scenario - rent, rip and return - whereby consumers could rent DVDs, use RealDVD to copy them, and then return the original. In October, the MPAA won a temporary restraining order, forcing RealDVD off the market.

The DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses CSS, is also suing RealNetworks. The MPAA and DCCA allege that RealDVD falls foul of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it an offence to publish tools that could be used to circumvent copy protection technology.

RealNetworks' defence is that RealDVD strengthens DVD copy protection. Some observers, such as Fred von Lohmann, a senior lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://eff.org), think Hollywood is fighting a losing battle: "I'm not sure what alternate version of reality the MPAA is living in, but consumers have been able to copy DVDs for a long time, thanks to free, widely available DVD rippers," he says.

Hollywood says it has introduced features to its discs such as Digital Copy, which allows users to copy DVDs onto a hard drive, although in much lower resolution and with digital rights management constraints.

"Our industry will continue on this path because it gives consumers greater choices ... However, we will vigorously defend our right to stop companies from bringing products to market that ... clearly violate the law," says the MPAA.

But FreedomWorks Foundation, a free market champion, has published a report on the case by its chief economist, Wayne Brough, which says it "will do little to achieve its stated goal of curbing DVD piracy and protecting intellectual property. Instead, if it wins, (it) would set a dangerous precedent in hampering competition and technological innovation in one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy."

The trial is presided over by Judge Marilyn Patel, who was also involved in the original Napster case.

In that trial, she ruled in favour of the music industry, but it remains to be seen whether the film industry will achieve the same result.

so...depending on the ruling, do you think a program like this will help, or, hurt Blu-ray?

will it make people want to buy DVD's more or the versatility of copying to a laptop, or will it hurt the sales and drive people to pirate more?

Mod note: I cleared this with a mod already, and it was deemed acceptable to post.

[Rblu-Dblu]

Any program designed to copy a dvd is going to be abused. Even if it's just the guy who rents the movie to copy it to his laptop. There are worse programs out there however that will allow you to copy the movie and burn it to disc.
I would tell the movie industry to run with this program. At least this way they may be able to limit the number of copies being made off of each disc. Similar to the way some cd's are protected.

[neos_peace]

I personly don't see this being a hurt toward Blu-ray. Mainly because the articale says it helps maintain DVD quality. Well lets see here why do we all go against DVD, cuz Blu-ray is better then DVD in so many respects. SO why would people go backwards just for the sake of tranfers to PC. the quality isn't getting better it's just being alterted to an extent that doens't hurt Blu-ray. Just my 2cents.

[ronjones]

This is pretty much a repeat of the case against 321 Studios a few years ago over their product DVD Xcopy. As I recall it eventually went either to the US Federal Appeals Court or perhaps all the way to the US Supreme Court where it was ruled they were in violation of the Millineum Copyright Act (MCA). They had sold their product for making backup copies of you own DVD library and warned against making copies of DVD you don't own and the duplicate DVD their software produced could not itself be recopied. Didn't matter, their software broke the encryption of the original DVD and this was ruled illegal under the MCA.

[MarkJ801]

Pfft, there's already a bunch of programs that will copy a dvd or blu-ray to your computer, and removed the drm/css.

Just like itunes where you can pay to download music, there will still be the numerous people who download music free through torrents/p2p.

So overall, I don't see how this program will encourage piracy, if anything it will do what itunes did. Except I don't know why anyone would want to use RealNetwork, yuck.

[tlmaclennan]

Why are they going after this? IMO they should be focussing on Slysoft and their AnyDVD software. How is that even legal?