No surprises here…. Studios Don’t Like RealDVD

My last post (three weeks ago, natch) suggested that the studios would find some way to sue RealNetworks for its software, RealDVD, even if Real wasn’t hacking the encryption.  Looks like I was right, and for the same reason:

Six major movie studios sued RealNetworks, the Seattle-based digital media company, on Tuesday over its new $30 software program that allows people to make digital copies of their DVDs.

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For their part, the studios argued in legal filings that the software violates the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it bypasses the anticopying mechanism built into DVDs.

(From the NY Times, emphasis added.)

RealDVD

According to a blog on Fortune’s site, Real Networks (buffering…………..) has unveiled a new DVD ripping technology that doesn’t hack the encryption on DVDs.  This, so it seems, makes copying DVDs “legal.”  It must work somewhat similarly to VHS dubbing, but I don’t know.  I’ll look into it.

I hesitate to say that all of a sudden, everything’s “legal.”  Indeed, I’m not even sure that it doesn’t run afoul of 17 U.S.C. § 1201.  Section 1201(a)(1)(A) states: “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”  In turn, under section 1201(a)(3)(A) “circumvent a technological measure” means “to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.”  (Emphasis added.)  I can certainly see the MPAA deciding that Real’s technology somehow avoids or bypasses the encryption process.  And this doesn’t even begin to get into fair use or the whole time- or space-shifting argument.

Anyway, these thoughts are just based on a quick, cursory glance at a blog.  I’m going to follow up on this story and see what else I find.