RealNetworks Sues Dutch Webmaster Over Hyperlink To Freeware

An anonymous reader writes "In the ever lasting contest for the most idiotic lawsuit, RealNetworks has sued a Dutch man for posting a link to a competing freeware program that allegedly infringes on RealNetworks' intellectual property. The company also secretly obtained a court order that resulted in confiscation of all computers belonging to the man and his family. The 26-year-old has already incurred over €66,000 in legal fees and if he loses the case, he's facing €210,000 in fines. Where are the Anonymous when you need them?"

Re:"competing freeware program"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah we'll blame Realnetworks. They have dodgy practices.

Streisand effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Alternative [free-codecs.com].

Re:"competing freeware program"

[airfoobar]

FYI, no mention of patents in TFA. They are complaining about trademarks and copyrights. Does RealNetworks own the word "Real"? Only as much as Facebook should own the word "Book", if you ask me. I would understand if RealNetworks had some patents that were violated by the freeware in question, but copyrights? Does the freeware actually use RealNetworks' original dlls to decode the video perhaps? Or is this some dickheaded anti-circumvention thing? Whatever the case, I think RealNetworks are being real assholes here.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:"competing freeware program"

[Dahamma]

Yeah, except the Real Alternative package is NOT actually freeware, but basically distributes the *actual* Real Player DLLs that it uses to decode with a wrapper. That's pretty clearly a copyright infringement (criminal one in fact, as it was willful and widely distributed, which generally counts as "commercial").

Real Networks IMO is a total bottom feeder company and I'd personally never install their software, but one thing I hate more than d-bag companies like Real is blatant misinformation, and this article is full of it...

Re:"competing freeware program"

[ArsenneLupin]

Does it break patents and copyright in the Netherlands?

No. It can't break patents in the Netherlands, because there is no such thing as software patents in the Netherlands.

Re:Biggest shock in this story ...

[martijnd]

They are probably making lots of money from bored housewifes playing "casual" games -- not from the Real software that was once their core product.

They sued Microsoft ages ago, settled in 2005 for 76mln and bought several online gaming sites from the cash.

Microsoft and RealNetworks Resolve Antitrust Case [microsoft.com]
Gamehouse [realnetworks.com]

Even their paying customers get bloat!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, this dates back /years/ ago but at some point I was really happy with the RealPlayer that I decided to license it. It was simply awesome; I started it up and could view just about anything. From US news broadcasts to Japanese TV series right down to stuff from India and Germany. (this was "pre-Youtube" time so to speak).

Then other solutions emerged (and my interest slowly waned) but guess what? Next time I started the app. (a few years later) I was greeted with "you should upgrade!", which I didn't do. Why? I was happy with the way it was.

Add another few months and this time I wasn't able to run the program anymore period. "You need to upgrade" was all which was said, of course without any options for a real upgrade. I could pick another "free" player and that was basically it. My paid for enhancements were gone. Heck; my whole player was gone.

DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT... Just set your disdain aside for a moment and look at the realplayer product page [real.com]. Question: do you see anything there which hints at upgrade options for existing users ? Well, there aren't any.

Realplayer was the best learning experience for me (and all in all not /that/ expensive fortunately) to never buy anything from Real networks again.