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In Response To Restraining Order, Real Networks Pulls RealDVD
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:22 AM
from the corporate-masochism dept.
from the corporate-masochism dept.
eldavojohn writes "RealNetworks' product that allows one to copy a DVD containing a movie has been pulled. You may recall us discussing RealDVD and its legal implications." According to the linked BBC report, "RealNetworks — the firm behind the software — has responded to restraining order issued by a US court stopped selling the RealDVD software [sic]. Six major movie studios jointly sued the company on 30 September — the day the software was launched."
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FP writes "On Friday morning, lawyers urged a federal judge to bar RealNetworks from selling software that allows consumers to copy their DVDs to computer hard drives, arguing that the Seattle-based company's product is an illegal pirating tool. RealNetworks' lawyers countered later in the morning that its RealDVD product is equipped with piracy protections that limits a DVD owner to making a single copy and is a legitimate way to back up copies of movies legally purchased. This legal battle began with a restraining order last October which stopped the sale of RealDVD. More coverage is available at NPR. The same judge who shut down Napster is presiding over the three-day trial."
Reader IonOtter points out that later in the day, Judge Patel sealed the court after DVD Copy Control Association lawyers "argued that public testimony of aspects of the CSS copy-control technology would violate trade secrets."
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I'm clueless on this, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't there other software that allows you to copy/rip DVDs ?
If there isn't, can I write one and get sued ? At least I'd get my name in the papers...
Re:I'm clueless on this, but (Score:5, Insightful)
There is other software -- DVD Decrypter was one popular piece of software. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Decrypter [wikipedia.org] ) In the US, it may or may not be illegal under the DMCA to use such programs to back up your own DVDs. The only controlling legal authority I'm aware of said that doing so was legal, provided it was for personal use, but that distributing software to make this possible was illegal.
Go figure.
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The Controlling Legal Authority is the DMCA (Score:5, Informative)
This is not an open question.
This is correct--and the controlling legal authority is not a case, but the DMCA itself. You cannot circumvent protection to gain "access" to a work, but you can circumvent protection for "use" of a work provided you gained access (i.e. purchased the work) legally.
The problem being that you cannot "traffic in" tools designed to circumvent protection at all. So you likely can't buy, sell, or give away programs designed to help people take advantage of this subtle difference. You have to know how to circumvent the protection all by yourself.
Ironically, the area of law where this is not clear is whether it is legal to teach someone how to circumvent protection "on their own." Likely the First Amendment would preclude such a sweeping definition of "traffic in," but there are no test cases on this that I'm aware of. Certainly more perplexing conclusions have been reached before...
There is an obvious logical disconnect in allowing people under one section of the law to do certain things that the vast majority will be unable to do because of provisions in another section of the law. The rationale is that tools enabling DRM-circumventing "use" will naturally also enable DRM-circumventing "access," which is a no-no.
Just one more good example of how copyright law is suppressing the usefulness technology. But because this is copyright rather than patent law, the "useful article" doctrine fails to apply.
The foregoing is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer. However I am a law student and have made extensive study of the subject.
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Correction (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, I wrote that too fast. "Useful article" doctrine is not the phrase I was looking for. The "substantial non-infringing use" analysis, which is a part of copyright law, is where circumvention devices might be exempt from the DMCA, under its own provisions.
Please just ignore the second sentence of the second-to-last paragraph. I blame mornings.
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Ugh. You're going to make me CITE this? (Score:5, Informative)
Fine, fine. Here we go. d^_^b
1201(a)(1)(a) says, "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." (emphasis added)
So circumvention for access is explicitly forbidden, except under the Library of Congress exemptions.
1201(b) adds that "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof," that is primarily designed for, marketed for, or has limited use other than to circumvent protection.
So, circumvention for access is forbidden, and trafficking in circumvetion tools is forbidden. Notice what is omitted here. Nowhere does the DMCA forbid circumvention for use. Thus it was that the Supreme Court observed in U.S. v. Elcom (the Dmitri Skylarov case, which I feel was wrongly decided for other reasons we needn't go into):
There is no part of the DMCA that "exempts" circumvention for use--because there is no part of the DMCA that makes it illegal.
Parent
Re:Ugh. You're going to make me CITE this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, look, you are free to suggest that Congress wrote this badly, but the quote I provided from U.S. v. Elcom cites directly to the congressional record. This isn't just some random law student's interpretation of a confusingly written law. This is how the DMCA was apparently intended to function, and how the courts have interpreted it to function (though, arguably, only in dicta).
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Re:The Controlling Legal Authority is the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, every time you use a licensed player to play a DVD, you (legally) circumvent or bypass the encryption (otherwise, you could not view the DVD you paid for)
It comes down to the term "circumvent", which is defined in the DMCA as:
"...to `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..."
I call your attention to the phrase "descramble a scrambled work...without the authority of the copyright owner" in the above quote.
Does viewing a DVD under Linux, for example, using a non-approved decrypter, constitute circumvention, or, have you, by virtue of your purchase of the DVD, received an implicit license from the copyright owner to view the content? Did you receive a license to view the content *only* on licensed playback devices? If so, where is that restriction listed on the media you purchased?
Parent
Re:I'm clueless on this, but (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't there other software that allows you to copy/rip DVDs ?
Not commercial. There are open source tools that you can accomplish this with and there are certainly shady products you can find online that aren't supported and probably aren't owned and operated inside the United States. The important thing is that they are not sold at Best Buy nor are they easy to use. I know ways of doing it with Ubuntu but your average person is still mystified that typing something on a command line causes my DVD player to do something.
DVD X Copy comes to mind although I've never used it, that's the most commercial looking stuff I've ever seen. And this is what its site [dvdxcopy.com] says:
Authentic DVDXCopy software is no longer being sold anywhere.
In response to:
If there isn't, can I write one and get sued ? At least I'd get my name in the papers...
Sir, you need look no further than the RIAA/MPAA to be sued. Why bother writing software when you can simply create a single backup copy of a CD or DVD for your personal use and notify them that you have done so. Your name won't make the papers but you will be sued. I'm certain they will be able to show that since you had it on your computer and your computer was connected to the internet, you were distributing it to several thousand other people who had no legal right in owning it. You won't be sued for the additional price of that media, you will be sued $75,000 because that's how much money you thieved from them! And thus you can be part of the ridiculous system that is digital music today!
Parent
Re:I'm clueless on this, but (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't there other software that allows you to copy/rip DVDs ?
Not commercial. There are open source tools that you can accomplish this with and there are certainly shady products you can find online that aren't supported and probably aren't owned and operated inside the United States. The important thing is that they are not sold at Best Buy nor are they easy to use. I know ways of doing it with Ubuntu but your average person is still mystified that typing something on a command line causes my DVD player to do something.
I disagree. AnyDVD and DVDFAB Decrypter are straight forward and extremely easy to use, (1-2 button click) and have a pretty decent support base. Although you can't find them at Best Buy...
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Re:I'm clueless on this, but (Score:5, Informative)
(The AnyDVD ripper will also rip BlueRay and HD DVD's nicely (if you buy the HD Key for HD) and it can also rip directly to a non-DRM'd DVD or HDDVD/BlueRay image file)
http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html [slysoft.com]
http://www.elby.ch/products/clone_dvd/index.html [www.elby.ch]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
DVD Decrypter hasn't been updated in years because it's author was given a choice between facing a very expensive lawsuit or turning over the code and stopping work on it. He chose the latter. DVD Decrypter works fine on most DVDs, but not all.
AnyDVD is a commercial ripper that works on all DVDs and is updated regul
Working together (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Working together (Score:4, Informative)
Or, if you want something that'll play in a standard DVD player, k9copy [sourceforge.net]. I have young kids, and for some weird reasons I haven't bought them and video iPods. Backing up their DVDs is kind of a must.
Parent
Re:Working together (Score:5, Funny)
If I had a choice between buying kids and video iPods, I'd pick the iPods any day.
Parent
maybe there were other motives... (Score:5, Funny)
Why this one? (Score:3, Interesting)
DVD decrypter + nero (Score:3, Informative)
just use an old copy if DVD decrypter floating around and Nero
to copy DVDs to other DVS's or mp4 files
How to rip DVDs for nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Handbrake is a front end over xvid and x264 encoders so you get either an MPEG-2 ASP (DiVX) or H264 AVC file from the process. Depending on your target device you might want to choose one or the other or fiddle with the other settings but the defaults are pretty sane if you don't know what you are doing.
Sure the process might skip supplementals and there may be edge cases with alternate tracks or subtitles that require more effort but x264 is an excellent encoder and the quality is very good. I really don't see why anybody would want to use RealDVD when it DRMs the resulting movie in the process.
Who am I supposed to hate more? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Sauron versus Palpatine. Is there a good guy? Don't think so.
Nobody with a brain used that crap anyway (Score:5, Informative)
1. (DVD) -> DVD Decrypter -> MeGUI, X264 -> Done.
2. (BD) -> DVDFAB -> TsMuxeR -> MeGUI, X264 -> Done.
3. (CD) -> Exact Audio Copy -> FLAC -8 -> Done.
Next question.
Re:Nobody with a brain used that crap anyway (Score:4, Funny)
Next question.
8-Track?
Parent
Re:What, No Balls?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? You mean ignore a restraining order? That would be totally suicidal. Coming out with the product in the first place is pretty ballsy, and I think Real should be congratulated for that move.
Parent
Re:What, No Balls?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Going to a gun fight with a knife is pretty ballsy too, but I'm not sure "congratulations" are the first thought that would be offered to such an act.
Inside or outside 21 feet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Because it's the AUDIO Home Recording Act. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing it's because it's the audio home recording act and this is video.
Having owned a home audio CD recorder for many years, I can tell you that the AHRA was an interesting compromise. Home audio CD recorders do not accept standard CD-R media, but require special "audio" or "music" CD-R media that contains some encoded information that tells the recorder that it's an "audio CD-R."
The system also incorporated a technical mechanism that allowed for only first-generation bit-for-bit digital copying--you could make a bit-for-bit copy of a commercial original, but you couldn't copy the copy. (The machines, however, make a really excellent analog copy of a digital copy).
It was, I thought, really acceptable. It made casual copying convenient, you paid a quite reasonable amount for doing it, you were paying for the copy and not "pirating."
Manufacturers of audio CD-R media are required to pay a small amount of money to an agency that divvies it up between artists and music publishers.
One of the things that pushed me over the edge into a raging anti-RIAA crank was that when they started fooling around with "copy-protected" CDs, they made them uncopiable in audio home CD recorders.
In other words, here I was, an honest user, paying for every copy and keeping my end of the deal, and there they were, reneging on the deal.
I'm now utterly opposed to DRM because I'm convinced that the publishers cannot be trusted to limit themselves to enforcing rights that they actually possess. When allowed to use technical means to enforce their rights, they always overreach. They do not possess a six-year-old's sense of basic fair play.
Parent
Re:Surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who in the UK doesn't have a region-ignoring player? You need better educated friends, perhaps.
Parent