Digital Home Thoughts: Movie Studios Sue RealNetworks for Releasing RealDVD

"The RIAA and music labels gained a bit more notoriety when one of its associates, Sony BMG's head of litigation Jennifer Pariser, remarked during a case, "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'." Now the MPAA, which typically follows closely in the RIAA's footsteps, is suing software maker RealNetworks and making similar remarks. In a similar mentality, which some say punishes the paying customer, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, the Walt Disney Company and Sony have all filed suit against the company, which claims it only wants to provide content owners with a means of backing up their DVDs."

This isn't surprising to me, and hopefully it's not surprising to RealNetworks either, because I want them to mount a vigorous defense. If RealNetworks has the fortitude to pursue this all the way, this could be the type of case we've been waiting for: something that would set the legal precedent needed to allow the legal proliferation of DVD copying tools. I haven't purchased RealDVD myself, but by all accounts they seem to have followed all the rules necessary for maintaining the copyright protection on the DVDs - they're just taking the encrypted bits from the plastic platter we call a DVD and moving those bits to a hard drive. As if on orchestrated cue, the movie industry reacts like the ignorant buffons they are, launching a lawsuit against RealNetworks. I hope RealNetworks fights this to the very end!