Patent Law

RealNetworks case on DVD copying

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

"Great products should not be bullied out of the market by people trying to misuse the law to suppress legitimate innovation," Glaser wrote in an online statement outlining his reasons for launching the RealDVD software Tuesday [Sept. 30] despite the legal challenges. In a separate interview, Glaser said he had been in negotiations "into the wee hours of the night" and hoped to eventually reach an agreement with the studios.

Also

The legal argument of the DJ action of RealNetworks leans heavily on the 2007 outcome of a case involving Kaleidescape, a maker of home media servers, which had been sued by the DVD Copy Control Assn. because DVDs could be copied onto the device's hard drive.

Kaleidescape won the case on a technicality, and it is now under appeal. Glaser nonetheless seized on that ruling and the "poor-man's Kaleidescape" was born -- RealNetworks RealDVD.

The software, sold for $29.99, lets consumers copy a DVD movie onto their computer's hard drive much as they have ripped music off CDs for more than a decade. RealNetworks says the copies are encrypted so files can't be "shared."

Full post as published by IPBiz on October 03, 2008 (boomark / email).