In Response To Restraining Order, Real Networks Pulls RealDVD

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."

Comments

Because it's the AUDIO Home Recording Act.

[dpbsmith]

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.