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Judge Opens Hearing On RealDVD Legal Battle
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."
I really don't understand why they are still bothering.
It's a waste of their money and taxpayer's money
Sounds like a repeat of DVDXCopy. That tool only let you make one copy i believe; and it lost the legal battle.
I'll take OVER 9000!!!
I can count how many times I've rooted for Real on a one-bit integer. Yesterday, I didn't even need that.
THL phish sticks
It is not a trade secret anymore.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Had the VCR been invented in a copyright climate like today's, would it ever have survived the legal attack against it?
I'm trying to figure out what's different, other than the fact we now have the DMCA.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Real Networks should definitely be banned from distributing this software, but then again they should be banned from distributing any software of any kind - everything that comes from Real Networks appears to be utter and irredeemable shit.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Yeah, it would really be terrible if de-CSS code were included in court filings, now, wouldn't it? I just have to wonder: doesn't a trade secret have to be secret? Or are they hiding something else these days?
I honestly don't understand. What do they hope to gain by stopping Real?
CSS is broken, in the face, with extreme prejudice. Game over, no victory possible. Free ripping tools are everywhere, if you know(or have that geek guy who knows) where to look. Pirate rips are similarly common. Real's software, by contrast, is insanely restrictive. It is probably harder to pirate a rip made with it than it is to just re-rip the DVD with something civilized. Why would they attack it?
No actual pirate would use it, so taking it off the market is wholly irrelevant to that. Further, by virtue of existing, being under the brand of a company with significant brand awareness, pagerank, etc. it is likely to be the first thing a n00b who wants to put some DVDs on his laptop is going to find. In that respect, it likely serves as a damper to further piracy. If the first thing that comes up when you google "transfer DVD computer" is Real's easy to use, legitimate(to the n00b) looking, and highly restrictive program, the unskilled will probably stop there. This will keep them, in at least some cases, from digging further and coming up with proper techniques.
So that is why I don't understand. This software is of zero use to pirates, who already have better, and might well actually stop n00bs from becoming pirates, by virtue of being easier and almost good enough. Is this just stupidity? A matter of principle? A concern over precedent? Are they trying to maintain the illusion among the public that DVDs cannot be ripped?
If RealDVD is a piracy tool, then so is iTunes (or anything else that allows you to rip CDs).
Do they really think people who pirate DVDs are going to pay for ripping software? I am guessing most people who would buy this software would not be that savvy and only use it to back up the Dora the Explorer DVDs that their kids somehow keep breaking. I'm pretty sure these aren't the people they should be focusing on. With a teeny bit of research on the internet you can find lots of free rippers with none of the restrictions this Real one has.
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."
They almost let the cat out of the bag!
Step 1 rent DVD. Step 2 save movie to hard drive. There is nothing to restrict you to movies you own. If you have an unlimited Blockbuster or Netflicks account you could "back up" dozens of movies a month for less than a $1 a piece. The potential is a massive loss to the filmmakers, not all filmmakers are big studios. I'm an independent filmmaker and I have a last film coming out this Fall. Due to the current climate I've decided to retire rather than make more films. I have 20 or 30 good years left in me but it's too much of a battle between fighting studios and backers to keep a cut for myself and now everyone wants films without paying for them. Ultimately the viewers loose out because the studios will mostly do remakes and people like me that do original work are being driven out of the business. It's already very hard to lock down distribution as an indy. I'd love to keep making films but I don't see the point. I get tired of hearing from everyone, the studios to the viewers, that I shouldn't have control of my own work. The simplest solution is to not release anymore films. Anything I do from here on out is for my own amusement. I've been encouraging friends to do the same. Copyright laws should be stronger for the artists and weaker for the corporations. Until artists control their own work I think it's time for artists to take a break.
I think the lawyers are the only ones making out on this whole mess. You might as well take away cameras, any kind of audio recording device (answering machines, voice mail included), don't allow artists to paint. The list goes on....
What do people here believe about intellectual property? Do you think someone should benefit from their creative work?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it is the legal right of an individual to create a single (i.e. at most one) backup copy of a DVD once purchased. If not, then I'm going to be in shit for using handbrake to save my own movies to my own hard drive, with no intention of sharing a single one of them.
This may be good. By now, this judge should realize he made a big mistake in the Napster case. When "Statutory Damages in Copyright Law: A Remedy in Need of Reform" by Pamela Samuelson and Tara Wheatland came out, the Napster case was featured as one of the examples of how justice has gone wrong. Courts have strayed far from the intentions of Congress who wrote the laws governing compensation to copyright holders who's IP have been infringed. There is, for example, absolutely no basis in the law for the practise of awarding huge settlements for the purpose of "setting an example to deter other potential infringers". Congress intended for statutory damages to be mainly compensatory in nature and its wishes have not been respected in the case law. "The application of statutory damages has too often strayed from the compensatory impulse underlying statutory damages ... and has focused too heavily on deterrence and punishment, especially given that too many ordinary infringements are treated as willful infringements" concludes the authors of this paper. I first freely accessed this paper via a temporary link on Recording Industry vs People. Unfortunately, that link has been replaced by a link to where you can buy the paper, but is it no longer available for free, so I will not supply that link.
Recently I was looking at purchasing DVDs of a long-running TV series. I realized that the DVDs with all of their cases would take up a HUGE amount of space! I always watch DVDs via my computer, I don't even own a regular DVD player. Then I realized I actually DON'T WANT physical DVDs! I have enough storage space I could put this huge pile of DVDs on a single hard drive - without even compressing them further.
* All I want is a file I can double click on, sit back, and watch. *
Where can I pay for a licensed download of this kind of stuff? Oh, pretty much nowhere? And, no to work for me it can't be DRMed and must be in a relatively standard codec.
Now, if I could buy a plain DVD with such a file that I could drag-and-drop to my hard drive, and then dispose of the DVD or toss the plain DVD on to a spool somewhere that would be fine too. That might save me from tying up my internet connection for a while. I don't want to have to search through a pile of DVDs to find the one I want.
Technically it is possible to copy DVDs to a hard drive but as everyone here knows that is forbidden by a truckload of laws!!! W... T... F...?!!!!! Not to mention most DVDs are encrypted and many DVDs are damaged in creative ways to try to prevent people from copying them.
If they are so freaking afraid of piracy, they should drop the price enough and make it so it was actually more convenient and desirable to purchase a DVD, then the MPAA could just sit back and watch the torrents dry up!
Oh, and should I mention how painful dealing with most regular DVDs are? Put in the DVD and be forced to watch a dozen commercials for crap? Every time I buy a DVD I feel like I am begin fucked up the ass by Micky Mouse!
So why do I even want a physical MPAA-pressed DVD again? Just sell me what I want dammit!
Their probably worried that this might signify the mainstreaming of DVD (media) ripping. Which, if it was to be considered common place, could wreck all sorts of havoc on their game-plan as people began to take interest in their right to media they (presumably) own.
Quack, quack.
I doubt he even knows it exists. It's even more doubtful that he has any misgivings about his ruling in the Napster case other than telling his golf buddies recently, "Fuck it, I shoulda added 'Throw dirty little pirate punk in overseas prison for terrorists if we ever build one!" to the sentence."
Just because we have an orgasm about every obscure paper published that attacks current copyright law, it doesn't mean anybody else ever notices those papers. Even if they did notice, they couldn't care less about them.
"The Street finds its own uses for technology." -- William Gibson I just think it's awesome that that was the fortune for this story (at least when I read it).
-- Increasing the entropy of the universe since 1972.
Are there any good open-source progs with the same functionality as RealDVD? Let's spread that around and watch the MPAA try to play whack-a-mole.
If you really did have an unlimited blockbuster or netflix account, you'd have long since realized that even at $1 apiece, it's just not worth it to "back up" your rentals.
$17 per month, (which fluctuates, but the deal keeps getting better so far), you can watch 3 films at a time, and reasonably expect to get 3 per week. If you're super diligent, you could watch more, but let's just go with about 14 films per month for the sake of argument.
Are you really going to watch all 14 multiple times?
Further, keep in mind that your media costs would be almost as much as your monthly netflix cost. Every month of "backups" could be spent instead on nearly an additional month of netflix service. And it would be more than an month when you factor in opportunity cost over the long-term.
An additional month where you could re-watch any of the films you've already watched, or any of the films offered that you haven't yet watched. Or the same films, but in a more advanced format than you had the first time around.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Now ain't that fuckin' ironic.
The author of a paper arguing against the DMCA must have either issued a DMCA nastygram against someone for hosting the paper.
Or for double irony points, the author of a paper arguing against the DMCA must have had it published in a journal which itself DMCA'd someone, with or without the author's consent, for hosting a copy of a paper arguing against the DMCA.
The trade secret is the STRATEGY of the lawsuit.
The specific PATENTS (not trade secrets) that they use to litigate, and how a product COULD be easily written BEFORE hand to not use those specific patents as written in their main claims.
I know. I defended the largest DVD CCA lawsuit attack in history with over 100 million in settlement.
If you knew the rather weak patents they have left, and the order they use them in suits, you could TRIVIALLY and LEGALLY make an untainted an legal DVD replicator. I ALMOST feel like listing them here, but my soul was burned out from the process and I am neutral.
I'd love to see Real point out the First Sale. The customer bought it, they can fold, spindle or mutilate it.
If the studios claim it's licensed, point out the ads that say "Buy it today!" or "Own it today!"
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
cat VTS_02_1.VOB VTS_02_2.VOB VTS_02_4.VOB VTS_02_5.VOB > file.mpg
This works on everything I've tried. It results in a fairly big file but it retains the quality and you can simply not add that annoying copyright file that warns you that you should buy the dvd that you obviously did buy because you are seeing the message. i assume that you need libdvdcss2 installed but I can't be sure because like most people that's one of the first things I install after I install the OS.
Google is STILL your friend.
I found this paper online elsewhere for free via Google.
Like I said in an earlier AC post, non-3D IP is worth $0.00 thanks to the 'copy it to the four winds' distribution model of the Internet. :P
US economy == Lawyers.
Last one off the sinking ship is a dodo. Sell.
css has been an ineffective copy restriction for some time.
you can de-css stuff easily at home.
You could copy discs 1:1 (i.e.: verbatim) without issue as well.
so does the judge know?
You are wrong (assuming you're referring to US law). A "right to make archival copies" does exist, but it applies only to computer software, not to digital media. (Source)
The reed-solomon system is an encrypt. You can't just punt the values as a voltage signal to your amplifier.
So it is encrypted.
The encryption isn't secret, though.
And neither is CSS...
Copyright doesn't stop it, since it doesn't control a copy done for backup purposes.
So why can't they copy it?
its RealDVD product is equipped with piracy protections
So I can buy one of those, and just paste it to the bulk off my ship while I sail through the Strait of Hormuz?
Maybe the Somali pirates should sue the RIAA for abusing their trademark?
Thanks to the AC who said he found access to the paper via Google, I finally managed to read it again. It was available the whole time here but the download button does nothing but flash the abstract. You have to be awake to read the fine print that says "Click Location Below to Start Download". Then I just clicked the first of the 5 buttons and down came the pdf.
There was a brief reference to the Napster case in the paper, a citation in favour of the judge for giving credence to due process concerns about grossly excessive statutory damage awards in copyright cases.
To the AC and principal respondent of my first post who say that the judge is unlikely to be aware of "some obscure paper" to which I referenced, I would suggest that judges would be aware of the latest developments of thought on copyright law as much as we here on Slashdot would be aware of the latest developments in technology. Of course, that is just an assumption on my part, and I have no way of knowing that.
I would also like to point out a very interesting blog from two years ago that I just ran across that has direct bearing on the RealDVD Legal Battle. FAIR USE Act analysis: DMCA reform left on the cutting room floor"
Finally, I just want to say that in my opinion, RealNetworks deserves our support on this issue, as it is defending against an attack on fair use, and the outcome of this trial may end up redefining fair use for better or for worse.
People should protest outside the courthouse. It's time to go through the 42 ways to distribute DECSS again. What about a tie with the code on it?
You really don't get why they bother? If it became legal to move DVD images around -- even if restricted by CSS licenses, $30K jukeboxes that was introduced as new, high-end consumer "tech" and discussed, here, on /. OVER 4 years ago.
If the content-control mafia doesn't go on the warpath against every possible consumer aid, then consumers might get "convenient" access to the videos they purchase. It has nothing to do with piracy -- since that's done on a massive scale across the world where DVD's are duplicated and sold for a few-bucks -- it has everything with consumer control -- especially control of the lucrative US-consumer market. If they don't keep up the legal pressure to block all technical progress, you'd start seeing low-end, non-Windows (or non-Vista) based jukeboxes selling at Walmart for $200. The content industry didn't invest millions in getting Vista to have all their layers of protection and licensing only to let stupid consumers get devices that actually allow them to DO things with their purchased videos. The only way the content-mafia can continue to make higher and higher profits off of fewer and fewer hits, is by changing the way they do business -- instead of selling DVD's, they really would prefer to sell pay-per-view-per-viewer. That would be their "ideal", though to get there, they have to move very slowly and indirectly. If they bring the consumers to a boil too quickly then the consumers get upset and balk (DIVX), or complain to congress-critters who occasionally threaten to do things when these content-kings try step up their charges for content viewing too quickly.
Just like Kaleidescape got nailed because they were a bunch of engineers and not part of the 'content-mafia', and thought consumers (even though they'd pay dearly for the cutting edge) might enjoy increased convenience. It's very likely, that Real Networks, being a competitor of Microsoft, hasn't been given the green light to develop a sufficiently onerous DRM (their RealDVD product probably isn't restricted to Vista) that's tied in with the OS, and designed to work with content-controlled hardware on the user's PC (the TPM chip being installed in every consumer computer that will be able to hold appropriately blessed, time limited, or location limited, or view-limited licenses that can be easily 'lost', or remotely deactivated over the network connection that's required for these devices to 'verify' your 'license' every time you view content.
Of course knowing what you are watching, where and how many times you watch an old DVD will given them useful marketing and taste information about the consumers who will be monitored.
Allowing a 'rogue' program that just lets consumers 'view' their own video (DVD/BluRay) without all the content-restriction and obfuscation software might allow a user to view a video through a unlicensed or non-approved video playback device. Recently I needed to replace a simple DVD player in my bedroom -- only needed an inexpensive playback device, but the device, of course has up-sampling and high-end digital-output for digital screens (LCD/plasma, virtually all modern viewers) that is only available through the HDMI connector. The instruction book tells you that unless your HDMI monitor is also HDCP-secure, that 'snow' or 'noise' in the output picture is "normal".
If the content-mafia allowed even the smallest bit of 'freedom' in video viewing, it could undo all their plans to shift to a completely controlled digital experience.
Nightmare scenario for them. Customer could buy their video *once*, DVD/BluRay, then load it on their home media center. But that same media center could show the vid
CSS has been hacked since 1998, there fore is public knowledge & there in is pointless to invoke any form cloture on this case.
I bought a copy on the first day and after the restraining order, it didn't work any more. It seems it calls home before operating so it will not function on a machine attached to the Internet. For me that means I can't use it because my machine is always connected. It is a shame because I have always thought that shifting the content to my computer for my own use was a very useful thing. I am a little unhappy that I paid the money and I can't use the software.