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Real Settles Lawsuits, Will Stop Selling RealDVD
angry tapir writes "RealNetworks has agreed to pay $4.5 million and permanently stop selling its RealDVD software as part of a legal settlement with six Hollywood movie studios. The lawsuits date back to 2008 and Slashdot has previously discussed them. RealDVD is an application that lets people make copies of their DVDs."
The fact that it is even illegal is absurd. This case is just one depressing example.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
I agree. I have stacks of DVDs that I never watch because it's tricky to open the DVD case (it's in the living room where the kids often stack their toys), find the movie I want to watch, put it in the player and keep track of where the empty case is. Plus, if the kids want to watch a movie, they can't do it themselves. (My 1st grade son is computer/electronics savvy but I'm not letting him handle a DVD by himself just yet.)
Meanwhile, I have a CinemaTube hooked up to an external hard drive. I've ripped many of my DVDs onto this hard drive and can now watch them on my TV without needing to load the discs. Technically, I've violated copyright law, but I don't consider this a violation because a) I'm just place/format shifting and b) I'm not sharing these rips out. (Nor am I downloading rips to put on there.)
What I am doing isn't costing the movie industry any "lost sales." In fact, it might increase sales as I'll be more likely to watch DVD movies I buy and not just regard them as wasted cash. So why should it be illegal just because I *might* share the DVD rip on the Internet? Why not call sharing the DVD rip illegal (since that is what they are worried about) and end it at that? (Of course, the answer to these questions is that they want to have the ability later to sell you "digital copies" that will play on "authorized devices" even if they don't offer such copies for sale now.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Now I'll have to go back to using Handbrake again, and miss out on RealDVD's actually-pretty-onerous-and-studio-friendly DRM features. I'm not sure how I'll manage using a free program that produces fully unencumbered versions after using quality commercial software from a trusted name like Real.
Seriously, though, what did they hope to accomplish by slapping Real down? Our Antiguan buddies at Slysoft are still up to their nefarious tricks, so it isn't as though smacking Real did much damage to the market for commercial DVD ripping products; and libdvdcss, VLC, et al. are still doing their thing and not at all hard to find on the OSS side.
So far as I can see, the moral of the story here is that if you try to offer a product that pleases customers while playing nice with studios(as Real did by offering ripping; but imposing restrictions on the rips) the studios will gut you and spit on your corpse; but if you just brazenly violate the restrictions, they'll be powerless to stop you. I'm pretty sure that that isn't the message that they really want to send.
You should really all be a little bit concerned. Most of you reading slashdot are ahead of the tech curve/average and you'll find a way to backup your DVD or acquire it by other means. The DMCA is way out of control and the fact that it is legal to make a copy of your DVD, but illegal to circumvent any copy protection scheme....well, it just doesn't make sense. That's like saying you are allowed to go swimming, but not allowed to get wet. We really should all get together and start to voice our displeasure to our elected representatives. I've seen the DMCA used to squash competitors for things like printer cartridges and garage door openers. It needs to be radically revised or corporations are going to continue to abuse it.
Other way around; the key zone on the disc is readable by any player. But on consumer writable media, it is pre-burned with zeros.
It is also part of the "meta information"; you can't see it with normal I/O commands like 'dd'. You'd have to have a device driver that implements a DVD-specific ioctl to retrieve the keys.
Since .iso is a headerless format, you'd need a lookaside file to contain the metadata needed to make a virtual drive that lets you mount an encrypted .iso. Or use an image file format that supports metadata.
Of course, the people writing the sort of stuff aren't trying to stay within the letter of a law that either (a) does not apply in their country or (b) they don't like, no-one bothers. AFAIK and all that.
In fact, implementing such a system may expose you to PATENT claims in the U.S.!