Audio Video News

RealDVD's DVD-copying application is dead, having been officially outlawed by a judge after a protracted legal battle.

Judge Marilyn Patel declared the software to be in violation of copyright law, making a temporary injunction against its sale permanent. Real reached a settlement with the Motion Picture Association of America for a $4.5 million penalty plus agreement to stop selling RealDVD or anything similar. Real had been planning a server product called Facet in addition to the RealDVD PC software.

"I think the message this sends is if you get into the business of enabling consumers to do with DVDs what they've long done with CDs, you'll get sued out of business," commented Fred von Lohmann, an attorney for the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

Ironically, though RealDVD is dead, consumers can legally transfer movie content to various devices using Digital Copy, an extra disc included with some DVD releases. Blu-ray's version of this technology, Managed Copy, is mandated in discs starting this year but hasn't yet found wide support among studios and manufacturers. Eventually all of the above may be replaced by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, which would allow a variety of transfer options including a cloud-based computing solution.

See ArsTechnica.