back to article Judge blames RealNetworks for DVD-ripping ban

A US district judge has rejected RealNetworks' argument that Hollywood studios illegally joined forces to block the sale of its DVD-duplicating software, RealDVD. On Friday, judge Marilyn Patel in California dismissed Real's antitrust claims, saying the preliminary injunction against distributing the DVD copying software still …

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  1. Eduard Coli
    Headmaster

    Judges for sale?

    Exactly how much does it cost to buy a US judge these days?

    Hollywood must know this well.

    1. Cameron Colley

      The fact DMCA exists at all pretty much sums it up.

      When laws are passed with no other purpose but to allow cartels to operate you know your society is in trouble.

      The US (and the UK) no longer have justice systems, just laws to keep the population from doing anything without paying their masters.

  2. Bilgepipe
    Thumb Down

    Fair Use?

    What happened to the right to make a backup as fair use?

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Fair Use?

      IANAL, but as far as I understand it, if there is a conflict between two pieces of legislation, then courts are expected to construe each piece so as to minimise the conflict and then allow the newer legislation to take priority.

      Therefore, I'd say your "fair use" rights were revoked implicitly by the DMCA in those cases where the rights holder chooses to employ a copy-protection mechanism. You retain fair use rights in other situations.

      With reference to another early post, that means there's no evidence that the judge was bought, although one might wonder about those who passed the DMCA in the first place.

    2. Lou Gosselin

      @Fair Use?

      The DMCA overrode that, people effectively don't have fair use rights any more.

      In theory they do, but the technicalities of the DMCA mean they need to break the law in order to obtain a fair use copy.

  3. Bassey

    Question

    Anyone know the legal situation in the UK. I know full well that I am allowed to make a copy of copyrighted material for personal backup purposes. I do this all the time (no, really). The kids have lots of DVDs. Kids being kids, the DVDs get scratched to feck so I back them up and create a new copy when the original dies. It saves me a fortune.

    HOWEVER - because the DVD manufacturers have put copy protection on the discs, I have to bypass the protection to make my legal backup - which is illegal.

    Not that I really give a damn. I've bought the discs, I have to make copies because DVDs and CDs are so stupidly fragile and if they want me to buy another copy each time their crappy discs give up the ghost they can go jump. But, unlike a lot of people, I do try to stay within the spirit of the law so just wondered which took precedent. My right to make a personal backup or the breaking of copy-protection methods?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      @ Bassey...

      In the UK there is "No Fair Use" policy, so you are not "legally" making backups.

    2. Richard 22

      UK law

      "I know full well that I am allowed to make a copy of copyrighted material for personal backup purposes"

      Are you sure you have that right in UK law? I thought it was more of a turning a blind eye thing than being something you're 'allowed' to do.

      As far as I'm aware, copying CDs, DVDs etc for personal use on different devices or backup isn't a right in UK law, but neither is there a DMCA-type law to make circumventing the copy prevention a specific offence. I'm not a lawyer so I might be wrong on this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        in the UK

        You are explicitly given the right to make a backup copy of a computer program, for personal use, in the copyright laws. It's called fair dealing. You might need to streatch a bit to get it to cover dvd's though.

        Presumably the DMCA-copy we got overrides that though, for anything with copy protection.

    3. The BigYin
      Unhappy

      I don't think so

      "I know full well that I am allowed to make a copy of copyrighted material for personal backup purposes."

      AIUI you are not, not unless you have the permission of the copyright holder. In the UK this is not a criminal matter, but a civil one. It sucks, I agreed, but that's the way it is.

      If your CD/DVD/BlueRay becomes damaged you should contact the company concerned and get a replacement at a "reasonable" price (their words, not mine). Thus there is no need to copy/backup and thus any such copy/backup must only be for illegal activities.

    4. Chris Redpath
      Unhappy

      No right to backup in the UK

      I think I'm right in saying that there is no right to backup anything in the UK, only a gentleman's agreement prevents us being prosecuted for copyright infringement when ripping CDs and DVDs actually *have* copy prevention technology.

      I reckon you're completely illegal but then I'm in the same boat and I don't care either. In my house, kids DVDs are backed up or I don't buy them at all. I can't afford to replace them every couple of months when they're invariably scratched to sh1t getting them in or out of the case, or worse left lying on top of the machine in a stack.

    5. J. Cook Silver badge
      Pirate

      Easy? Well, maybe not....

      If you are hollywood, the fact that you are making a backup and breaking the copy protection to do so makes you a pirate, plain and simple.

      Personally, I feel it's the former, for the same reason that was listed: DVDs and CD media are stupidly fragile. I play music cds in my car during my daily commute to work. As I generally either a) build mix CDs or b) play a back CD-R based copy of an original disc, if the abuse that the cd gets while in the car trashes the disc, I sigh, snap the disc to prevent further use, and burn a new one. (I can people nodding in the audience- them slot loading players are murder on discs!)

      According to the lawyers for the Record Industry Ass. of America, this makes me a pirate. However, according to what I've read of the copyright laws, this makes me a smart consumer by making (and using) my legally entitled backup copy, while the original is safely encased in it's little plastic carrier in my media library.

      Oh, did I mention that some of my cds are autographed? This makes it double certain it's getting placed in a player once- the player is the optical drive on a computer, and getting the media ripped to a digital format that works with my gear.

    6. Boring Bob
      Thumb Down

      Not in France

      "Kids being kids, the DVDs get scratched to feck so I back them up and create a new copy when the original dies. It saves me a fortune."

      Here in France we have an even cheaper solution. If children don't respect their possessions we slap them and certainly do not replace them. Backing-up and replacing the DVDs only teaches them that there is no need to respect their possessions.

  4. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    copy protection and scratches

    "HOWEVER - because the DVD manufacturers have put copy protection on the discs, I have to bypass the protection to make my legal backup - which is illegal."

    Is it? The BS claim they make in the US is that these laws don't violate fair use, they claim bypassing protection is legal, but distributing (or even discussing!) the bypassing software or equipment is not. So (supposedly) if every user writes their own copying software they are within fair use. Of course they pigopolists even tried to claim getting up during advertisements was "kind of" stealing, and don't believe in fair use.

    "Not that I really give a damn. I've bought the discs, I have to make copies because DVDs and CDs are so stupidly fragile and if they want me to buy another copy each time their crappy discs give up the ghost they can go jump."

    Agreed! When a law is immoral I have no qualms with ignoring it. I should point out here, you know originally DVD was going to be a *cartridge* format (a cart with a DVD in it). They KNEW it'd scratch all the time. But, they figured it may add $0.50-$1.00 to the cost (back when DVDs were new and the disk cost like $10+ to make anyway...), so the movie companies said screw it, the "consumers" can just buy more movies all the time.

  5. ben 29
    Stop

    @Question

    Oh no you are not allowed to make backup copies.... except if the thing you are copying is computer software.

    http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

    1. John G Imrie
      FAIL

      So I can back up the game executable ...

      from the DVD but not the data, Music or Video files.

  6. adnim

    it's only illegal...

    If you get caught or don't have a judge in your pocket.

    1. Richard 120

      logic pedant

      If you get caught AND don't have a judge in your pocket.

  7. DrXym

    Kind of ironic

    Real's DVD ripper cracked the normal DVD encryption and replaced it with something arguably even more hideous. People who paid for the service had their DVD re-encrypted and locked to the device.

    Free rippers and encoders already exist (e.g. Handbrake) so I have to wonder who this was meant for. The simplest option is to rip the DVD and play the whole thing through VLC - it's a perfect copy. Alternatively rip any movies you want to H264 / DIVX and watch them through VLC. It would be nice if free rippers could preserve menu structure AND compress the video & audio though.

  8. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    FAIL

    Decoding CSS is illegal?

    So if decoding CSS is illegal under the DMCA, why are there no injunctions against the sale of DVD players? I think that they should ban the sale of all DVD players and watch DVD sales drop through the floor. Perhaps the sale of DVDs should also be made illegal, because they are an incitement to break the law (because decoding the CSS to watch it seems to be illegal under the DMCA).

    The fact that the CSS **HAS** to be decoded to get to the content which you are legally entitled to (in other words to watch it), means that IMHO there has been some nimble footwork with the DMCA. My DVD player constantly decodes the CSS and then stores a copy in a buffer (it's how I manage to watch it).

    When this is then sent over HDMI, the decoded CSS can then be re-encrypted so that the HDMI signal is safe from prying eyes. How is this different to what Real was doing?

    While I'm not keen on REAL's software (because it tends to be bloaty and decide to take over my entire PC and become the default player / downloader for all file types) I think on the surface, this is unfair to them.

    1. Stephen W Harris
      Unhappy

      Re: Decoding CSS is illegal?

      Decoding CSS is not illegal; _unlicensed_ decoding of CSS is illegal. DVD players are licensed. To get a license you need to agree to various things (eg region protection).

      DVD Rippers are unlicensed and so circumvent the protections and so fall foul of the DMCA.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        re: Decoding CSS is illegal?

        > _unlicensed_ decoding of CSS is illegal. DVD players are licensed. To get a license you need to

        > agree to various things (eg region protection).

        Doesn't that make those cheapo strangely-brand DVD players (i.e. those Cobys and Panashibas) illegal as well? Given that most of them don't adhere to region protection either.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Judges for sale...

    Looks as though US judges have slipped as far down the tubes as the UK variety, who have long had little grasp on reality and even smaller grasp on actual morality. Protection of the general public doesn't even come into the picture these days - it's still the old boys mutual admiration society it's always been. For sale? It would seem they're not even expensive these days...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Morality?

      Judges deal in law, not morality.

      Politicians create the legislation. The legal system interprets the the legislation so that it becomes the law. Judges pass judgement based on those laws.

      No mention of morality. There are two major points to be made here; firstly that what is legal is not always moral, and the moral is not always legal; and secondly that judges can only work with the law, they have no powere to pass moral judgement.

      Actually I'm happy that judges can't pass moral judgements. Different people have different moral viewpoints, judges being generally of the wealthy persuasion and their idea of morality often differs from that of normal people.

  10. Neal 5

    pfft

    No one here heard of PirateBay, Torrentfreak, isohunt etc, etc, not heard of bittorent, utorrent, azureus etc,etc,etc.

    feck the backup, just pirate the bastard like everyone else does.

  11. copsewood
    Grenade

    DVDs have to be ripped to be usable

    Otherwise the content on them isn't of merchantable quality as far as highly portable personal media players are concerned. DVD-CSS is not designed to prevent a DVD from being ripped anyway, it is designed to prevent a DVD from being played on a mono-region DVD player which requires a different region encoding.The judge concerned seems to be living in the stone age.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    @DrXym

    "It would be nice if free rippers could preserve menu structure AND compress the video & audio though."

    They do. DVDFab has their HD DVD Decrypter, which has a free, mostly functional version. (Allows full disc duplication, menus and all) with ability to rip as full dual-layer or compress to single-layer.

    There is also DVDDecrypter (extinct, technically) in combination with DVD Shrink (to compress a dual-layer disc to single layer, but also extinct) and a controller program called RipIt4Me.

    Either way, you'll get an exact (or optionally compressed) copy of the original DVD with Menus and such intact.

    Anonymous, you know why.

  13. wayfarer

    Another reason...

    ...that so many of us rip DVDs is to get shot of the rubbish at the beginning and end. With most current DVDs, I have time to make a coffee (and damn-near drink it) while the DVD intro drones on through the kind of rubbish none of its buyers actually give a tinker's damn about. Including warnings about everything from terrorism to paedophilia if we copy a disk - INSULTING both our intelligence and our pocket. If large-scale DVD copying involves criminals, it's because the media industry has made a bed it refuses to lie in.

    A ripped DVD (copied from my own bought, legal disk - so what the HELL is the problem?!) starts straight into the movie I actually paid to see !!!

    There's new technology around guys - and the monks with the quill pens can burn as many people at the stake as they like - it's not going to change anything in the long term, other than further alienate an already fed-up customer base.

    Want to make a profit? Sell people want they want - NOT what you think you have a god-given right to impose on them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      Hah

      >>Including warnings about everything from terrorism to paedophilia if we copy a disk - INSULTING both our intelligence and our pocket.

      A comical thought.. what if the pirates, etc don't add this chunk?

  14. Hugh McIntyre

    @ BristolBachelor

    > So if decoding CSS is illegal under the DMCA, why are there no injunctions against the sale of DVD players?

    Decoding without paying for a license is what's illegal. I think you'll find the hardware DVD player manufacturers paid for licenses (and probably pay royalties), and are thus legal.

  15. Martin Usher
    WTF?

    Coy Protection?

    Copy protection doesn't exist on DVDs so I don't know how DMCA comes into it. If I were to take the DVD image and crack it, DCSS-style then I'd expect to violate the DMCA.

    But as someone else has noted, justice exists to serve the corporations / cartels. Should the current case before the Supreme Court about corporate political contributions being protected as "free speech" (an extension of the notion that a corporation is a person with all the rights and benefits of a person) then that will be the final nail in the coffin of our freedom.

  16. Harlequin :)

    Copyright warnings on DVDs

    What annoys me is that they keep putting all these copyright warnings on the disk which you cant skip. Some of my movies have up to 5 minutes of stuff before I can watch the movie. WTF? If somebody is going to pirate it that would be the first thing removed. So instead of that helping stop piracy all it does is irritate the people who own the actualy DVD.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Sir

      This is in fact one of the reasons I back mine up to a network drive.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Depends on the player...

      I have two DVD players, the expensive one won't skip the copyright notices and such, the £15 skips them without any problems. My old player would skip them as well. I think the DVD has some sort of flag on each file to say whether or not it can be skipped, but some players just ignore the flag.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How dumb are Real?

    So they asked for a judgement that the software was legal when they came to release it. Would it not have made more sense to ask for that judgement before they began development?

    Obviously they had concerns that the software may not be legal, otherwise they would not have asked for the judgement. What sort of idiot begins a costly development process without checking first whether or not the end product would be legal?

    Even Phorm had the sense to check with the home office whether their system was legal. Unfortunately for them some fuckwit civil servant gave them very bad advice.

  18. browntomatoes
    FAIL

    Question

    If a hardware DVD manufacturer signs up for a CSS/BluRay/whatever licence and *then* breaks it (e.g. by accidentally leaking the keys or making their player not region-compliant), are they then breaking the DMCA (and thus liable for criminal penalties and enhanced damages) or simply in breach of contract (thus liable for civil penalties of actual damages only)?

    Seems to me like it *should* be the latter, but probably *is* the former.

  19. A J Stiles

    Beh

    If RealNetworks were really keen to spite the Hollywood studios, they'd "leak" the Source Code. Possibly incomplete, but nothing a dedicated hacker couldn't fix.

  20. adam payne
    Stop

    Here we are again...

    In my opinion when I buy a DVD it becomes my property, I don't lease it from them and they have no right to dictate to me what I can do with it.

    As long as I use any rips for my personal use and don't distribute it then they should consider themselves lucky.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    if you wonder why sh*t costs so much

    This is the first paragraph on page: http://www.dvdfllc.co.jp/license/l_newlicense.html

    1. The new License Program becomes applicable from January 1, 2010 and expires on December 31, 2014. Basic terms and conditions of the new License follow suit of the current DVD Format/Logo License. However, the Currency of the License fee would be in Japanese Yen. The License fee per one Product Category is JPY1,100,000.

    1.1 million Yen to manufacture a single product...

    I was trying to find the dvd cca document from a couple of years ago that listed all of the licensing fees required to make the various products (dvd players, dvds, blanks, etc), and IIRC, the smallest fee was still more than $100,000US, and the largest was more than $1,000,000US plus a percentage for each lot of 25,000 units.

    The document was full of legalese (boring), but the numbers were fucking insane.

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