Court to hear RealDVD copyright case

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 7 Oct 2008 at 11:52

A US judge will hear the case against the makers of RealDVD, a DVD backup tool which has been temporarily pulled from sale following a copyright lawsuit.

RealDVD was launched by RealNetworks just last week, providing a way for users to backup any DVDs they own to their hard disk. The software includes DRM to stop films from being distributed to another computer, but this was not enough to protect it from a court case.

The software was removed from sale on 3 October following a lawsuit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which claimed that the software violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by allowing the duplication of copyright material.

"Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use," says a statement on the RealDVD website.

RealNetworks itself also filed a lawsuit, prior to releasing the software, asking the MPAA for clarification on whether it was a legal product.

A US court has ruled that the software remains unavailable for sale until at least 14 October, when a judge can review the court documents and rule on the case.