RealNetworks appeals injunction on RealDVD sales

RealNetworks has filed an appeal of a federal judge's decision to halt the sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD.

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser is challenging the decision by a federal judge to halt sales of RealDVD.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Real said in documents filed Monday night that San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel erred when she placed a preliminary injunction on the sales of RealDVD in August.

In a lawsuit filed last fall, the Motion Picture Association of America accused Real of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and breach of contract when Real began selling RealDVD.

Not surprisingly, Real claimed in the appeal that Patel applied an incorrect legal standard in granting a request by the major studios to halt sales of the software and argued that Patel was wrong to presume RealDVD would cause the film industry irreparable harm. Patel failed to consider the public interest or balance the equities, Real said in the documents.

For those reasons and others, Real asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District to remove the injunction.

"The grant of a preliminary injunction will be reversed," Real wrote in the appeal, "where the district court 'abused its discretion or based its decisions on an erroneous legal standard or on clearly erroneous legal standard."

As the case has played out in court the past year, its been closely watched by copyright owners as well as those representing technology companies and Internet users, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF claims that the major movie studios are using the lawsuit against Real to thwart innovation.

The studios argue they are only protecting their films from those who would profit from the creation of pirate tools, which is what they claim RealDVD is. In addition to the DVD-copying software, Real is also planning to roll out Facet, the codename for a prototype DVD player that copies DVDs and stores the movies on a hard drive.

A MPAA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an interview request.

[4score20]

They created RealDVD with copyright protection in mind and placed a bunch of restrictions on it and the studios still took them to court. Fascinating. Although I'm no fan of RealNetworks due to past negative experience with their RealPlayer software I commend them for fighting this and wish them luck. There's a much bigger issue at play here and I'm starting to wake up to it.

[lazycat202]

hoping Real will win!

[opiapr]

MPAA & RIAA are abusing actually over abusing I hope Real wins this one.

[PhaseDMA]

This is getting old. Tell me when Real either wins or gives up. At that point I will actually care, but this is just redundant.

[aka_tripleB]

Did the MPAA ask the judge for an indefinite recess? Why hasn't this case concluded yet?

[Thad Boyd]

Real's legal argument in the previous case was boneheaded IMO, but the judge's ruling had a logical hole in it you could drive a Mack truck through -- basically he said that it's legal to own a backup of a movie you've purchased, but not legal to MAKE that backup. (Not the judge's fault -- that's pretty much exactly what the law says. It's some straight-up Joseph Heller stuff.)

[keepntabs]

The judge who made the decision is a woman as indicated by her first name, Marilyn. I understand that most people automatically presume such jobs are normally held by men, but this time it's different.

[Dust_Puppy]

The only thing positive that came from this is SOMEONE (not some nobody) had to try and deal with the elephant in the room (reasonable usage for purchased materials).

Lots of us have been collecting DVDs for over a decade . . . someone needs to throw us a bone and let us transfer those to a single unit for our TV, or a portable unit for on-the go (car DVD).

Before I had an MP3 player, I burned all of my CDs to backups for the car so I wouldn't scratch/bake them . . .

Honestly, it's the law that's broken . . . and the studios think it's not going to be fixed.

The only way they could stop (delay) this would be to give us a piece of software (free) that rips and adds (usable/transparent) DRM to mainstream devices . . . instead they think they're going to sell me a $10 digital copy of a movie I got in a bargain bin for $6.

[Stormspace]

I'm getting tired of our elected officials and judiciary being so stupid about technology. It seems like every company with something to protect piles on DRM and then convinces lawmakers it's a good thing, knowing full well that milllions of sheeple won't complain and those that do will be such a small minority nothing will get done to change things....

[drbasic3]

The lawmakers will not wake up do to the millions getting donated to their campaign funds. It is setup that way they get big donations and help those people donating so they can run commercials and get elected again. Hollywood has lobbyists and that's their job donate money and talk to the politicians about that money and getting what they want, in this case a monopoly on digital media.

Think of it this way when you put that digital media in your computer for what it is for, you have just backed up that disk and broke their own law. How many people besides me has scratched up their dvd anyone know where to get a replacement disk without buying a brand new one.

I found out about this case because I went to buy the software was going to hook up a couple cheap pc's to my tvs 1 in the den and 1 in the bedroom and watch my existing movies across the network but apparently I got to buy the dvds again with a digital copy to do that now don't plan on doing that anytime soon very sad Real did not win and won't.

It is also sad Politicians work for people donating money to their campaign funds instead of the people they are supposed to represent.