RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek

RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek 

RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood

The media player software maker's lawsuit reads like a conspiracy plot as it's impossible for any organizations other than the studios to sell DVD-copying software.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
May 14, 2009 06:07 PM

 

RealNetworks, which is waging a court battle against several Hollywood studios over its DVD-copying software, has filed antitrust claims against the movie studios, accusing them of trying to prevent other companies from building products that let consumers legally copy DVDs for personal use.

RealNetworks filed the accusations Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, where it's battling an attempt by the studios to extend a court order barring the company from selling its DVD-copying RealDVD until after the legality of software is settled. The Motion Picture Association of America has sued RealNetworks accusing it of copyright violations. In addition, the DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses copyright-right protection technology for the MPAA, has joined the suit, accusing RealNetworks of violating its license with RealDVD.

RealNetworks filed its latest allegations in preparation for closing arguments in the current court battle over the temporary restraining order against RealNetworks. Closing arguments are scheduled for May 21.

Within the 36-page court document, RealNetworks claims the studios and the DVD CCA have conspired to make it impossible for any organizations other than the studios to sell DVD-copying software. "Without this illegal cartel, Real and others would be able to compete to provide consumers with products to enable them to gain more value from their DVDs, without having to pay again to make a fair-use copy of the DVDs they have already purchased," a RealNetworks spokesman said in an e-mail.

Under the fair-use segment of the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, people can legally copy movies and music for personal use. RealDVD, which costs $30, makes it possible to copy a DVD onto the hard drive of a laptop, but does not strip the copyright-protection technology on the DVD, according to RealNetworks. In addition, RealDVD adds another layer of protection that prevents the movie file from being opened on any device other than the one it was originally copied to.

As part of its latest filing, RealNetworks is asking the court to bar the movie studios and the DVD CCA from anti-competitive activity and for monetary damages that would be determined later.

RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek

Documentarians, DVDs and the MPAA | Technology | Los Angeles Times

 

Documentarians, DVDs and the MPAA

You would think that the movie industry, which celebrates documentarians every year at its awards ceremonies, would want to help those same filmmakers overcome the hurdles posed by changing technology. But Hollywood's copyright holders don't see things quite that way. In fact, they're trying to make it harder for documentarians to practice their craft, opposing the latter's bid for the freedom to extract short clips directly from DVDs.

As instructed by Congress in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Copyright Office considers requests every three years to create or renew exemptions to the DMCA's ban on circumventing the electronic locks on copyrighted material. Such "technical protection measures" include the encryption on DVDs. In one of the rare exemptions granted by the Copyright Office, film professors have been permitted to copy short clips from DVDs for the purpose of creating video compilations for their classes. Of course, the DMCA makes it illegal for anyone to make or sell a tool that professors could use to extract these clips from discs; luckily for them, it's easy to find (illegal) software online that can do the trick.

Anyway, the Copyright Office held hearings last week on the latest requests for exemptions, including one from a group of documentary filmmakers. Led by Kartemquin Educational Films (the producers of "Hoop Dreams") and joined by well-known filmmakers such as Kirby Dick ("This Film Is Not Yet Rated") and Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me"), the group seeks permission to copy short segments from DVDsfor their work. The group (whose papers were prepared by a team from USC's Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic and Beverly Hills attorney Michael C. Donaldson) notes that VHS production has all but ceased, meaning that DVD is the de facto medium for video. And without the ability to make fair use of material on DVDs, the group contends, documentaries that cast their subjects in a negative or mocking light may not be possible....

It points to such works as "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," "Smoke and Mirrors: A History of Denial" and "Bigger Stronger Faster" as examples of filmmakers relying on the fair use doctrine for the clips they needed instead of obtaining the copyright holders' consent. According to comments filed by the group:

Each of these films plays an important role in society through its critique, commentary or exposé of some aspect of our culture, but without fair use, none of them could even have been made. Documentary film has faced this reality since the form was developed, and it is why documentary film is an exemplar of the type of activity for which the fair use doctrine was developed.

The MPAA opposed the request, along with a broader one by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that sought permission to take short clips from DVDs for any noncommercial, non-infringing video. "These proposals fail to establish that content desired for non-infringing uses is not available from sources other than DVDs, or that the desired non-infringing uses cannot be made by means that do not require circumvention of technical measures, such as screen shots," the association argued in its comments. But the problem with copying clips from other sources, the documentarians responded, is that it introduces image and sound problems that render the video unacceptable to broadcasters, cable networks and other outlets for their work.

The reaction by the MPAA and other copyright holders to the documentarians' appeal typified their response to all the requests for exemptions, which ranged from the narrow and common-sensical (such as allowing circumvention by people who had purchased software, music or movies protected by DRM systems that were later abandoned by the retailer), to the broad and, well, quixotic (such as allowing phone resellers to circumvent the locks on mobile phones).

Any new or expanded request drew a uniform "no" from the copyright holders, who contended that expanding the (extremely limited) exemptions would weaken the anti-circumvention regime, "confuse consumers" and "spawn an undergound marketplace for circumvention services" (as if that didn't already exist). The trump card in the copyright holders' arsenal: if the anti-circumvention provisions grow weak, content providers will lose faith in their ability to protect content and make it less available. Of course, the copy protection on DVDs was cracked not long after the discs were introduced, yet the studios continued to sell them and sales exploded anyway.

In the documentarians' case, Hollywood's Katy-bar-the-door approach doesn't just strain credulity; it's more than a little anti-competitive. The copyright holders argue that "the most salient alternative method" for documentary filmmakers is to "obtain footage directly from the copyright owners." That's another way of saying, "Let us retain control of the clips." The fair use doctrine, though, holds that copyright holders don't control all uses of the material they create. It's one of the ways that the courts and Congress have tried to balance the Constitution's protection for "authors and inventors" with the First Amendment rights. The copyright owners correctly observed that fair use is a fuzzy notion, with the courts as the ultimate arbiters. Yet the Copyright Office won't affect what is and isn't a fair use by granting the documentarians an exemption; copyright owners can still sue for infringement if they don't like what a filmmaker does with their work. They could also accuse a filmmaker of illegal circumvention if they prove their infringement claim; after all, the exemption would only apply to non-infringing clips (i.e., fair uses). The only real effect if the exemption is granted is that documentarians would have easier access to video clips as they're making their films, which would increase their productivity and, potentially, help them compete against the studio's releases. The MPAA's members should be willing to meet the documentarians in the marketplace, rather than trying to hold them back in the Copyright Office.

Documentarians, DVDs and the MPAA | Technology | Los Angeles Times

It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level

 It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level

It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying

• By David Kravets

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge here Thursday or soon thereafter is likely to conclude RealNetworks’ DVD-copying software is unlawful, and therefore should be permanently barred from distribution.

That’s the correct interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Yet we think it’s offensive that the 1998 act produces the absurd result that consumers are considered hackers and copyright scofflaws just for duplicating DVDs for personal use.

By suing RealNetworks over the RealDVD-copying software, the Hollywood studios fear losing control of the DVD like the music industry did with the CD.

It’s OK to copy music from CDs, for example, and place it in an iPod. Yet, it’s illegal to do the same with a DVD. When it comes to the DVD, there’s not even a question of fair use.

How can the DVD and CD be treated so differently? Answer: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects the DVD but not the CD.

Hollywood pushed hard for the DMCA, in part to produce the DVD. The studios were savvy enough to have seen how easy it was to duplicate the CD, which was not encrypted. Attempts to lace CDs with Digital Rights Management had failed.

But the DVD was different. It was born with encryption, now called the Content Scramble System. It is designed to prevent duplication. Under the DMCA, gadgets and software allowing duplication of encryption-protected works are prohibited.

That’s because the DMCA outlaws circumventing encryption to duplicate copyrighted works. It also forbids trafficking in circumvention products – although plenty of underground duplication solutions exist.

That brings us back to the ongoing litigation between the Motion Picture Association of America and RealNetworks, which is expected to conclude as early as Thursday. Hollywood fears that, if U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel blesses RealNetworks’ DVD copying software, which allows only one copy of a DVD to be made, the studios’ stranglehold on the DVD would be forever lost.

A RealNetworks victory would send the message to the general public that it’s OK to copy DVDs.

But DVDs cannot be copied without circumventing encryption, although RealNetworks claims its copying software is covered under the Content Scramble System license it acquired from the DVD Copy Control Association.

Circumventing encryption is barred by the DMCA. This situation should be changed to allow the public the lawful right to make backup copies of DVDs – those discs that children fling around like Frisbees and lick like lollipops.

RealNetworks is making the silly argument that its RealDVD software does not circumvent encryption technology. But what’s sillier is that RealNetworks finds itself in a courtroom, facing monetary sanctions, for producing a product that should be legal.

It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level

The Associated Press: Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying

The Associated Press: Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying 

Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying

By PAUL ELIAS – 12 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hollywood calls it "rent, rip and return" and contends it's one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry's annual $20 billion DVD market — software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it.

On Friday, the showdown over the issue will take place in federal court in San Francisco, where an army of lawyers representing Hollywood will argue that RealNetworks Inc.'s DVD "ripper" is an illegal digital piracy tool.

The company, in turn, will say the $29.99 software that allows DVDs to be easily copied to computer hard drives is legitimate.

The same federal judge who shut down music-swapping site Napster in 2000 because of copyright violations will preside over the three-day trial, which is expected to cut to the heart of the same technological upheaval roiling Hollywood that forever changed the face of the music business.

The movie studios fear that if RealNetworks is allowed to sell its RealDVD software, consumers will quickly lose interest in paying retail for DVDs that can be rented cheaply, copied and returned.

Their lawyers argue the software violates a federal law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes software and other tools that enable digital piracy illegal. They also contend shoppers will widely condone such illegal behavior if RealNetworks' product is allowed on the market.

For its part, the Seattle-based company says its RealDVD product is designed to simply let customers back up a purchased DVD and that the software allows for only one copy to be made.

The company argues that the contract it signed with the DVD Copy Control Association, which equips DVD player manufacturers with the keys to unscrambling DVDs, allows RealDVD because the software doesn't alter or remove anti-piracy encryption on DVDs like illicit software that is easily obtained for free online.

RealNetworks says its product legally fills growing consumer demand to convert their DVDs to digital form for convenient storage and viewing.

In October, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel temporarily barred sales of RealDVD after the product was on the market for a few days. At the time, the judge said it appeared the software did violate federal law against digital piracy, but ordered detailed court filings and the trial to better understand how RealDVD works.

The industry's lawsuit has incurred widespread wrath from bloggers, digital rights advocates and groups on both sides of the political spectrum, including former Republican congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and the left-leaning Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The industry's critics accuse the studios of stifling innovation as they attempt to develop their own copying software.

"It's all about control," said Cato Institute scholar Timothy Lee. "No one is allowed to innovate in the DVD space without industry permission."

The industry, through the Motion Picture Association of America, counters that its goal is to stamp out piracy. It says it welcomes legitimate attempts at innovation.

"RealNetworks acted in bad faith by taking a license to build a DVD player and instead built a copier that violates the circumvention rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by enabling consumers to copy DVDs illegally," said Greg Goeckner, the MPAA's top lawyer. "Our objective is to get the illegal choices out of the marketplace and instead focus constructively with the technology community on bringing in more innovative and flexible legal options for consumers to enjoy movies."

Regardless of the trial's outcome — and the judge isn't expected to rule immediately — some predict that Hollywood control over digital copies will continue to wane because of the proliferation of illegal software online.

"If Hollywood wins, I don't think much changes in the real world," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Anybody who wants DVDs copied can download software for free in 10 minutes."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Hollywood, RealNetworks square off on DVD copying