By George Cole
LAST week saw the start of a trial that pitches Hollywood studios against the technology industry, and whose outcome could change the face of home entertainment. The trial, in San Francisco, centres on a $30 software package published last year called RealDVD (www.realdvd.com).
RealDVD, marketed by RealNetworks, allows DVD owners to copy their discs onto a computer or laptop. RealNetworks insists that RealDVD is not a hacker's tool, because it not only maintains a DVD's copy protection technology (known as Content Scramble System, or CSS), but adds an additional layer of digital rights management technology that, in effect, locks the copied DVD to the hard drive.
Users can't copy, upload or export the DVD copy. RealNetworks argues that the software allows consumers to carry their DVDs on a laptop while leaving the original discs behind, or file DVDs by, say, title or genre. "Consumers expect flexibility with the digital content they've purchased," says Rob Glaser, RealNetworks' chief executive.
RealDVD offers the same features that millions of people are using today with music libraries such as iTunes. But Hollywood is keen to protect the DVD market, which last year was worth almost $US22 billion ($A30billion) in the US. The Motion Picture Association of America (www.mpaa.org), which is representing six big studios (including Disney and Sony) in the trial, has described RealDVD as "StealDVD" and says that it opens the way for consumers to illegally copy DVDs. It cites the "3R" scenario - rent, rip and return - whereby consumers could rent DVDs, use RealDVD to copy them, and then return the original. In October, the MPAA won a temporary restraining order, forcing RealDVD off the market.
The DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses CSS, is also suing RealNetworks. The MPAA and DCCA allege that RealDVD falls foul of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it an offence to publish tools that could be used to circumvent copy protection technology.
RealNetworks' defence is that RealDVD strengthens DVD copy protection. Some observers, such as Fred von Lohmann, a senior lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://eff.org), think Hollywood is fighting a losing battle: "I'm not sure what alternate version of reality the MPAA is living in, but consumers have been able to copy DVDs for a long time, thanks to free, widely available DVD rippers," he says.
Hollywood says it has introduced features to its discs such as Digital Copy, which allows users to copy DVDs onto a hard drive, although in much lower resolution and with digital rights management constraints.
"Our industry will continue on this path because it gives consumers greater choices ... However, we will vigorously defend our right to stop companies from bringing products to market that ... clearly violate the law," says the MPAA.
But FreedomWorks Foundation, a free market champion, has published a report on the case by its chief economist, Wayne Brough, which says it "will do little to achieve its stated goal of curbing DVD piracy and protecting intellectual property. Instead, if it wins, (it) would set a dangerous precedent in hampering competition and technological innovation in one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy."
The trial is presided over by Judge Marilyn Patel, who was also involved in the original Napster case.
In that trial, she ruled in favour of the music industry, but it remains to be seen whether the film industry will achieve the same result.
The Guardian