Earlier this week U.S. Dictrict Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled in favor of the movie studios in a legal battle against RealNetworks. The legal battle was over RealNetworks’ software RealDVD. RealDVD would have allowed customers to rip and burn copies of DVDs.
This grants an injunction made against RealNetworks that prevents them from selling RealDVD. The judge made this ruling based on a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision. This is a victory for the creators and producers of motion pictures and television shows and for the rule of law in our digital economy. Judge Patel’s ruling affirms what we have known all along: RealNetworks took a license to build a DVD-player and instead made an illegal DVD-copier. Throughout the development of RealDVD, RealNetworks demonstrated that it was willing to break the law at theexpense of those who create entertainment content,” stated Dan Glickman, CEO of the MPAA.
The Motion Picture ASsociation of America (MPAA) is suing RealNetworks over software that they created that copies DVDs. RealNetworks did not expect the MPAA to sue them for the software. The MPAA is suing RealNetworks for marketing the DVD copying software. The claim is that RealNetworks’ RealDVD software was illegally designed to make it easy for users to get around technology that prevents the copying of DVDs.
Yesterday RealNetworks made the surprise claim because under the rules of evidence, a company must retain records if they have knowledge of a potential upcoming lawsuit. The MPAA has reason to believe that RealNetworks destroyed documents that relate to the production of the RealDVD software. The MPAA believes that RealNetworks did this well before they sued the software company in September.
“We didn’t think litigation was probable,” stated Leo Cunningham, one of RealNetworks’ attorney. Cunningham reported this to U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel during a hearing. The MPAA generally sues all companies that they believe is a threat to DVD sales.
The MPAA alleges that RealNetworks trashed a senior project manager’s “engineering notebooks” and “actual code files.” Cunningham stated that the disapperance of the notebooks are a mystery.
Bart Williams, an attorney for the MPAA stated that it was obvious that the MPAA wuld sue RealNetworks. RealNetworks should have expected it from the time of the product’s initial development two years ago.
Within a few days of the RealDVD software hitting the market, about 3,000 copies were sold. Judge Patel blocked further distribution in October until an outcome was decided. MPAA believes that RealNetworks is directly violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
RealNetworks said that they are not violating the DMCA because they allow users to store copies of their own movies on their hard drives which is fair use. One of the biggest disputes in the case is whether a DVD should be playable without the need for the actual disc with built-in encryption code.
It was 5 days ago that Google Inc. had confirmed its investment into Xunlei Network Technology Company and now the MPAA is persuading Google to crack down piracy in China.
Xunlei develops software that allows users to download pirated movies. In the MPAA’s battle to crackdown copyright infringement, the agency has won cases against several companies, including Sohu.com Inc. Xunlei has 120 million users.
“We’re going to see more lawsuits involving online copyright infringements because Internet companies are making more money and more people are using the Internet,” stated Jasper Zhang, who is a partner at the Zhong Lun Law Firm in Shanghai, China. “Laws and regulations aren’t going to stop piracy overnight.”
In defense of the Chinese company, Xunlei spokesperson Jackson Zhang mentioned that Xunlei does not upload the videos, only provides the P2P software. Beijing, China Google representative, Marsha Wang reassured that “We’re very serious about respecting copyright.”
Google bought a stake in Xunlei to take on Baidu.com, the largest China-based search engine.
