Tag Archives: RealNetworks
RealNetworks’ Rinse Cleans Up Your iTunes Music
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) has announced a new software called Rinse. Rinse software takes your iTunes music collection and cleans it up. It cleans up song duplicates, fixes misspellings, and adds missing album art.
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Steve Jobs To Be Questioned Over Blocking RealNetworks’ From iPod Syncing
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs will be called in for an antitrust dispute alleging that his company is a music-downloading monopoly. The complaint was filed in 2005 and lawyers gained permission to conduct limited questioning of Steve Jobs under an order that was issued yesterday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd.
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Categories Apple Inc., RealNetworks, Steve Jobs, Thomas Slattery
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RealNetworks Buys Canadian Social Gaming Company Backstage Technologies
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) has bought out Canadian social gaming company Backstage Technologies. The deal will add valuable game engineering and monetize expertise to RealNetworks’ gaming unit GameHouse according to the company.
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Categories Backstage Technologies, Bob Kimball, RealNetworks
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RealNetworks Shutting Down RealDVD Software, Paying $4.5 Million To Movie Studios
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) said that they are going to shut down their RealDVD software and pay $4.5 million in legal costs to the movie studios. “Until this dispute, Real had always enjoyed a productive working relationship with Hollywood,” stated RealNetworks President and acting CEO Bob Kimball. “With this litigation resolved, I hope that in the future we can find mutually beneficial ways to use Real technology to bring Hollywood’s great work to consumers.” RealNetworks will be refunding the 2,700 customers that bought RealDVD. [TechFlash via Techmeme]
Categories RealNetworks, RealNetworks RealDVD
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Rhapsody iPhone Application Gets Approved
RealNetworks Inc.’s paid streaming music service Rhapsody has been surprisingly approved on iTunes. Considering the amount of bandwidth that application possibly requires to work, Apple seems to be pretty lenient. Apple is also the #1 music retailer so allow a competitor into the system comes even more as a surprise. Apple generally rejects applications that would interfere with their business.
The application download is free, but new subscribers will have to pay $14.99 per month if they want to use the application for more than 7 days. Rhapsody users will be able to stream music from a collection of over 8 million songs. Rhapsody will work as long as the user is getting a cellphone signal or WiFi.
Categories Apple App Store, Apple Inc., RealNetworks, Rhapsody
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Rhapsody Making Its Way To The Apple App Store
RealNetworks’ streaming music software Rhapsody-To-Go will be submitted to the Apple App Store for approval this week. When the application gets approved, Rhapsody customers will be able to access on-demand streaming of over 8 million tracks within the company’s library through 3G and WiFi connections.
The application will work with the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod Touch. Currently a Rhapsody membership costs about $14.99 per month, but the application itself will be free. Next RealNetworks will be working on a Google Android version of their application.
Spotify, a Rhapsody competitor submitted an application back in July too. Currently Spotify is not available for download in the U.S. The announcement was made on the Rhapsody blog.
Categories Apple App Store, Apple iPhone 3G S, Apple iPod Touch, iPhone 3G, RealNetworks, Rhapsody
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RealNetworks Loses Legal Battle Over RealDVD
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.
[via NYT]
RealNetworks Continuing To Hire For DVD-Copying Software
About two months ago, RealNetworks made a claim that they did not anticipate a lawsuit from the MPAA. However the MPAA has been trying to block the distribution of the company’s RealDVD software. The litigation issue is not stopping RealNetworks from hiring engineers to work on a project calld Facet. Facet is DVD player software that copies and stores DVDs.
RealNetworks posted a job on Craigslist earlier that requested Linux engineers to apply for the job based in Seattle.
“RealNetworks Inc., based in Seattle, WA, has recently formed a new consumer media platform team whose charter is to deliver Facet, a game-changing home entertainment system. Formed as a startup within RealNetworks, the Facet team is being led by one of the founders of RealNetworks, Phil Barrett, and has already attracted executives from Amazon.com, Microsoft, Disney and Intel, and RealNetworks. The Facet team is creating a rich set of consumer media experiences that will make the consumer electronics industry stand up and take notice,” stated the Craigslist ad.
“You will be working with innovative managers and engineers to create the next generation home entertainment platform. You will design, code, debug, and optimize your software to run on a variety of CPU architectures and graphic subsystems. Your software products will be embedded into large-volume consumer electronic devices. Therefore code quality, robustness, and performance are critical.”
The lawsuit between the MPAA and RealNetworks will continue on May 21. Both parties will make their closing arguments.
[via CNET]
RealNetworks Claims They Did Not Anticipate MPAA’s Lawsuit
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.
[via Wired]
Categories MPAA, RealNetworks
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Six Hollywood Movie Studios Suing RealNetworks Over RealDVD Software
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK) should have saw this coming when they release their new controversial RealDVD software. While RealPlayer already allows you to download any video from YouTube or powered by Flash, RealDVD allows you to rip DVDs and make back up copies. RealDVD was officially launched today. Six major studios announced that they are suing the software company over the software.
These studios believe that many of Netflix and Blockbuster’s customers would just burn the movies that they rent with the RealDVD software, thus causing them to lose out on a great deal of money. The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court in L.A.
“The incentive for the consumer is obvious and all but overwhelming,” stated a request by the movie studios. The request was for a temporary restraining order. “‘Why,’ he or she may ask, ‘should I pay $18.50 to purchase a DVD when I can rent it for $3.25 and make a permanent copy?’”
RealNetworks defends their software by saying it is legal. RealDVD is sold for $30 per consumer at $20 for up to four licenses after that. The software copy is locked into the original owner’s hard drive and does not alter the encryption technology used by movie studios already. Copying one’s own personal copies of a DVD is “fair use” by law.
The movie studios stated that RealDVD violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to bypass technologies that prevent the copying of a DVD without permission of the copyright owners. The movie studios that are suing RealNetworks includes Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA)’s Paramount Pictures, Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE)’s Sony Pictures, News Corporation (NYSE:NWS.A)’s 20th Century Fox, General Electric (NYSE:GE)’s Universal, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) studio, and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) Warner Bros.