Judge temporarily suspends RealDVD sales

RealNetworks has been forced to temporarily suspend sales of RealDVD due to a legal battle with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).  The ban officially started yesterday morning.

In U.S. District Court today, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel is taking two lawsuits into consideration — one filed by Real Networks, and the other filed by the MPAA — that involve the copying software, which was promoted as the first legal software suite that makes it easy for users to copy DVDs.

The case was moved from the Los Angeles Central District of California to the Northern District of San Francisco, a court more sympathetic towards technology companies and their particular needs.

The MPAA alleges the new software suite makes it possible for people to "rent, rip and return" the movies, while RealNetworks said RealDVD should be used only for legally owned movies.

RealDVD adds an additional layer of DRM and allows users to play ripped movies on up to five different computers and forces customers to install RealDVD on each PC.

While the actual demand of RealDVD is unknown, free software such as DVDShrink and DVDFab HD Decrypter remain widely available on the Internet.  Depending on how the case turns out, companies creating data backup software may have to walk a fine line with possible serious copyright implications.

The following movie studios are involved in the lawsuit:  Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney and Warner Bros.

This message has been published on the RealDVD web site:  "Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood Movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of DVDs for your own use."

It was possible the temporary suspension could have been lifted after 24 hours, but RealDVD will be unavailable until at least October 14.  RealDVD is available with a $49.99 MSRP, although can be found — once the suspension has been lifted — for $29.99.