p2pnet - rss feed: MPAA sues RealNetworks
p2pnet news view | MPAA News:- Is the EFF’s Fred von Lohmann (right) prescient, or what?
Today was L-for-Launch Day for RealNetworks’ RealDVD, created to allow Windows users rip entire DVDs.
Von Lohmann recently pointed out the system allows people to copy their DVDs to their hard drives for later playback.
“Why is that a big deal?” - he asked in Deep Links.
Because, “Hollywood DVDs are encrypted with CSS, and if you decrypt them without permission, the motion picture industry’s lawyers may come a-callin,” he said.
No may about it.
“The digital entertainment service was sued today by the MPAA in Los Angeles federal court over its RealDVD software, which was launched today,” says the Hollywood Reporter.
Behind the action are Fox, Sony, Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros and Universal [’University,’ according to the Hollywood Reporter 
], aka the MPAA.
But, “RealNetworks immediately struck back, filing a counter-action asking the court to rule that is in full compliance with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement,” says the story.
Stay tuned.
=================
UPDATE:
Also see RealNetworks uses p2pnet as focus group
L-for-Launch Day - RealNetworks DVD ripper, September 8, 2008
recently pointed out - Want to Back up your DVD? Here’s how …, September 16, 2008
Deep Links - The Latest on DVD Copying, September 10, 2008
Hollywood Reporter - RealNetworks sued by MPAA
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September 30th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
First off, I really don’t like “RealNetworks” stuff. Horrific malware. BUT, if their claim that they are “in full compliance with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement” is upheld by the courts it would be simply AWESOME. Not that I would ever want to install or use the application mind you, it is still “real” after all… But a black eye for those douche bag MPAA control freaks would be a big win for Justice. Any organization that gladly purchases legislation who’s net effects are to strip away privacy and freedom just to make a few extra bucks deserves a lethal smackdown. This is hardly a knockout punch (if it is even upheld), but hey, I’ll take what I can get…
September 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Lacy from RealNetworks here. I just want to clarify one point made above. The CSS on the DVDs is left completely intact. We absolutely do not decrypt any part of it.
@mostlyharmless I’ve seen the malware claim a million times. It’s not true. I’m sorry if you’ve experienced some unfavorable issues w/ our product. I know that past versions of RealPlayer have really irked some people, but nothing about it was malware. We’ve tried really hard to improve the product and make it easy and user friendly.
I can tell you that RealDVD is really a simple small program- no adware, malware-any kind of ware. If you change your mind and want to give it a shot, follow my link and I will be happy to give you a copy.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Just get a copy of dvdfab decrypter or anydvd, and forget CSS. And forget real(DVD), just install real alternative…
September 30th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
“@mostlyharmless I’ve seen the malware claim a million times. It’s not true. I’m sorry if you’ve experienced some unfavorable issues w/ our product. I know that past versions of RealPlayer have really irked some people, but nothing about it was malware.”
Before switching to Real Alternative (that’s right, I’m admitting that I use a software package that probably violates Real Networks’ EULA), I had Real Player 8 installed. In fact, I installed it on a couple systems. During installation, RP would try to take over all the media associations and they’d have to all be manually unchecked. I’d also have to manually uncheck all the various notifications. Once installed, there were still more notifications to uncheck. Even then, RP would periodically contact the Real site and show me a popup ad when I went to close the player. I’d delete the files from my drive and they’d be back a day or so later. I even tried replacing the ad files with empty ones and setting them to read-only, but it just created new ones. When trying to play some recent files, RP claimed it needed additional software, contacted Real, then told me that the software wasn’t available and suggested that I download and install RealOne. Funny that Real Alternative was able to provide the necessary codecs.
Oh and let’s not forget the fact that RP would try and contact Real to tell them the name of every file you played.
Read this page, I can personally vouch for the accuracy of this guide;
http://krellan.com/rant/real.html
September 30th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Over to you, Lacy ……
Cheers!
September 30th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
So what’s the point ?
Everybody knows things are so stacked in favor of the entertainment cartels as far as the copyright law and the political front in Washington D.C.
The US goverment is good at propping up or otherwise bailing out LOSERS in business.
The financial mess at wall street and the attempted bail out package vote by congress dwarfs the special favors the entertainment cartels gets from the corrupt US congress.
The US goverment operates military exchanges and other worthess goverment agencies that don’t make any profit and they pass protectionest laws that stifle trade and commerce.
Everybody knows copying dvds is againest the law.
So why don’t you people forget about the copyright law ever get changed because people in congress take kickback and bribes from special interest groups.
Who cares about not being able to legally copy dvds?
The country is headed for a long painful recession and everybody is more worried about losing jobs and their asses on their 401k retirement accounts than worrying about buying poopy movie dvds and cds.
Why don’t you people get a life?
I quess there are younger people who seem to think everything is free or otherwise believe that money grows on trees.
It must be nice being a young cool jerk that lives the life of reilly laying around all day downloading illegal computer files or otherwise too cheap to buy a cd or dvd and complains when they have to pay for their media .
What me work ?
September 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Lacy,
Let me first say that I commend your effort in commenting. As a public relations and Media relations person myself, I know the risks of commenting on behalf, of your company, on sites as this.
With that being said, I do have to agree with Mostly Harmless, in that Real Products are malware, and will often mess up a person’s computer.
But first, let me explain my background.
I originally was a writer for a very prominent computer magazine for 3 years, before I joined the publisher of that magazine, and went on to be a technical reporter/editor for 2 of the top selling PC magazines in the country which I reside. After 10 years as an editor, I left the publisher and am now a PR and Media relations officer in a multinational company.
In my years of working with software, Real One and Real Player have proven to be very overly aggressive to the point of even being malicious, in that it takes over many of the computer’s operations, to suit its own needs. Mind you this can be found in other applications (even from MS) , but the problem occurs when the program either can not play the video it takes over, or breaks a working application, due to bad CODECS or programming.
I experienced a case where Real One took over a person’s DVD playback, changed the playback region of the drive from 2 to 1, and tell the owner that he can not play videos from the from region 2. Not only that, but the newly purchased DVD software (which the user payed around $60 for) was rendered inoperable with Real One starting up every time he tried to watch a DVD. The CODEC installed by Real One player also disabled Super Video-CD compatibility.
All attempts to disable Real One Player as the “main” player for video and audio, were to no avail, with Real One regaining control right away. Then to add insult to injury, when we were finally able to un-install Real One, it deleted file and CODEC associations of several key products, rendering the “working products” broken.
I ended up having to reinstall Windows on his PC.
All of this, just because he wanted to listen to an online “oldies” radio station that used Real Audio to stream their programs.
This is only one of many cases like this that I have had to deal with, thought the years.
Of course, Real Networks products are not the only products that cause this problem, Apples QT was terrible for a VERY long time (it would gain control of the rendering of many graphics formats, even though it could not properly render them in Windows), and I am sure many people have had trouble at one time or another with terribly programmed CODECs.
It is important for companies to realized that overly aggressive programs like this are, and will continue to be defined as Malware by people who use it.
Just my two cents
October 1st, 2008 at 4:04 am
i’ve posted a reply to lacy on her blog page. i told here i also had many problems with real products in the past and now only use real alternatives when needed, because of many headaches realplayers gave me.
i’m always looking for good reliable dvd rippers, as i have thousands of dvds from several different region codes.
i also invited her to give me a copy so that i can test it, and i’d write about it here. and depending on my results, i might recommend it.
because of the blog moderation and time zone differences, my message hasn’t appeared yet.
October 1st, 2008 at 7:24 am
@ Just my two cents
“Let me first say that I commend your effort in commenting. As a public relations and Media relations person myself, I know the risks of commenting on behalf, of your company, on sites as this.”
What risks are those?
Cheers!
October 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am
I’ve emailed Lacy. Hopefully, she’ll respond here.
Cheers!
October 1st, 2008 at 9:52 am
First let me clarify. By “commenting on sites like this”, I mean web sites that report on news pertaining to P2P as well as anti-user efforts by cooperations.
I only mean that commenting on an active site like this, on behalf of your company, can often result in flaming and backlash by readers (as it did with her rebuttal against Real products being “malware”).
When you work in public relations, you must be very careful on what you comment on. This is because the moment you say that you work for the company in a post, your comments are considered as official responses from that company, and thus open yourself and your company up to possible litigation. And in many cases, “official” comments are only made after it has been sanctioned by the company (and sometimes even checked by a lawyer).
This is way many comments that you may get from cooperations or organizations, come in the form of an email, instead of a posting in the forums.
As a stated, I presently work as a PR and media relations officer, and anything that I say with my real name and title, can be considered an official comment from the company that I work for.
In my job, I often find comments in professional web news sites, High quality information sites (I consider P2Pnet as falling within this realm), and Blogs, that I do not agree with, and sometimes malicious comments about the products which I promote. But, as an ex editor, I also know that if a big company rebuts a comment like “XXX’s software is full of bugs” or “OOO is malware”, without a good check on why that comment might have been made, is only going to fuel a flame war.
This, is why I commended her for “making a comment on sites like this”.
Love the site Jon!
Just my two cents
October 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am
:0
OK, two cents. Gotcha
Cheers!
October 1st, 2008 at 11:13 am
The MPAA are such greedy bastards. Unbelievable.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
never been a fan of real networks but gotta support them on this.
The MPAA can go …………… themselves and …………….. with the RIAA
Fill in the blanks yourself
October 1st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Wow! Good morning everyone! Where to start?
@TwoCents: Sounds like you had a great time with RP8. (I kid, I kid) You’re right about the fact that it had a lot of problems and it often times made the user experience miserable. For that, I do want to apologize. Obviously we never wanted to make anyone loathe the product. We received a ton of feedback on that and really worked to incorporate it into the latest version of RP, RealPlayer11. I’m not here to advertise RealPlayer, but I am willing to give you my word that it’s SO MUCH improved over what you’ve experienced.
Ok. Regarding the malware claim- this is something we’re probably going to be fighting for years. I posted recently about it on the Real Blog (http://tinyurl.com/6f5ese) and I’m going to stand by my statement, but first let me clarify what my definition of malware is. According to the Urban Dictionary: MALICIOUS SOFTWARE. It is any code, program, script, software or any instructions interpreted as attacking a computer operating system (most probably a Windows operating system). Malware includes spyware, trojans, viruses/virii, denial of service/DoS attacks.
@The Malware attackers: I’m not trying to be defiant, it’s simply not true. In no way did past RP versions put virii on your system. Here is what I will say: RP did have a ton of problems, including AdWare, which I think people assume is malware. It’s not. But AdWare is awful and annoying too. I can give you my word on this: Real has REALLY tried to focus on you, the consumer, and improve the product. It no longer contains any kind of AdWare, there is no kid of BadWare of any sort. The message center that drove so many people nuts is now opt-in instead of opt-out. We know you all have a choice in your media players. Our hope is that you’ll give RP a try again, but that’s up to you to decide.
Now- back to the topic at hand, RealDVD. The important thing to note here [in addition to my earlier point about not breaking the CSS protection] is that is a completely different product from RP, or Rhapsody, or anything else from Real. How about you get a free copy so you can see for yourself? I want you to try it. I want you to tell me what you think- love it or leave it. And, of course, it would only be fair if for both of us if you wrote an honest review of it here. Others in the comment stream so far—you can try it too. Just let me know and I will set you up.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
hi lacy. yes, i’ve already posted on your weblog page and i would certainly like a free copy. as i’ve said, you can reach me through the p2pnet email address, or the email address i used to register to post on your weblog.
so…hear from you soon?
October 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think this would be an interesting article and also an interesting blog on Lacy Kemp’s blog spot.
Then “verus” now.
I recall deleting real player many times over on my computers. I was tired of the “adware” from the past and tired of them sending my info/tracks back to real player. So RP has never been installed here in a long time. Its just a “faux pas” that continues to this day with me and any system i take care of.
I await this article and await the “then verus now” changes.
Catflap, if you write this up. Please contact Lacy and ask if info is still sent back to Real networks. I really didn’t like this with their other product(s).
But good for Real Networks for standing their ground with their Realdvd app. No one should be pushed into submission like this.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
@Catflap- I’m sending you an email now. Stay tuned.
@Reader’s Write do you want a copy too? Let me know. Thanks for your support. I can tell you with total honestly, we appreciate it.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I really don’t see a need for Real Player any more. To put it bluntly, Real Player only exists to force DRM on users. RP has never been that good of a video player. It’s outclassed by free alternatives like Media Player Classic. It’s not even necessary for playing RM files, as the existance of Real Alternative proves. Not to mention that the extra features you get by buying the paid version are things like video controls, which other players give you for free.
Real Player serves as a front end for paid subscription services and as a way to prevent users from being able to save streaming RM videos. I can’t comment on the subscription services as I’ve never used them, however I don’t know why anyone would pay for such services when there are so many free alternatives (some of them are even legal! :)). As for preventing people from downloading content, there are several programs now that will download RTSP streams, like Net Transport.
The RM video format doesn’t even seem to be used much any more. Many sites used to stream videos in RM or WMV format, but now they all use Flash. RM is still used by some pay porn sites, but you can usually download the videos and play them with Real Alternative.
If you want my opinion, Real should make a generic codec package like Real Alternative, making the player optional. People who want to use the subscription services will install the player, those who don’t will install just the codecs. This is how Divx does it. Of course, the Divx codec has been falling in popularity and is now almost completely superceded by Xvid.
At the very least, it would be in Real Networks’ best interest NOT to try and kill Real Alternative. Real’s image has been tarnished by past versions of Real Player, by RealOne, by Real Download, etc. Real Alternative is quite popular among users who no longer want to install Real Player. Attempting to kill it will only further annoy users.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
to Reader’s Write question about realdvd sending info back to them:
i think you just asked her.
perhaps she’ll post an answer here. if not, i’ll ask here.
from reading the faq and taking the online tour, what i surmise so far is that in order to get additional info and pictures about the film, there’s probably a link in the player to film.com. i don’t know if anything is tracked or sent to realnetworks or film.com, but it’s something to ask about, for sure.
rekrul, i also agree with you that rm is pretty much obsolete. hardly anyone imo uses rm files anymore and instead use flash online, which is one reason why video sites for the most part use it. when youtube started out and allowed everything to be downloaded, there were choices for which type of video you’d like. now it’s only flash and most videos there aren’t downloadable by a direct link, although there are many programs and websites that will grab a youtube video for you.
also i agree about the idea of subscriptions, like the realgold pass for CNN videos, which thankfully died when CNN and real finally realised it was pointless. but i wonder if the people who bought a lifetime pass got their money back.
i don’t play videos on my pc. i have a few divx/xvid dvd players, which also have usb connections for flash drives. and i also don’t listen to music on my pc. my stereo plays mp3 just fine. i hardly ever watch any streaming or flash videos, either. i’m just not into sitting at my desk to watch a film. i do also have a portable dvd player that plays divx and xvid. but i think there must be some people who need or desire something like this for various reasons, judging from the comments on lacy’s weblog.
well, i can’t at this point recommend it or not i won’t say more until i’ve had time to try it out. my testing won’t be scientific or terribly technically in nature. but i’ll do what i can and ask lacy some questions.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
@ Rekrul We’re not trying to kill anything…not sure where that came from. And even though this article isn’t about RealPlayer, I’ll speak to your point about RealPlayer preventing people from downloading RM streams. That is inaccurate. In fact, when you watch a non-DRMd video with RealPlayer11, a “Download This” button pops up so you CAN save the stream. This works with other formats too so you can save a wide range of content on the web. One more thing: RealPlayer is free. There is an premium version with added editing and portability features available, but you can get most of the functionality, including the download feature, at no cost.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
“When you work in public relations, you must be very careful on what you comment on. This is because the moment you say that you work for the company in a post, your comments are considered as official responses from that company, and thus open yourself and your company up to possible litigation. And in many cases, “official” comments are only made after it has been sanctioned by the company (and sometimes even checked by a lawyer)”
Umm, maybe you “open yourself and your company up” to that sort of flaming — or worse — because COMPANIES TEND TO LIE. Of COURSE an employee of Realnetworks isn’t going to admit to their product being malware. the RIAA doesn’t admit that they’ve lobbied the government into granting all-but-perpetual monopolies which, in effect, ensure that the “public domain” is effectively dead at this point.
Big Tobacco didn’t admit to the health risks and shady marketing THEY did, either. And, lest we forget, the United States government itself is at least somewhat loathe to have people inquire into just what it is that their “independent contractors” really do.
It’s understandable that Kacy would attempt to “whitewash” Realnetworks, because — in all likelihood — her job depends on it.
Additionally, the fact that you mention consulting with “a lawyer” is pretty telling in itself.
One question:
You’re in “public relations”: as such, would you personally — of the record — engage in creating a PR campaign in, let’s say, defense of waterboarding? I’m just curious as to whether things like moral scruples and concern for human rights still trump the almighty dollar.
No offense meant here, just askin’.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:57 pm
“@ Rekrul We’re not trying to kill anything…not sure where that came from.”
Actually, my comments about not wanting Real to try and kill Real Alternative were mostly intended to be preventative. Technically unathorized distribution of files is one of the things that companies like to send their lawyers after. It’s been many years since it was an issue, but there was a Microsoft codec that originally worked in AVI files. MS later altered it so that it could only be used in WMV files. A couple web sites took it upon themselves to offer the older version of the codec file and they promptly got letters from MS demanding that they take down the file.
“And even though this article isn’t about RealPlayer, I’ll speak to your point about RealPlayer preventing people from downloading RM streams. That is inaccurate. In fact, when you watch a non-DRMd video with RealPlayer11, a “Download This” button pops up so you CAN save the stream.”
I have no experience with RP11. I still have Windows 98 and RP11 doesn’t work on it. I know RP8 had no provision to save streaming videos. Downloading streaming videos was an annoying process of running URL Snooper to find the RTSP URL, then using Net Transport to download the file.
You mention “non-DRM” videos, I’m curious, what kind of DRM does RealPlayer support that would prevent the saving of streams?
“This works with other formats too so you can save a wide range of content on the web. One more thing: RealPlayer is free. There is an premium version with added editing and portability features available, but you can get most of the functionality, including the download feature, at no cost.”
Why are things like adjusting the brightness and contrast are still considered premium features. Those should be part of the basic features.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:33 am
Well, I just tried downloading the demo from http://www.realdvd.com/
I’m in Canada.
After downloading it, I ran the install and it said, “RealDVD is not available in your Locale”
Ah well, I tried.
End of test.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:10 am
hi ottawa gal…
i’ve emailed lacy kemp about this specific issue. because of time zone differences, it’ll be some time before i hear from her.
as jon says…”stay tuned”.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
thats ok, I just looked again and at the bottom of the page it says this:
“RealDVD is only available in the U.S”
didn’t notice that last night.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
You know what sucks…
a legit software like this will be illegal to use in Canada if the CONS get back in power and then push their Bill c-61 (which they wil do).
How innovative!