Court battle over RealDVD

Hollywood calls it “rent, rip and return” and contends that it’s one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry’s annual $20-billion DVD market -- software that allows users to copy a film without paying for it.

On Friday, industry lawyers urged a federal judge to bar RealNetworks Inc. from selling software that allows consumers to copy their DVDs to computer hard drives, arguing that the Seattle company’s product is an illegal piracy tool.

RealNetworks’ lawyers countered that its RealDVD product is equipped with piracy protections that limit a DVD owner to making a single copy and that it is a legitimate way to back up copies of movies legally purchased.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, the federal judge who shut down the music-swapping site Napster in 2000 because of copyright violations, is presiding over the three-day trial, which is expected to focus on the same technological upheaval that changed the face of the music business.

The studios fear that if RealNetworks is allowed to sell its RealDVD software, consumers will quickly lose interest in buying movies on DVD that can be rented cheaply, copied and returned.

Their lawyers contend that the software violates a federal law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes software and other tools that enable digital piracy illegal. They also contend that shoppers will widely condone such illegal behavior if RealNetworks’ product is allowed on the market.

Bart Williams, a lawyer representing the studios, told the judge that evidence uncovered in the litigation shows that RealNetworks engineers purchased copying software that is illegal in the United States from a company in Ukraine.

“One is not supposed to copy DVDs and that’s in fact what RealDVD does,” Williams said. “Real’s objective in all of this is to make money off the studios’ investments without paying for it.”

RealNetworks says its product legally fills growing demand by consumers to convert their DVDs to digital form for convenient storage and viewing.

Patel temporarily barred sales of RealDVD in October after the product was on the market for a few days. At the time, the judge said it appeared that the software violated federal law against digital piracy, but she ordered detailed court filings and the trial to better understand how RealDVD works.

The lawsuit has incurred widespread wrath from bloggers, digital rights advocates and groups on both sides of the political spectrum, including former Republican congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Critics accuse the studios of stifling innovation as they attempt to develop their own copying software.

The industry, through the Motion Picture Assn. of America, counters that its goal is to stamp out piracy. It says it welcomes legitimate attempts at innovation.