Tuesday, September 30, 2008

RealNetworks Hit By Hollywood Lawsuit

Seattle-based RealNetworks has been targeted in a lawsuit by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the group which represents Hollywood in copyright infringement and other cases. The MPAA said today that it has filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, looking for damages and injunctive relief against RealNetworks for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The MPAA claims that RealNetworks' RealDVD software, which allows users to copy DVDs to their PCs for later viewing, violates the DMCA, and that RealNetworks has attempted to leverage its license to the CSS decoding algorithm in the service. RealNetworks is a licensee of CSS. The move follows a pre-emptive lawsuit filed this morning by RealNetworks, where it asked a judge to rule that its RealDVD software complied with a license agreement from the DVD Copy Control Association.