I’ve been gone for a while, and I do apologize. I’ve been very busy working on the site lately, and that has left little time for commentary. A couple of weeks ago, a news item caught my eye that was so amazing that I decided I had to write about it. I didn’t find the time until now, but here it is.
The news item that so amazed me was this: Movie Studios Sue DVD-Copying Software Maker. Less than a week later, this headline followed: RealNetworks Forced to Stop Sales of RealDVD. The MPAA’s position that “making a copy is stealing a copy” should be well known, but what I found amazing was that the industry had turned on one of their own, RealNetworks, makers of RealPlayer and the legal online music service Rhapsody. Suing Real is like suing Apple! This is a big deal. I really can’t believe it.
Now, I have no love for RealNetworks. I stopped using RealPlayer years ago because I was tired of the ads, the way it inserted itself into my computer’s startup sequence without asking me, and generally acted like malware. Of course, Sony’s root kit opened a backdoor that allowed root access to anyone aware of the rootkit’s installation, compromising the integrity of the Windows operating system to such an extent that one U.S. senator called it a threat to the national security of the United States!
So I have no great love for RealNetworks, but at least they’re not as bad as Apple, who used DRM to use their iTunes monopoly to give their iPods a monopoly, or Sony who infected their customers computers and endangered the security of every nation in the world! No, unlike the small fry that the MPAA has gone after in the past, RealNetworks is a huge company that creates only legal products, some of which are from the industry that the MPAA supposedly represents. Their large library of legal products includes RealDVD, a program that lets you create a legal backup of your legally purchased DVDs.
Oh, did I say that backing up your DVDs is legal? The MPAA disagrees, and that’s why they’ve taken RealNetworks to court to prevent the sale of RealDVD. Unfortunately for consumers, if anyone is breaking the law here, it’s the MPAA. Allow me to make my case. (more…)