RealDVD Sales Temporarily Halted by Court

In what was probably inevitable from the moment RealDVD was announced, lawsuits were fired in both directions last week when the product went live.

In light of that, a court has ordered RealNetworks to temporarily suspend distribution of its controversial product until Tuesday. This will enable the judge to review all of the papers filed in the case. A visit to the RealDVD site shows the above image, which says:

RealDVD is currently unavailable

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 your DVDs for your own use.

RealDVD allows you to rip a DVD to your hard drive, but in addition to maintaining the original DRM it also adds another layer of DRM to the ripped image. There are, of course, plenty of both free and retail software packages that will also rip a DVD to your hard drive, while also removing the DRM (which some might call a bonus). However, the intent of RealDVD is to create a totally legal copy.

We'll see what happens on Tuesday, but at least, due to the pre-emptive strike it made by filing a lawsuit first, RealNetworks was able to get the trial moved. The case was originally going to be heard in the Central District Court of California (Los Angeles), but the judge there ruled that the case be moved to the Northern District (Silicon Valley). All because RealNetworks beat the studios by about an hour and 15 minutes in filing its lawsuit in a Northern District Court.

You can see the order moving the trial below.

Real Transfer Order - Upload a Document to Scribd