RealDVD ripping software halted by judge

Making his mind up

PENDING A COURT DECISION on Tuesday, RealNetworks has been ordered to stop distributing RealDVD, the DVD ripping software which has Hollywood foaming at the mouth.

The Motion Picture Association of America is getting all dramatic and suing RealNetworks for purportedly violating its copyrights and breaching its trust. Awwww, sniff. This, even though RealDVD not only keeps the DVD’s original DRM, but also adds yet another irritating layer of restrictions to it.

In other words, Hollywood may not have much of a case, because the software has been designed specifically to make it difficult to copy films. It’s only even relatively useful for copying legally bought DVDs to a computer hard-drive, something most other free ripping software does anyway, without the hassle of DRM and extra restrictions.

Last night RealDVD’s Website noted it had to make its software unavailable until at least Tuesday, but added "rest assured we will work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs".

Legal copies of all our DVDs? Wow. We can hardly wait for it to premiere.