Real To Introduce Legal DVD Copying For Real
Update - According to Gizmodo this software has been approved by the DVD Copy Control Association, so there will be no suing going by the movie studios. One other Gizmodo tidbit, apparently these ripped movies are only playable in Real’s own movie player and cannot be converted for use by your other devices, like iPods or phones. Fun.
[NYTimes] Real Networks will announce today software which a whole lot of iTunes users wish Apple would integrate into iTunes, software which will allow you to make a “legal” digital copy of an entire DVD. Legal meaning that this software adds additional DRM to the copies you make. This is how Real hopes to avoid any problems with the studios.
The New York Times article states that the software, which will go on sale on Real.com and Amazon.com this month, will allow buyers to make one copy of a DVD, playable only on the computer where it was made. The user can transfer that copy to up to five other Windows computers, but only by buying additional copies of the software for $20 each. The software does not work on high-definition Blu-ray discs and is Windows only.
I for one am hoping that Real is successful in this endeavor. If you don’t mind the additional DRM, I think it would only be a matter of time before Apple integrated this capability into iTunes. Of course thats if the studios don’t sue Real Networks into extinction.
Head on over to the NY Times to read the entire article.
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One of the questions is how well this software will handle copy-protected DVDs. While the basic copy protection built into DVDs has been completely cracked long ago, most DVDs have additional copy protection, requiring DVD rippers like MacTheRipper and AnyDVD to be updated regularly.
If RealDVD only rips those DVDs without any additional copy protection, it’s going to have a lot of unhappy customers. Fortunately, Real is used to dealing with that.