The federal judge presiding over RealNetworks’ (RNWK) legal battle with Hollywood has confirmed what even the company’s attornies have likely known all along: there was no chance whatsover that the company would prevail in its claims against the film industry and the plight in which it now finds itself is entirely its own doing. On Friday, Judge Marilyn Patel — who in 2000 issued the injunction that shut Napster down — dismissed Real’s antitrust claims against Disney and the other movie studios over their alleged collusion to block RealDVD, its “legal” DVD ripper.
The studios and the DVD Copy Control Association, she found, were well within their rights to band together to prevent what they believed to be the illegal copying of their content. Real was foolish to think otherwise and its claim that it has suffered significant losses because of its inability to sell a product of questionable legality is, in a word, ludicrous.
Which is not to say that consumers shouldn’t have the right to copy and backup films they have legally purchased, just that the courts have never looked favorably on those who have claimed that right through a technology that bypasses DVD copy protection and consequently violates the DMC.
“Real’s purported injury stems from its own decision to manufacture and traffic in a device that is almost certainly illegal under the DMCA,” Patel wrote. “In the circumstances of this case, there is no allegation Real could make that would give it antitrust standing,”
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