REALNETWORKS HAS introduced an application that for the first time will give consumers a simple, legal way to copy movies and TV shows from DVDs onto their computers.
Called RealDVD, the software will target professionals who want to take their video libraries on the road to watch on their laptops. Although the company says its product is for copying movies one owns, nothing stops someone from using it to copy rented DVDs.
The RealDVD software, which will cost about €35 and go on sale in a month, saves a copy of the DVD without removing or changing copyright encryption, RealNetworks said in a statement.
For the past decade, copying - also known as ripping - music from CDs to computer hard drives has become a regular habit for millions of people, because the disks include no anti-copying technology to protect copyrighted songs.
The lack of copyright protections has enabled people to transfer songs to their iPods and make compilations of their favourite music, but it also made possible mass piracy of music via the internet.
Making personal copies of a movie or TV show on a commercial DVD has proved elusive for most consumers because of encryption software built into the disks.
There are software programs for copying commercial DVDs, but analysts say they are complicated and often break the DVDs' copyright protection. The sites that distribute them are frequently shut down by legal threats.
RealNetworks says it has showed the product to executives at seven TV networks and movie studios. RealDVD, which eventually will be available for a 30-day free trial at RealDVD.com, was supposed to go on sale last Monday, but over the weekend the company decided to delay the launch.
Copying a DVD takes about 20 minutes, depending on the speed of a computer's DVD drive. It works only on Windows XP or Vista operating systems with regular DVDs.
- (LA Times service)
