Northern California Court Temporally Blocks RealDVD Sales

By Eriq Gardner

Last week, movie studios and Real Networks sued each other over a new technology that lets consumers copy DVDs to their hardrives. Early court action in the battle to control the future of DVDs is giving both sides something to cheer about.

The court case will be heard in a Northern California district—as Real wants—not in a MPAA-preferred Los Angeles court. The jurisdictional forum may seem minor, but last year, the Northern District ruled that a similar technology sold by a company called Kaleidescape made a good faith effort to make sure its product was compliant with the industry's DVD Copy Control Association, an alliance that licenses the encryption for DVDs.

Real Networks will have to stop selling its RealDVD product now, however. The court has imposed a restraining order on the company until at least tomorrow as it reviews all of the papers filed in the case. Tomorrow, the court will presumably rule on whether or not to lift the temporary ban.