This sort of backwards-ass thinking on the part of the media industrialists really bugs me. Jerome

Recently the MPAA found its newest target in its ongoing and futile attempt to prevent legitimate and legal advances in DVD home viewing.

RealDVD is a computer program that lets views save their DVDs (movies, TV shows, and home movies) to their PCs or laptops.

But this is not just another DVD-ripping program. The DVDs that you save will play only on your computer with the License Key purchased, it does not break the encryption code on the DVD, and you cannot burn disks from the DVD upload that you make.

This is not simply another Handbrake or Jack the Ripper, two DVD ripping programs that curiously have not received the ire of the MPAA. Instead RealDVD is a program that allows users to back up their DVDs like they have been able to do with their music for many years, watch DVDs anywhere without having to lug around a cumbersome case (especially useful when traveling), and ensures that DVDs are not lost if disks get scratched or worn out.

The program does nothing to harm the film industry. RealDVD users still must purchase the DVDs to view them, and are not able to rip the movies for profit themselves.

Naturally there are concerns about the interactions between RealDVD and services like Netflix and Blockbuster online. As state previously, RealDVD is not interested in providing an avenue for people to illegal copy and share DVDs. They have spoken often about how eager they are to work with the film industry to install protections on DVDs rented from companies like Netflix and Blockbuster in order to ensure they cannot be backed up using their program.

And how does the film industry react to this program? Does it embrace it as an avenue for their continued survival to ensure they don't go the way of the recording industry?

Of course not.

Instead the major Hollywood studios banded together, sought legal action to block the distribution of RealDVD, and were ultimately successful in temporarily shutting down the distribution of the program. A Federal Judge will hear the case and the status of the preliminary injunction will be decided sometime in the next few weeks.

The MPAA is tight rope walking the same dangerous line that the RIAA did in attempting to use copyright laws to control information. In doing so the RIAA managed to kill their own industry. If the MPAA continues down this same path we will be writing the same stories about them as we are about the downfall of the RIAA.

Because the fact of the matter is RealDVD does not circumvent technology meant to prevent illegal copying of DVDs, but rather it has received rave reviews for its stringent protections against such actions.

The Hollywood film studios are selfishly preventing consumers from being able to back up their purchases. With no basis in law for such actions and absolutely no intent of wrong doing from the makers of RealDVD, the ultimate endgame of this charade by the MPAA will be blocking a huge benefit to consumers whose dollars are already being competed for left and right.

Tell me if enraging consumers and blatantly attempting to stifle innovation, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out as the real reason for the film industry's outrage in this October article, by blocking a completely legal product is really the best idea in these times, if ever at all?

There's an interview with the head of the new Pirate Party in Sweden - love that name! - over on Wikinews that contains the best summation of the larger issues around file sharing and the copyright cartel that I've seen to date. This is why, though in truth it shouldn't be a partisan issue as such any more than the environment ought to be, Democrats particulary need to get on the right side of the argument:

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Swedish police apparently under pressure from the US raided The Pirate Bay's server farm earlier today:

he Swedish website Piratebay.org was shut down Wednesday after police raided its offices, seized its servers and detained three men, according to the Associated Press and a message on the downed site.

"Pirate Bay was a huge source of pirated films for people around the world, and today they are no longer," said Kori Bernards, a representative for the Motion Picture Association of America. "This was one of our No. 1 targets."

Bernards said that the MPAA has been working with the U.S. and Swedish governments for several years in an effort to shut down Piratebay.org, which helps internet users find illegally copied software like movies and songs on the popular peer-to-peer application BitTorrent. Piratebay.org is the largest BitTorrent tracker, according to Alexa.com, which tracks website traffic.

The Pirate Bay had been noted for being able to resist the MPAA's legal pressure. Indeed the basic structure of bit torrent technology made it very difficult for even this raid to be ordered; it seems they're relying on "evidence" that despite TPB's claims, one of the TPB servers was actually storing and serving illegal content, which would then violate law. TPB
has always claimed, justifiably, that they only store files that
point to content, not the content itself.

If you're interested, TPB has set-up a temporary blog here: http:http://piratbyran-in-eng.blogspot. com

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