RealNetworks has filed legal counterclaims against the DVD Copy Control Association and all the major movie studios, claiming that the studios conspired to eliminate competition in the market for fair use copies of DVDs. The company says that the studios abused their power by refusing to grant licenses to Real unless the whole group was involved, and wants the court to force them to drop their lawsuit against Real.

Real has been dealing with the legal fallout from his RealDVD software since September of 2008—before it was even released to the public. The software claimed to be able to rip DVDs while still preserving the discs' copy protection mechanisms. At that time, Real seemed confident that RealDVD operated well within the DMCA because the software didn't break the CSS encryption—it merely copied it straight to a hard drive, keeping the encryption intact. Additionally, RealDVD added a new layer of DRM to each file to lock the files to the user and PC that created them, which the company thought would keep it on the movie studios' good side.

Unfortunately, Real thought wrong. Almost immediately, the Motion Picture Associaton of America (MPAA) sued Real, claiming that the company had violated DMCA anticircumvention rules, referring to RealDVD as "StealDVD." Real sued right back hoping to get a judge to declare RealDVD as legal early on, but instead, a judge granted a temporary restraining order against the company, halting the sales of RealDVD.

That brings us to where we are today. In its counterclaims against the DVD CCA and the movie studios, Real points out that the organization licensed the CSS specifications to Real as well as Video Descrablers, Authentication Modules for CSS Encryption Modules, and Authenticator Modules for DVD Drives. However, because the movie studios ganged up to bully Real, the DVD CCA turned around to allege that Real had broken "hidden and secret contractual terms" in its licensing agreement. The company says that the studios and the DVD CCA conspired to keep Real out of the market for fair use copies of DVDs, and that they had a private agreement not to grant licenses to Real.

"Without this illegal cartel, Real and others would be able to compete to provide consumers with products to enable them to gain more value from their DVDs, without having to pay again to make a fair-use copy of the DVDs they had already purchased," Real VP of Corporate Communications Bill Hankes told Ars via e-mail.

Real says that the studios and DVD CCA are in violation of the Sherman Act, the Cartwright Act, and the California Unfair Competition Law, and asks for an injunction barring the studios and the DVD CCA from continuing their anticompetitive activity. Additionally, Real asks that the DVD CCA's and studios' claims be dismissed, and for appropriate monetary damages to be determined at trial.

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