The Motion Picture Association of America has gone to U.S. District court to stop the distribution of software that makes illegal copies of DVDs. The lawsuit by the Sherman Oaks-based MPAA alleges that the RealDVD software from RealNetworks Inc. violates the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act in that it gets around copyright protection measures. A viewer who rents a DVD from Blockbuster or Netflix could make an illegal copy using the RealDVD software, the association said. The software should be called StealDVD, said MPAA Executive Vice President and General Counsel Greg Goeckner. “RealNetworks knows its product violates the law and undermines the hard-won trust that has been growing between America’s movie makers and the technology community,” Goeckner said. “We will vigorously defend our right to stop companies from bringing products to market that mislead consumers and clearly violate the law.”
