OPINION: Use of fair

Had they done nothing and simply let a company with Real’s consumer profile go on promoting a product billed as offering a “legal” way to make backup copies of your DVDs, they would be seen, by implication at least, as having accepted the proposition that consumers indeed have a “legal” right to make personal-use copies, much as people routinely do with music CDs.

While that may seem like a perfectly reasonable proposition to many people, it is one the studios have never accepted.

To them, any kind of copying is like a “gateway drug,” leading inevitably to massive piracy.

They have also never been keen on the idea of letting technology developers define or enable new, unlicensed usage-models from which the studios cannot derive revenue. If you can buy a piece of software from Real to copy your own DVDs, there is no way for the studios to charge you for the privilege.

The only real question was what kind of lawsuit to bring.

The most straightforward approach would have been to attack the problem at its root and sue Real for contributory copyright infringement on the grounds that consumers, in fact, have no clearly established, affirmative legal right to copy DVDs. By providing consumers the tools to copy, Real is aiding and abetting illegal activity.

Read the full column on ContentAgenda.com.