RealDVD wasn’t for real
About a year and a half ago I wrote a couple of posts about RealDVD, a program made by RealOne that allowed people to make copies of DVDs for personal use. It seemed to me there were other programs that already did what it did, better than it did, but they were not exactly considered legal. For some reason, which I didn’t really understand, Real thought their program would somehow be different.
According to their new press release, Hollywood didn’t agree either. They apparently only sold 2,700 copies of the product, which was $29.99 when it was released. That is a grand total of only $80973. One and a half years later they had to pay the six Major Hollywood studios 4.5 million dollars to cover the costs of litigation and they have to refund the purchase price of the product to the people who actually bought it. Not to mention their own legal fees associated with the litigation, which are probably similar in scope.
I guess it wasn’t a good idea after all. What I can’t understand is who at RealOne thought it was, and do they still have a job?