DVD Group Sues Over Net Copying Program

A DVD industry group said Tuesday it has filed suit against dozens of Web site operators for allegedly posting a DVD copying program that the group says is illegal and could destroy the fast-growing new format.

At the heart of the complaint is a program written by a Norwegian programmer that foils the encryption that prevents DVDs, or digital videodiscs, from being copied.

The program has stirred concern in Hollywood because it can be used to make a perfect copy of a DVD film on a computer hard drive. The movie can then be sent over the Internet or copied to a blank DVD.

“The wholesale copying and distribution of copyrighted motion pictures destroys the motion picture industry’s ability to protect its intellectual property and destroys the market for the computer and consumer electronics industries’ DVD-based products,” the lawsuit says.

The suit alleges that the program constitutes theft of proprietary technology and seeks to halt its dissemination.

The suit was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Monday by the DVD Copy Control Assn., formed by the movie, computer and consumer electronics industries to oversee licensing of DVD technology.

In postings on the Internet, defenders of the program said that no theft was involved because of an oversight by software company Xing Technologies, now part of RealNetworks Inc., that left a key to the DVD code unprotected in its DVD player software for personal computers.

Industry analysts have said widespread Internet piracy of movies is unlikely because of their huge size--nearly 5 gigabytes, or about seven times that of a compact disc. That means a movie would take days to download over the Internet using a regular dial-up connection.

Also, the machinery to record on blank DVDs is expensive and the current capacity of a blank disk for consumer use is only about half the size of a studio movie release.

Although a legal warning from the industry prompted the program’s author to pull it off his Web site, it was too late to check its spread in cyberspace.

The complaint names 26 people in the United States, several European countries and Australia, and 46 other Web sites that it says posted or provided links to the program. It said it could name up to 500 more defendants as their identities come to light.

The suit seeks a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction against publishing the program on the Internet or elsewhere, as well as recovering legal fees and “other relief as is found just and proper.”

It said the program already had chilled the roll-out of a new product, DVD audio, slated for a December launch. It will now be delayed for at least six months while a new encryption system is worked out.