Mere minutes after the software went on sale, Real sicced its own pack of legal beagles on the DVD Copy Control Association and the major studios, asking a federal court to preemptively declare that what the program does is perfectly legal. That move was followed immediately by that which it sought to preempt -- a suit filed by the studios seeking to block the sale of the software on the grounds that it violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Here's the gist of the back-and-forth barking. The Motion Picture Association of America says RealDVD violates the DMCA because it circumvents the Content Scramble System (CSS) meant to prevent copying. Real says it does no such thing -- the program copies DVDs with the CSS coding intact and then adds its own digital rights management system to limit the copy to a maximum of five computers. A mere technicality, says the MPAA -- the program allows a movie to be decrypted and viewed without having the physical disc handy, which enables the "rent, rip and return" method of building a movie collection, which means it violates the purpose of the CSS even if it doesn't break the encryption itself. Aha, says Real -- in an earlier case involving the Kaleidescape DVD jukebox, a judge ruled that the CSS license contained nothing requiring the disc to be in the drive during viewing.

"We are disappointed that the movie industry is following in the footsteps of the music industry and trying to shut down advances in technology rather than embracing changes that provide consumers with more value and flexibility for their purchases," said Real's news release. "RealNetworks' RealDVD should be called StealDVD," fired back MPAA 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." Months of tort and retort loom.