A US court has banned American Software Company RealNetworks from selling a program that lets people make copies of their DVDs.

The ruling stops Real from selling RealDVD, a piece of software that allows you to make back-up copies of their movie discs and save them to their computer.

Although free DVD ripping software is already available online, Real raised the hackles of Hollywood executives in 2008 because it paid for a license to the DVD Copy Control Association, believing that it could be interpreted to allow the services they wanted to provide.

In her ruling, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said:

“While it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally-owned DVD on that individual’s computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies.”

Campaigners had argued that consumers had the right to make personal copies of material they had legally obtained, and that Real should not be punished.

Real Networks said that it was “disappointed” in the ruling and would take time to examine the verdict closely before considering whether to appeal.

Do you agree with the judges verdict or do you think we should be able to copy our own DVDs??

Either way you can watch them on the DVD players and recorders available here at AJ Electronics, for more details please visit the website.

The new Blu-Ray disc was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video, as well as storing larger amounts of data than the traditional DVD.

The Blu-Ray format offers more than five times the storage capacity of DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. 

Recent development by Pioneer has increased its storage capacity to 500GB on a single disc by using 20 layers.

Blu-ray is currently supported by roughly 200 of the world’s leading consumer companies, and also has support from all Hollywood studios and many smaller studios as a successor to today’s DVD format.

Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD.

An article by The Guardian earlier this year suggested that Blu-Ray was on its way to the top:

“Sony’s Blu-Ray has finally won the battle of the high-definition DVD formats with Toshiba announcing it is to axe its rival HD DVD technology”.

But will Blu-Ray will be the DVD of the VHS generation?