RealNetworks Sues to Protect Audio Format

With support from the music industry, RealNetworks is suing Streambox, a company that makes technology for converting RealAudio files to other formats—notably Microsoft’s—and provides extra streaming functionality to users. RealNetworks characterizes Streambox applications as “hacker tools” for breaking copyright protection. In mid-January, a judge ruled that Streambox could not distribute two of its products, pending a trial to determine whether they violate copyright law. However, the ruling allows Streambox to continue to sell its basic audio file conversion program, Ripper. Streambox technology poses a threat to the exclusivity of RealNetworks’s distribution system and the edge it holds in the vast library of content encoded in its proprietary format. Streambox also helps advance Microsoft’s format, which Redmond-based Streambox pointedly does not convert to other formats.

A large majority of Web sites that deliver streaming music use the RealNetworks format. Unlike the popular MP3 format, RealAudio files include copyright protection. However, this functions only if a content owner hosts streaming files on RealNetworks’s server product, RealServer. (In that case, users can play the files only on RealPlayer.) One Streambox product, the Streambox VCR, cracks this protection system, making it possible to record and save streaming audio files. Until the case is decided, the United States District Court has blocked Streambox from distributing both the VCR and another product called the Ferret that changes the interface of the RealPlayer to present a Streambox search function. However, the judge decided not to block the Streambox Ripper since it operates on files already saved on a computer’s hard disk.