RealNetworks Claims Antitrust; Veoh’s Investors Off the Hook

RealNetworks yesterday threw a twist into its ongoing litigation over copyright violations by accusing movie studios of violating antitrust law. The movie studios and Real were already suing each other over Real’s DVD copying software, RealDVD. Now Real says the six major studios and the DVD Copy Control Association are colluding to prevent competing DVD copying technologies in favor of charging for their own fair-use digital copy service. Read the full text here on Real’s excellent litigation resource site. More coverage on CNET and the New York Times.

In other legal news, a district judge said Veoh’s investors, among them Tornante, Shelter Capital and Spark Capital, will not be liable for copyright infringement in that company’s ongoing litigation with Universal Music Group. The judge had previously made a similar ruling, but left open a way for UMG to tweak its case to implicate the investors again. This time he left no such loophole. More at MediaPost.