Prosecutors showed email correspondence between RealNetwork engineers and developers with a Kiev, Ukraine, software development company called Rocket Division Software, discussing ways to circumvent the technology.

On the stand, Glaser said that RealDVD and ARccOS were not effective copy protection technologies, because they did not prevent another DVD copying product, called Kaleidescape, from making copies of DVDs. "Whatever kind of speed bumps or impediments there were, [in these products] they didn't effectively stop the copying because Kaleidescape was doing it," he said.

The Kaleidescape reference was probably not accidental. Kaleidescape won a similar case against the motion picture industry in 2007, and their high-end home entertainment product inspired Glaser to push ahead with RealDVD.

"Kaleidescape is kind of like a Porsche. It's a beautiful product, but it's very, very expensive," Glaser said. "We thought we could use modern technology to deliver something that's more like a Chevy"

Although observers have hoped that RealNetworks may be testing the limits of consumers to copy digital media under the fair use provisions of U.S. law, the case may end up turning on a more mundane question, according to Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has been watching the case. That question is whether or not the CSS licensing agreement Real signed in order to build its product prohibits copying, he said.