"No more DVD copying" say MACROVISION

Quote:

---

New Steps to Protect DVDs in Piracy War
Macrovision plans to unveil technology to block 97% of software used to duplicate discs.


By Jon Healey, Times Staff Writer


It took a Norwegian teenager and two Internet chat-room cohorts about a month to write a program that picked the digital locks on DVD movies and enabled them to be copied quickly and easily.

It took more than five years for someone to find a way to snap the locks shut again.

Macrovision Corp. today plans to unveil technology that it claims can block 97% of the DVD-copying software that pirates use without interfering with a DVD's playability or picture quality.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is just the first of several firms expected to roll out new anti-copying technology that has been years in the making. The main challenge has been finding a way to alter discs without rendering them unplayable on the more than 200 million DVD players already in homes around the world.

For Hollywood studios, the technology could help wring even more revenue from DVDs, which have become a leading source of profit. According to Macrovision, unauthorized DVD copying costs the studios about $1 billion out of the $27.5 billion that analyst firm Screen Digest estimated they collected from worldwide DVD sales and rentals last year.

And for Macrovision and other anti-piracy companies, the potential market is huge. With hundreds of billions of DVDs pressed every year, even a small licensing fee from the major studios would generate a significant boost to the company, which reported $128 million in sales last year.

Macrovision's offering, called RipGuard, is aimed at the digital copying — or "ripping" — of DVDs by computers. Although the software used to rip discs is illegal in the United States, it has proliferated online since 15-year-old Jon Lech Johansen of Norway and his online partners wrote an early version in 1999.

Macrovision already is the leading supplier of technology to deter analog copying of Hollywood movies by VCRs, computers and other high-tech devices. That technology, which is widely but not universally deployed, renders the copied movie unwatchable.

But while analog copying methods are time consuming — it takes two hours to record a two-hour film — a DVD can be ripped in a few minutes. That's why technologies to stop digital copying, or at least make it much less efficient, would be valuable in Hollywood, said Danny Kaye, senior vice president of research and technology for News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

"If it takes a long time and the frustration level gets too high, you're not going to prevent 100% of it, but you can stop the casual user," Kaye said. "Why not try?"

Fox is evaluating Macrovision's technology and several competing efforts, Kaye said. Macrovision marketing executive Adam Gervin said he expected some Hollywood studios to roll out RipGuard this year, although he declined to say which ones.

Ripping is merely one of several ways that DVDs are copied, either by bootleggers or by movie fans making back-ups of the discs they've bought. Although Macrovision executives say their suite of products responds to other forms of copying, too, some studio executives remain skeptical about the impact of anti-ripping technology.

"We're always interested in another tool," said one executive who asked not to be named. "But until they fix the analog hole … it doesn't solve the problem."

The RipGuard technology would defeat the most popular of the ripping programs, Macrovision's Gervin said, by tinkering with the format of DVDs to make it impossible to extract data quickly from the discs. The technique confounds ripping programs without damaging computers, preventing the discs from playing or reducing picture quality, he said.

Consumer advocates said Hollywood had the right to put out unrippable discs. But such a move would ignore public demand for the ability to back up DVDs and take their movie collections on the road.

"It's swimming against the tide," said attorney Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates civil liberties online. "Consumers one way or another tend to get what they want."

---

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...ck=1&cset=true
cliffs:
millions of dollars can't stop 3% of programs we already have, and within a week of this new copy protection 99% of us will have those programs :lol:

One week. That's all we'll need.

first thing I'm trying is holding down the shift Key

:lol: Nah it's going to be the [DELETE] key :shifty:

must not have heard/remember...
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5087875.html

What if i want to backup my legal dvd? 3% of programs will still work, within a week we will all have those 3% of programs, then more programs will be writen that are based around the 3% of programs. They said Valves protection on HL2 was unbreakable yet im sitting here with every valve game they have ever made playing online through steam. They said the titantic as unsinkable, try telling that to Leo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet :rolleyes:

if you can play it, you can copy it. this will only stop the casual copier at most, they already stated that 3% of the programs out can defeat it.
Copy protection is like a speed bump on a street, it may slow you down but it by no means will stop you.

It looks like they're going to go so far with the copy protection that most players won't play them anymore. :dry:

What they don't get is that if we can view the movie then we can copy it. :lol:

We should really start a pool for the date a workaround is announced - Winner getting a free funny hat :lol:

The main thing to consider is the following quote:

Quote:

---

Macrovision Corp. today plans to unveil technology that it claims can block 97% of the DVD-copying software that pirates use without interfering with a DVD's playability or picture quality.

---

It'll block 97% of the software now. Doesn't mean it'll block the software in the future... :shifty:

what these assholes need to do is....
spend some money on more creative writers...
make better movies, ones that are WORTH buying :dry:
how many freakin remakes have come out lately?
"Oh POO! I am not creative enough to come up with something original."
"I KNOW! Lets remake every damned movie from the 70's!!!!!!!"

There are also those who dont even copy movies. Those who just download the AVI movies, and then convert them to DVD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Illuminati

We should really start a pool for the date a workaround is announced - Winner getting a free funny hat :lol:

The main thing to consider is the following quote:


It'll block 97% of the software now. Doesn't mean it'll block the software in the future... :shifty:

---

It only means that we need to find the 3 % of software that works and use that. Problem solved. In fact we may already be using that software. ;)

thinking about it, I bet its 100% now and they wanted to say it was 100% but were afraid it would get cracked a week later...
just thinking I really should stop before I hurt myself

bah there wasting their time I Hope their reading this nothing beats us pirates

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by muchspl2

if you can play it, you can copy it. this will only stop the casual copier at most, they already stated that 3% of the programs out can defeat it.
Copy protection is like a speed bump on a street, it may slow you down but it by no means will stop you.

---

well Much, the software for copying dvd is just getting better all the time
this is shareware, and has a demo for 6 uses
http://www.dvdtox.com/

it will copy a whole dvd in 20 min with no loss in resolution the program is
called "apollo dvd copy" and is much more flexible than the old dvdxcopy
and is easy to use. I just cannot understand why hollywood has spent so much effort and is going to waste on a useless endevour.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

It only means that we need to find the 3 % of software that works and use that. Problem solved. In fact we may already be using that software. ;)

---

That wasn't the point I was making ;)

It was the fact that it's likely that the 3% that can still do the stuff now will likely be over 50% within a few months, despite what they do :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Illuminati

That wasn't the point I was making ;)

It was the fact that it's likely that the 3% that can still do the stuff now will likely be over 50% within a few months, despite what they do :D

---

Very true. It just makes the software we use get better. :)

this is stupid..but i dont have a dvd rom on my comp so it doesnt affect me really lol