SlySoft publish “AnyDVD” and “AnyDVD HD” for accessing and copying DVDs and Blu-Ray disks by defeating the copy protection mechanisms.

SlySoft is based in Antigua thus avoids penalties under the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) 1998, the CDPA (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act) 1988 and other similar legislation in other parts of the world.

SlySoft are currently ahead of the arms race between protection circumvention and content protection.

DVD ripping has been possible for many years after the CSS (Content Scrambling System) encryption keys were compromised and DeCSS was created.  The digital rights management industry has learned that “security by obscurity” is not security at all. Most users of CSS cracking software claim it is used to defeat region encoding that stops DVDs being played outside their target market.

Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) were designed with better encryption, AACS (Advanced Access Content System) from the outset but this still was compromised. The technology also includes HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) which prevents digital recording equipment from recording the content by requiring the player and the television create a secure channel for the media.

Blu-ray players feature extensible protection so the scrambling system can be upgraded so new titles can be better protected against copying. This feature could be the reason that the studios preferred Blu-ray over HD-DVD.

The latest copy protection mechanism for Blu-ray is BD+ which 18 months ago was hailed as protection that will take 10 years to break. It features a virtual machine that authorized players use to run scripts to access the content. This virtual machine deliberately makes reverse engineering difficult by changing the way instructions are executed depending on the context.

Proving that nothing is unbreakable, SlySoft has cracked the latest BD+ scrambling system and can copy all existing titles as noted in this press release: http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=24602

Macrovision, who develop the BD+ scrambling system, will no doubt respond in due course with better technology to defeat SlySoft.

The lesson here is that continuous development is required to protect digital rights.

But overall, is digital rights management worth all the inconvenience to the customer?