New Copy Protection to Make Playing DVDs on a PC Difficult

The Cowardly Pirate writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is reporting that new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc not only makes it difficult to rip movies that you've purchased but also prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC at all. From the article: 'Protect DVD-Video is the brainchild of a company called ProtectDisc. Part of the copy-protection mechanism is a non-standard UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system which results in the IFO file on the DVD (this is the file responsible for storing information on chapters, subtitles and audio tracks) appearing to the PC as being zero bytes long.'"

Comments

Ooh! More great news!

[KingSkippus]

I love reading stuff like this. I hope that they lock DVDs down so tight that no one can even play them on their regular players. Then, when the next blockbuster movie sell a grand total of four DVDs, maybe the movie and television studios will finally realize how much money this is costing them.

And seriously, can I see a quick show of hands of everyone who thinks that this will keep people from copying DVDs?...

Yeah, that's what I thought, and neither do I.

Bastards

[Lost Found]

What makes me angry about this isn't that I won't be able to find movies online; hell, it's usually possible to get them before they're even available from Blockbuster. What's irritating is that I'm an honest customer of the MPAA. I have a huge shelf of DVDs. I'm a DVD collector. The first time I buy a DVD that has been engineered in such a way to not play, I'm going to return it and never buy a DVD again.

Note: This doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching movies. Do the fucking math, MPAA.

Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like this only effects the IFO on the disc. VLC (along with many other players) can play the VOB files without using an IFO.

A workaround already exists

[fructose]

Of course the encryption is already broken. From the article:

SlySoft have a product called AnyDVD which works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie as soon as it's inserted into the drive. The other day they released an updated version of AnyDVD which effortlessly bypasses Protect DVD-Video.

Nice try. I'll give you a cookie.

Learn Dammit

[COMON$]

When are these companies going to learn...every "protected" piece of crap they put out there gets broken. It is inevitable, Mr Anderson. When you figure out how much money the world has put into copy protection, vs how much they have actually lost to piracy...what are they really gaining?

Downgrade while you still can...

[Kadin2048]

Instructions to downgrade the firmware are here:

http://www.epizenter.net/e107_plugins/forum/forum_ viewtopic.php?46417

I would send a nasty letter to Creative when you're done downgrading too, but that's just me. I know I sent one to Apple when they castrated iTunes' ability to share over the internet, a feature that I had used all the time to listen to my music while studying or working in another building.

Companies need to know that we won't just bend over and let them fuck us with little "upgrades" like that, at least not without noticing.

TGFH (Thank God For HandBrake)

[Kadin2048]

Everyone in between is better off using a pirated copy, because it is just better.

Agreed. I hardly even watch movies straight from DVD anymore. Even if I'm just going to watch it once, I just run them through HandBrake first. That way I don't have to deal with crappily designed menus, FBI warnings, and mandatory-view advertisements. (Because yes, Virginia, a "preview" is just an advertisement for another movie.)

I've told more than one other person about HandBrake and now they do the same thing. I wouldn't call it quite "Grandma friendly" yet (although the stripped-down iPod version is) but it's pretty close. If the person you're instructing knows the difference between a Phillips screw and a Torx, they can probably deal with HandBrake.

European Perspective

[RAMMS EIN]

I live in the Netherlands, but I know the situation is the same in many other EU countries:

Since the implementation of the EUCD, it is now against the law to bypass "effective technical measures" that restrict what can be done with a copyrighted work, even if these restrictions involves rights you would normally have under copyright law.

At the same time, downloading copyrighted material off the 'net is explicitly allowed. The copyright holders are paid from a levy that is imposed on blank media.

As a result of this, for me as a Linux user, it is illegal for me to watch movies from "copy-protected" DVDs that I bought and paid for, but it is legal to watch the same movies if I download them off the 'net for free.

Re:European Perspective

[Kamineko]

In the UK, Tessa Jowell is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

According to the website for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, you can contact Tessa Jowell through the DCMS by writing a letter to:

Department for Culture Media & Sport
2-4 Cockspur Street
London
SW1Y 5DH

Or by telephone:

020 7211 6200 open 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday

Or by e-mail:

enquiries@culture.gov.uk

Re:DVD Jon

[neil.orourke]

Not only that, but AnyDVD makes DVD's bearable by skipping all the forced junk that a stand-alone player must show.

Re:DVD Jon

[Fordiman]

Well, the reason the hack works is because of a kind of cheapness in common DVD players: they read the ISO9660 filesystem and ignore the UDF system (as all the player needs is the DVD filenames). As a result, the iso9660 stuff likely reports the correct data, while the UDF does not. Simple hack: mount as ISO9660 in Linux and play via filesystem (rather than via /dev/dvd). As a result, Linux users are actually better off then Windows for once when it comes to DVDs.

Funny stuff. No, really.