Slashdot Mirror


Slysoft (of AnyDVD Fame) Closes After Increased International Pressure By AACS (myce.com)

jlp2097 writes: It looks like the recent activities by Hollywood studios and the AACS LA finally led to the closing of Slysoft Inc, creator of the popular AnyDVD HD tool for creating personal backups of BluRay/DVD/etc. Slysoft Inc's website confirms the closing due to "recent regulatory requirements". The final nail in the coffin has also been confirmed with slightly more details in their forum: "this is final. Slysoft is gone." Sad to see them go — it looks like legitimate buyers of BluRays will now have to find other sources for backing up their property to HTPCs and NASes.

21 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Write to your elected representatives by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Point out this case to them. Point out the total value to the economy of things like the iPod and other personal digital music players. Point out that this is vastly more than the total music and movie industries combined. Point out that laws surrounding DRM have ensured that no one could release a portable movie player that let you rip your DVDs / BluRays and so an entire industry has been unable to exist. Ask them why they hate job creation so much.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    1. Re:Write to your elected representatives by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why would your elected representatives give a crap about what you say? You don't make campaign contributions, you just vote for them. The campaign contributions and other legal bribes are what controls the real power.

      They know exactly who they work for, and it sure as hell isn't you. They don't care about job creation, they care about corporate profits.

      This is why the US government is letting the copyright cartels write significant chunks of treaties like the TPP ... the US government is most assuredly doing the bidding of these corporations.

      Make no mistake about it, they're not working for you or your interests.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Write to your elected representatives by Jason+Levine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And then the media companies will counter with a big pile of campaign donation cash and a request for even more stringent DRM, high per-stream royalty rates, mandatory anti-piracy payments, and other pro-industry policies. Do you think your local politician will listen to you or that big bag of cash?

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    3. Re:Write to your elected representatives by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. It's not like you're presented with a wide range of choices at the voting booth; the anti-corporate, anti-TPP candidates have a very difficult time getting anywhere. It's utterly amazing that Bernie and Trump are doing as well as they have (both are anti-TPP), but the establishment on both sides is doing everything it can to shut them down and make sure one of their chosen ones, Bush, Rubio, or Hillary, is guaranteed the election. (Of course, after the establishment gave him $100 million to spend on his campaign, Bush finally threw in the towel recently.)

      Even if an anti-TPP candidate wins the Presidency, he'll still have to contend with a Congress full of corporate tools.

    4. Re: Write to your elected representatives by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Informative

      .isos are overkill. Just get the movie data any way you can and store it on a network share. A hell of a lot easier than dealing with optical burning. If you arent burning to optical, then you dont need isos.

      --
      Good-bye
    5. Re:Write to your elected representatives by wwalker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except for Bernie Sanders. Do yourself a favor and go google top corporate contributors for him and compare to Hillary. And make your own conclusions.

    6. Re: Write to your elected representatives by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I see. And I understand where that covers 95% of people's use cases. I really want to back up the original product, disk space be damned, so AnyDVD was a good tool for me, and I'm not sure what to use as a replacement.

  2. BSD by IgnitusBoyone · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, if they can't make money off it anymore we will gladly accept it uploaded to git hub.

    --
    Momento Mori
  3. MakeMKV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    MakeMKV. You're welcome.

  4. Linux is your friend in legal backups by evolutionary · · Score: 5, Informative

    While you can argue piracy, the USA it is perfectly legal to make backup copies of commercial media you legitimately own. Very important for owners of old DVD, VHS tapes, laser disks and so on. Once nice thing about linux is it's a lot harder to just "shut down" because it's world wide and the USA is the most anal when it comes to copying laws. It's inverse is China where it's apparently unfashionable NOT to copy things..(and in many cases sell the copies..). Anyway, there are reasonable policies when it comes to backups of things we purchase but in the USA, the business are trying to require people to purchases their media more than once if possible. We gotta rethink these IP laws as they don't encourage innovation as much as they promote lazy fat cats to just rest on the laurels of a single creation for not only their lifetime, but the lifetime of their descendants.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
  5. Re:You must be new here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Liar.

    Purchasers of content on media like BR simply want to be able to enjoy that media when, where and how they want and not be tied to TVs attached to BR players ramming 20 minutes of fucking commercials down their throat before they get to see what they actually bought the disk for.

    And they want to safeguard the content on the disk that they paid for against the hazards of the fragile media that is being forced on them.

  6. Re:You must be new here by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The commercials say "own it on Blu-Ray today" but the laws (bought and paid for by the entertainment industry) say "pay for a limited license to view the material as defined by the large entertainment companies and which can be revoked if they feel like it... today!"

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  7. Re:You must be new here by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't "Hey, I want to download HOT NEW MOVIE for free instead of paying for it." It's "Hey, I bought a Blu-Ray of HOT NEW MOVIE but would like to view it on my computer, my tablet, my phone, etc. Why can't I rip the file and use it for my own use?"

    Yes, some people will use the rips to upload them for others (totally illegal), but we shouldn't ban technology based on "some people will use it for illegal stuff." If we did that, then all computers would be banned on the premise that some people use them to commit crimes.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  8. Re:Go nuclear: Free software download by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 4, Informative

    But that wouldn't really achieve much. The main feature of Slysoft's solution, was not the software itself (which is certainly impressive) but the fact that they would update the software with new encryption keys every few weeks, often within days of a new encryption key being used.

    AACS has a huge inventory of keys which can be used. Slysoft had managed to find an exploit in either a hardware or software player, which allowed them to extract the key when a newly released disc requested a previously unknown key ID.

  9. Cynicism by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish I had mod points to give the parent poster. I'm so sick of the "it won't do any good" cynicism posts like those above. You know what REALLY won't do any good? Sitting on your ass doing nothing except crying "woe is us" on Slashdot.

    Do you know how we got to the point where a lot of elected officials don't care what people think? People sitting around grousing about how elected officials don't care what they think. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you're going to simply tune out of everything going on and not care or hold people to any standards, then really, why should anyone care what you think? I know if I were an elected politician, I wouldn't give a damn what people think who don't bother to let me know, or even vote. Why would I even waste my time?

    I vote in every election and primary I can. I do write to my Congresscritters. I tell my friends what I think about stuff going on and the people who are in and running for office. And yeah, sometimes it doesn't do any good, especially being a liberal in the Bible Belt South. But you know what? At least I'm trying. At least I'm not just whining about problems. And sometimes, people actually do make a difference, especially at a local level. You don't have to save the world, you just have to care. If you don't, then it sucks to be you, but stop trying to piss on the parade of those who do.

    By the way, for those of you in the "it doesn't make a difference" crowd, by all means, keep sitting on your asses. Your apathy gives people like me disproportionate say over things going on, so you know, thank you very much for that.

  10. Not the source code, but how to generate a key by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 4, Informative

    Decoding both DVD and BD are "known things". AnyDVD was not the only product doing it.

    Two important parts to doing BD, though - One is having a valid key to get past the AACS, and being able to replace it when a version of AACS comes out that revokes your current key. If your key has been added to the revoked list, simply putting a disk in the drive with that version of the list essentially "bricks" the drive for reading ANY Bluray disks until you change your key.

    The second is being able to implement the BD+ interpreter to fix up deliberate errors introduced into the video... And it changes periodically.

    Where the companies that sell such products get their "market lock-in" is keeping up these changes. AACS is easier than BD+, from what I read, because you don't always have to change your key when a new AACS revocation list comes out, but the BD+ programming can and does change multiple times per month.

  11. Re:Virtual Clone Drive? by americamatrix · · Score: 3, Interesting
    https://www.elby.ch/en/product... - This is the underlying tech/driver for VCD from Slysoft.

    Thanks,

    -americamatrix

  12. Re:You must be new here by gfxguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I bought AnyDVD, and completely support SlySoft... I never once copied a DVD or BluRay in violation of any copyright laws. I agree there are far too many people who simply want stuff for free, but that doesn't mean AnyDVD wasn't a great product that worked well for legitimate uses.

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  13. Re:Increases piracy by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just want to point out that DOWNLOADING the file is absolutely legal under Sony V Universal since you own a legal copy. Its the UPLOADING that gets you in trouble. If you DL directly from an HTTP/FTP site, no problem 100% legal., but if you use a torrent, that can be a problem unless you zero out your upload completely.

    I went the same route as you giving up on optical, i wanted pristine disc rips, but its simply too much hassle when the scene people have it down cold.

    --
    Good-bye
  14. Re:Increases piracy by rworne · · Score: 3, Informative

    Downloading content you could otherwise rip via fair use or space shifting is not legal.

    See MP3.com and their cloud service which looks a lot like today's Apple's iTunes Match:

    Buy a CD, pop it in your computer, download MP3's from MP3.com without having to rip and encode.

    They lost because essentially having someone else rip your CD's for you requires permission from the copyright owner. That cost MP3.com $53.4 million.

    UMG v. MP3.com

    --
    I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
  15. Re:Bush, Rubio will have pre existing condition co by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's wrong with pre-existing conditions? It's not insurance if you are able to wait to buy it until after you need it.

    Because health insurance isn't like other insurance. If you have to change jobs, that means you need to change insurance, so now suddenly the new insurance doesn't have to cover the old condition? That's bullshit. That's why they outlawed it. The root of the problem is tying health insurance to employment, but I don't see the Repugs trying to fix that either.