[jqp]

After catching up with the inernets this morning, I am feeling a little digital experience overload 

Digg.com was an explosion of people posting the hacked AACS processing key - now all existing HD_DVD and BluRay disks can be hacked.

Digg at first tried to block all posting of the key, then gave in to save their internet hero status

http://blog.digg.com/

Wikipedia is trying to block it all too.

There is even a new site: http://09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.com/


http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/02/the_new_hddvdbl.html

[boead]

This happened over two months ago.

Apparently the AASC is making a late effort to keep the code off the blogs and Digg, in my opinion, is taking advantage of the free publicity.

BlueRay has not yet been broken but it will in time.

 

[jqp]

Actually although the key was found 2 months ago, it has lately been implemented in working configurations (software player + hardware player setup)

It should be already working for Blu Ray, with PC burners available now - if not then very soon.

The ability of ordinary software engineers willing to spend a little substantial free time time with consumer hardware and PCs has overcome the current encryption techniques for HD formats in very short order.

If you are familiar with hacking those "disposable" video cameras, this process was very similar, but many more implications.

I think Gates/others were right about this being the last disc format generation...iptv/movies on demand/online purchasing, here we come.

[ctviggen]

I still prefer to own most of my movies (and CDs, for that matter).  Perhaps one day we'll get to where we "rent" stuff, but I'm certainly not to that point. 

[jqp]

I still prefer to own most of my movies (and CDs, for that matter).  Perhaps one day we'll get to where we "rent" stuff, but I'm certainly not to that point. 

Personally I prefer not to "rent" also. I do not want to have to "plug into the matrix" to listen to music or watch movies, or to even use special keys to unlock what I have purchased. Keys can be lost or disabled, then I have to take steps and time to get my money back or get a firmware upgrade, etc.

These people have the goal of being free from the shackles of DRM, to exercise the somewhat nebulous right of fair use to back up their DVDs. They also like to tinker    And of course there are big implications as there has been a lot of money, time, and maybe not so smart planning by the media companies and associations to prevent that from happening.

[nathanm]

If stealing stuff is more difficult than buying most people will buy.
If buying stuff gives you more than stealing people will buy.

I think with a completely virtual medium the second scenario starts to erode.  It's already eroding now.  Abstraction of property makes theft much easier.

I wonder though, if future generations will laugh at me for lamenting the demise of physical objects.  When everyone's world is a screen will they see the printing press as a humorous contraption of the ancient past?  Am I hanging onto my buggy whip and stone tablet too tightly?  Hmmm.  I figure this is what getting old is all about.

[boead]

If stealing stuff is more difficult than buying most people will buy.
If buying stuff gives you more than stealing people will buy.

Well I don’t steal music. I simply hold onto legitimate copies as a service for select individuals. I occasionally ‘test’ them for their integrity. It’s long and draw out process that takes many hours out of each week of my life.
 

[ctviggen]

I agree with fair use.  I think it would be great to put all my DVDs on a server without worrying about the copy protection.  After all, I do the same thing with my CDs now.  Why can't I do that with my DVDs?  (Ok, I know I can do it, but you have to buy a program that hacks this stuff; they should just let you do it.) 

[jqp]

You currently have to play the new DVDs (HD) on special players which are part of a chain of DRM. Even though the full implementation of DRM is not in use yet.

PC players and burners are now coming out, which work with WinDVD and PowerDVD etc. How the DRM chain can be maintained is an interesting question  

What fair use advocates want is to be able to protect their high def DVD investment - those things are not cheap - and to be able to play their hi def DVDs on linux systems (which was also what the previous decryption scenario for standard DVDs was justified with). And the PS3 is advertised as able to run linux, but the Hypervisor prevents you from doing things your way.

The current crop of Blu Ray and HD-DVDs can now be archived if you are willing to go through the effort.

[OTL]

For those of us in the "measurement camp", I took some interesting measurements today.

Search on the full 16 bytes of the key on google:
@9:00 - 318k hits
@2:00 - 587k hits
Just now - 896K

Looks like this is no longer secret.  It's in the public domain and litigation will be limited.

This song had me laughing so hard my sides hurt. http://youtube.com/watch?v=L9HaNbsIfp0

[boead]

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

[nathanm]

Yep, I'm too lazy to go look it up myself...   What does one do with that number? 

I have a feeling I wouldn't know how to pirate a HD-DVD even if I really wanted to.  The thing with online piracy is that you've gotta be technically savvy and very patient.  This is much different than shoplifting the video store, which is a practice anyone can try.  Aren't HD-DVDs like 50GB or something?  Who the hell wants to wait around for that friggin' download?  Or are we talking about sneaker net type of piracy with your real world friends and associates here?  "Honey, I heard the Johnsons have a new HD-DVD of "Ernest Goes To Camp", want a copy?  it's free!  Muwhahaha!"

If these discs are hackable and thus copyable the shared copies online are still gonna be compressed to hell.  So we aren't really that far off from the early days of music piracy where the vendor apparently didn't care because the copies were degenerated.  (audio cassettes, VHS tapes etc.)  Music is about the only thing where you can get a mostly bit-perfect clone.  But movies?  Download any pirated movie with a peer-to-peer thingy and you will get crap.  Oh sure it's watchable, but it's still crap.  I've purchased most of the movies I pirated cause they're just so damn bad.  With high def there's yet another quantum leap in data size.  Just downloading a 650MB movie file with bittorrent takes a day or two, assuming your router doesn't crap out.  That's why I say stealing is more difficult than buying.

[boead]

The number is just part of it. Now an application needs to be made that can make a copy.

In the early days of ‘broken’ DVD’s, there were a number of apps out that can make a ‘backup’ copy of a DVD. Most of these small software companies are gone, the cost of fighting in court is too high. Some popular ones that are around now are outside this country and its very grey as to who can own the apps. Its still illegal to make copies of DVD’s in most places and the exceptions are loosely explained.

So when and how will HD-DVD/BlueRay disc copy apps be available? Don’t hold your breath. And I believe the outbound player has to believe the ‘backup copy’ isn’t a copy to work. I’m not sure about how that works but I also believe that in order to play back a HiRes movie it has to be through HDMI.

Downloading movies? I’d never dream of it.

One of the most popular DVD clones does so either with or without compression. Without usually requires two DVD’s or a DVD+DL.

[gitarretyp]

I'm note sure if you're aware, but copying DVDs for personal use was finally made legal in the US a few days ago article.

[boead]

I'm note sure if you're aware, but copying DVDs for personal use was finally made legal in the US a few days ago article.

Then this stuff is legal.
This software is the absolute BEST I’ve ever seen! Worth every penny.



SlySoft AnyDVD
AnyDVD is a Windows-based driver that works automatically in the background to unprotect encrypted movie DVDs. AnyDVD works best with CloneDVD and CloneDVD mobile - $49 download
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html

for HD-DVD and BlueRay
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html



CloneDVD
CloneDVD2 makes perfect backup copies of your unprotected movie DVDs with only 3 mouse-clicks and in less than 20 minutes - $39 download
http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonedvd.html



CloneCD
CloneCD backs up your music, data or navigation CDs, regardless of copy protection -$39 download
http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonecd.html

[jqp]

The number is just part of it. Now an application needs to be made that can make a copy.

In the early days of ‘broken’ DVD’s, there were a number of apps out that can make a ‘backup’ copy of a DVD. Most of these small software companies are gone, the cost of fighting in court is too high. Some popular ones that are around now are outside this country and its very grey as to who can own the apps. Its still illegal to make copies of DVD’s in most places and the exceptions are loosely explained.

So when and how will HD-DVD/BlueRay disc copy apps be available? Don’t hold your breath. And I believe the outbound player has to believe the ‘backup copy’ isn’t a copy to work. I’m not sure about how that works but I also believe that in order to play back a HiRes movie it has to be through HDMI.

I have been reading up on some of this lately...

The apps have been created - you see AnyDVD as a commercial offering, but also code has been cobbled together by 'hobbyists' with HD-DVD drives (XBox add-on, etc.) and also Blu-Ray drives. They follow a cryptanalysis approach and discover the myriad of keys and how they are used. Some keys are hard to unencrypt, others are just sniffed from USB. Currently the solutions, although elegant, are not that complex, as the manufacturer's/studios have made some simple/lame efforts at using AACS.

Yes, the program AnyDVD is the best commercial app there is to do the hi def DVDs. But it does not do too much true decryption at this point - it uses a database of know volume IDs for the disks, which are used to 'exploit' the software/hardware setup to get another key and play the disk, also using the famous key which everyone knows about. What makes it the best app is that they keep VERY current on the known volume IDs (sometimes only KNOWN to a few people that have purchased the disc). If AnyDVD will not play your new disk, chances are you can update the app and it will then play. If you beat the AnyDVD folks to the store, you may have to wait 


Now the manufactureres and studios may start playing hardball using many more of the potential encryption strategies of AACS, but at a certain point that can cause lots of headaches - revoking certifications and money for manufactureres to do more programming tasks, flashing of drive bioses, and ill will on the part of the consumers who do not want to be a part of this battle and return disks or players for new ones.

In many parts of the word, apparently, none of this cracking of the encryption is illegal, but discussion of/encouragement of illegal copying is pretty much verbotten anywhere. Fair use is not the same thing as illegal copying, a distinction which of course is easy to confuse. Unfortunately, according to many, the content industries in the US are very heavy handed and want to make laws that always transfer cash into their pockets when you even think about content...

I do recall a statement by a MS exec who said that HDMI would never be needed for HD-DVDs played on the 360 Add-on drive. Now I know why   Actually it could be because the studios will not use excryption that requires it, at least for this generation of the 360, or because MS can do the exploit the way anyDVD does it (or some other way).

[ctviggen]

I'm note sure if you're aware, but copying DVDs for personal use was finally made legal in the US a few days ago article.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that copying DVDs is "legal".  Even this article says the following (italics added):

"Because of this ruling, the Judge did not have to get into copyright issues, so the Kaleidescape ruling has no copyright implications. It is not a statement on the legality of ripping DVDs."

[jqp]

I'm note sure if you're aware, but copying DVDs for personal use was finally made legal in the US a few days ago article.

WOW! Instead of the Slimserver we will need the Fatserver, instead of the Squeezebox we will need the Crushbox...

"Ever wanted to rip all your DVDs to a big network server so that you could select and play them back to your TV? Up until now, manufacturers have been wary of building a device to allow this type of usage because they've been afraid a lawsuit. The DVD Copy Control Association had claimed this was contractually forbidden, but now a judge says otherwise stating, 'nothing in the agreement prevents you from making copies of DVDs. Nothing requires that a DVD be present during playback.' Kaleidescape has finally won their long-standing lawsuit, a case we first talked about early in 2005."

[jqp]

I'm note sure if you're aware, but copying DVDs for personal use was finally made legal in the US a few days ago article.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that copying DVDs is "legal".  Even this article says the following (italics added):

"Because of this ruling, the Judge did not have to get into copyright issues, so the Kaleidescape ruling has no copyright implications. It is not a statement on the legality of ripping DVDs."

Ripping to me is simply the process of converting the content to some non-disc format. So there would be illegal ripping and legal ripping no such thing as illegal ripping - its what you do after ripping (ripping doesn't break copyrights, people do ). If I purchase a copyrighted album/movie, have I satisfied the copyright, and do I therefore have the right to play it on any player I wish? That is one of the big issues. Thinking back to Xerox machines and books/magazines, and VCR taping of TV - fair use concepts are under pressure.

that article also states:

'Specifically, the document indicates that CSS is meant to keep "casual users from making unauthorized copies of DVDs," [Kaleidascope CEO] Malcolm explains. "We would have argued that users are authorized under U.S. law," specifically the doctrine of fair use.
...
Although this particular decision does not have far-reaching implications for the fair-use movement, it certainly doesn't hurt.

"This is one small victory," Malcolm says.

Small, indeed. Even the newly introduced Fair Use Act of 2007, which is meant to tone down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, would not allow consumers to rip DVDs. '


Well its a fine mess...legislation pushed through by big bucks, case law that protects some of our rights in any case.

Its amazing to me how we can expose ourselves to SO MUCH content - all the music and all the movies. More musical performances and plays than any king has ever been able to enjoy in the history of the world.

This Vudu device will bring movies to your house via a peer-to-peer network, with the first part of the most popular movies already copied to the hard drive. So far it is shaping up to be all the Studios signed up with Vudu except Sony. Only more confusion coming?

[nathanm]

Alas, the makers of AnyDVD recently announced that they will be raising their prices soon, thanks to declining sales due to piracy.