Lockdown DVD's are on the way according to macrovsion, whose representatives have indicated that film distributors are set to include their new "RipGuard" technology in all their releases later this year.

"The “digital hole” is the result of DVD ripping, the process of breaking the CSS encryption found on DVDs and placing these unprotected files onto a PC hard drive. From there, unprotected “perfect” copies can be burned, or the files can be shared with millions over the P2P networks. DeCSS rippers are easy to find online or in retail software stores – and most of these online rippers are free.



Extensive tests showed that RipGuard affects the success of the most commonly-used ripping software products in the market. It has been effective in either completely obstructing the software or slowing it down to the point of futility. RipGuard applies a Unique Digital Framework for each title to ensure that this effectiveness lasts over time. Once RipGuard becomes widely available in commercial titles, Macrovision will persistently monitor the ripping software market to ensure that RipGuard continues to be effective even as new techniques are introduced to circumvent the anti-ripping methodology.



Creating the perfect DVD Rip Control solution is a formidable task. It has to have universal playability on every DVD player and PC in the market. It must remain effective in the face of evolving ripper technology. It needs to fit seamlessly into DVD authoring and replication workflow. And, it needs to provide complete content protection and integrate with solutions that block the remaining “analogue” and “P2P network” holes. RipGuard meets these stringent requirements."

http://www.macrovision.com/company/news/press/newsdetail.jsp?id=Thu%20Nov%2011%2016:50:07%20PST%202004

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This should serve as a wakeup call to the developers and teams behind such utilities as dvddecrypter that it's time to get off your arse.. because theyre going to be fighting you for a while to come.

I recall posting to this article yesterday. What happened to that thread? (There were some germaine comments.)

"Creating the perfect DVD Rip Control solution is a formidable task . . . . . . . . . It must remain effective in the face of evolving ripper technology . . . . . . . . .
RipGuard meets these stringent requirements."

Developing software that anticipates being successful against all future devious attempts to defeat it by all the resourceful hackers around the globe. Hmm. No one can accuse Macrovision of a lack of confidence.

I've got a question. Has anyone ever developed restrictive software that was not defeated by subsequent hacking attempts?

So much for fair use.

"Has anyone ever developed restrictive software that was not defeated by subsequent hacking attempts?"

None of them have even required hacking, unless you include holding down the Shift key as counter-intelligence.

"No one can accuse Macrovision of a lack of confidence."

Their confidence is inversely proportionate to the RIAA and MPAA's combined level of intelligence. The RIAA wants desperately to believe that it is possible to make infallible DRM. Macrovision wants desperately for them to continue paying billions of dollars to develop this, knowing full well that if you can hear something, you can copy it.

Confidence is high.

If you cant protect games, you certinly cant protect DVDs with no executable code.

The suspicious reference to the obvious marketspeak "unique digital framework" does not inspire confidence.

The described effect is greatly slowing the speed of ripping. I can clearly see how this works: Bad sectors. Sections placed throughout the disc full of invalid sectors, which will result in many failed reads and retrys. These sections will not be referenced by any section of the DVD menu system, so no legitimate player will attempt to access them. Simple technique, its been used on games often in the past. Its easily broken through - I give this one week. Not to break, but for someone to automate and release an updated ripping tool. It can either use a fast-skip similar to those used for copying protected games, or attempt to decode the menu structure to avoid non-indexed areas.

bad sectors... would that not result in dvd's not being compatible with certain players?... much like the Un-cd's with similar corruption?

Diogenese: yeah.. i found another article where this macrovision rep basically says his company wants to piss off consumers "gently"

"bad sectors... would that not result in dvd's not being compatible with certain players?... much like the Un-cd's with similar corruption?"

Some newer DVDs have weak sectors. The sectors do not affect playback, but they make ripping very difficult.

someone has already patented the use of bad sectors for copy protection... i think theyre using a different technology..

possibly corrupted or false tables of contents?

here are the details on the arccos protection standard by sony which was determined to be using bad sectors and is likely patented.
http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go

Well, I can take a book and drive a few nails through it with a hammer. You can humanly interpolate the missing letters when you read it, but you can never make a perfect copy of it.

Can I patent this process?

They have found the holy grail of anticopy, once again. What might be different in this is the DMCA which basically makes it illegal to bypass. While this will not affect crackers it will affect legitmate businesses that once were selling software to allow you to back up legally your purchased copy. The copywrong holders are desperate to wring every dollar possible from you.

I won't be a player in this "once again" new technology. Protect it all you will, if there are no customers, what good does it do? I think they should invest heavily in the technolgy and I think we should all reconsider whether we really wanted that dvd movie or cd bad enough to put up with it. My answer is no, I don't think I want this. You keep your product, I will keep my money, we should both be happy, eh?

"Can I patent this process?"

You could have, but BMG publishing just saw your post and they've got the paperwork half-finished already.

But seriously... Casinos have been doing this with playing cards for years, although they use a drill press.

Macrovision. The new laughing stock of copy protection. They are now, aren't they? I give the crackers mere hours before a hack is found. Bring it on, Big Brother.

Well, there are four ways round it:

1. Dont. Just let the read fail, have a ripper that tolerates that. Ripping will take most of a day, but thats only an inconvenience.

2. Fast-error-skip. A common technique for game-copying, and must be supported by the reader. Almost all readers support it. Though the feature has no use other than breaking protection, it is established practice.

3. Fancy ripper. Decode and study the menu structures to determine which parts contain video but are not accessible normally, and skip those. The problem with this is that the protection is soon modified to break the rippers, and new ones are produced... arms race follows.

4. Play the disc. Record the sector-access with an intermediate driver, and you know which areas must be ripped.

Hell, if hackers can crack DRM and even use DRM to load spyware into PCs, this rip guard would be nothing.

This will work until someone defeats it. I would give it about a week. Remember, whatever they do it must be readable by a standard dvd player (we hope, anyway). If a standard dvd player can read it, there will ALWAYS be a way to circunvent it. Short of taking a razor blade to the recording surface and scratching it into oblivion, there is nothing they can do to circunvent copying short of replacing every dvd player in existence with drm technology, and even that is fallible.

They need to just learn to live with it, fair use will never die, the media companies survived before all this drm and copy protection nonsense, they will conitinue to survive, unless people finally get fed up with all the crappy movies they've released recently.

wow, that was the mother of all run on sentences.

I would like to see crackers attempt it to see just how fast they can do it. Just to spite these companys who just love those DRM scams really.
wet1, I believe you got it right let them invest with all of their hearts content because I've already been victim of the DVD DRM crap the DVD in question was a new release that was bought for me for Christmas and I finally got around to watching it low and behold it wouldn't play in the DVD player then it wouldn't play on my older DVD player but it played on the Computer just fine I was so mad I took it back and demanded my money back they gave it back to me as in store credit so I could buy something else so the end story is the reason for taking it back was I wanted to watch it on a big TV with surround sound and it wouldn't let me.
Soon it'll tell just how far Average Joe or Jane will go to get fed up with the non playable - non compatible DVD's full of their lovely DRM crap. So a message to our favorite RIAA/ MPAA group please by all means invest in your DRM (crippleware) see how many customers you lose and this will be only the beginning for now I will know what will break your bottem line and it isn't p2p it will be your DRM scheme.

Why do people mention the DMCA in this as if it's globally applicable? The DMCA may restrict breaking of a copyright control mechanism in the USA, but it does not apply to the other 5.75 billion people in the world. Note that "DVD Jon" is Norwegian and the authors of DVD Decrypter are from the UK.

Americans still have the "fair use" defence but they will have to rely on outsiders to break copy control mechanisms.