Feds rule that DVD X Copy is now illegal. What will become of other DVD burning software? The MPAA considers a major victory, but are the people who may use it legitimately getting the shaft, or will we see an increase in recovery outfits?
posted by JakeEXTREME on Feb 22, 2004 - 19 comments

Homer Simpson: Hack your DVD player. It seems in countries in which the DVD Copy Control Authority doesn't own the government, even the giants of corpmedia don't like the "protection" features the platform foists on consumers. On Fox's Simpsons UK DVD release FAQ page, Homer himself says "I have no idea whatsoever what regional coding means. But it is essential that you buy a multi-regional player. Do it now." Is the DVD region-coding system really only relevant in the United States?
posted by Vetinari on Jul 11, 2002 - 25 comments

A new era in movie piracy . These guys managed to hack Microsoft's MPEG 4 codec, and have provided a means of ripping DVD movies to this new format (check the readme file). The little program they have on their site will "update" your Windows Media Player to be able to play the new divx format. The compression is comparable to current .avi and .mpg formats, but the image quality is near-DVD. Wow. I just watched "Disturbing Behaviour" in this new format and I must say I'm very impressed. No ugly chunky blocks like with MPEG. I dunno if I'd ever pay to see movies in the theatre again. Heh, sure sounds familiar eh? (*cough* MP3 *cough*) Looks like there might be some big new players joining the RIAA real soon. :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy on May 8, 2000 - 4 comments

So the DVD copy protection was cracked, and it's interesting to hear the comments from the industry. The DVD Forum's release makes the hackers sound awful. The DVD folks feel like they've been ripped off. Can't these motion picture and DVD industry folks see this as a good thing? A couple hackers decrypted what was supposed to be a secure format and they're horrified? They should be horrified at the idiots that created the weak 'protection' in the first place. These hackers just did the industry a great service. They found a gaping security hole before good recordable DVDs ever came out! I'm surprised hackers are vilified instead of being offered lucrative positions as security experts.
posted by mathowie on Nov 3, 1999 - 0 comments