Copy Protection for DVD's

[DVX100Shooter]

I went to a local Duplication house recently to get some prices on their services. I was interested in getting a large quantity of DVD's duplicated and printed up. I asked about getting them copy protected. They told me they don't do that and furthermore that if people wanted my stuff they could easily get it. He said they could go around the copy protection if they really wanted it. Is this true? That can't be all that true because all the DVD's in the stores can't be copied. If anything someone could play the DVD then set up a camera and shoot the stuff off the screen.

[Barry_Green]

All commercial DVD's are copy-protected, but the protection has been defeated by an algorithm called (I believe) De-CSS. There was a DVD copying program being sold for a while that used De-CSS and could copy anything, but I think the recording industry won an injunction against them and it was pulled from the market (was it DVD-XCopy or something like that?)

So, yes you can get copy protection for DVD's (which causes color shifts on analog copies, and prevents DV cameras from copying at all). And yes it can be defeated, by anyone who wants to search for the de-css copying program or whatever it's currently called.

[David Jimerson]

(pssst -- it's not that hard to defeat it anyway!! : )

Hey! Who said that?

[mino]

I can take a feed from any dvd from the video out composite into my Matrox breakout box, record it to premiere 6.5 save it and burn dvd...it doesn't seem so hard to defeat copright. Having said that I've only done it once as a test. me being me if it's there I'll fiddle with it

[grinner]

When copy protection is added to the VITC, it can easily be cropped out.

[SirAllen]

Do a search for "DVD Decryter"

The copy protection is very easy to get around, it might keep mom and pop from making copies easily, but their kids can do it in a second

[SirAllen]

Also, the above is talking about a straight digital to digital copy, not through an analog conversion which is actually harder to get around (not to mention quality loss because of d/a) due to macrovision and the like.

It's sad, apparently the DVD consortium (or whoever) implemented the DVD encryption using just a handful of simple keys that could be figured out relatively easy. I remember reading an analysis by a crytologist just tearing them apart for using such a dumb implementation to encrypt/decrypt. Not that a better one probably wouldn't have been broken by now, but it would have probably taken longer.

[khmuse]

If you are going to produce a large number of commercially replicated discs, then you should use both CSS and Macrovision as not using them leaves your discs unprotected. While it is true that both systems can be broken, without at least implementing what is available, you may put your intellectual property rights in risk. Have your project authored and output to a DLT for delivery to the replicator. Only a DLT has the ability to use 2054 byte sectors which are necessary for CSS.

[David Jimerson]

You don't put your intellectual property RIGHTS at risk; you put your intellectual property at risk.