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Blu-Ray Disc's BD+ Copyright Protection Technology Defeated Completely.

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/20/2008 | 11:24 PM ]

Even though copyright protection technologies are meant to exclude possibilities of copying, they do so for a limited time only. Throughout the rest time of their lifespan such technologies usually annoy those customers who acquired their content fairly. Less than a year after finalization the BD+ copyright protection scheme has been completely defeated, claims a software firm.

Slysoft company, which specializes on various disc backup and copy tools, said that its AnyDVD HD software version 6.4.0.0 removes the BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs (BDs). Earlier the company already claimed that AnyDVD HD version 6.2.0.1 removes BD+ from titles available prior to the 20th of November, 2007. Now the software maker claims that the controversial copyright protection scheme, which requires players to have the latest firmware installed to playback a movie, has been cracked completely.

BD+ is one of the copyright protection layers for Blu-ray discs that compliments AACS, HDCP, BD-ROM Mark and so on. BD+ is a small program recorded on a Blu-ray disc that is executed by player and examines whether the players security keys were changed as well as decodes part of the content encrypted with BD+ keys. The BD+ technology was finalized in June, 2007, however, due to nature of the technology, the actual BD+ program may be altered for future BD movie releases, which will require Blu-ray players' firmware to be updated in order to playback those titles.

With BD+ protection removed completely end-users can now watch their BD+ titles using software players that may not support BD+ and even backup or rip their Blu-ray movies.

The reaction of Blu-ray disc association (BDA), movie studios and Macrovision, which sells BD+ licenses, is unclear. Potentially it is possible that a new copyright protection scheme will be introduced for Blu-ray movies in future.