BackupHDDVD issued a DMCA take-down notice
Posted on 02/03/07 15:44 by Seán Byrne                             
BackupHDDVD issued a DMCA take-down notice

As Blu-ray and HD DVD are only in their early stages yet, the last thing the movie industry needed was someone to successfully hack the AACS system used on these discs, at least for now.  Unfortunately for the MPAA, as we already know, this happened with Muslix64 releasing the BackupHDDVD decryption utility.  As pretty much expected, the MPAA has gone after the utility and issued a DMCA Takedown Notice for the utility, which has also resulted in its removal from SourceForge.  Apparently, the keys backupHDDVD used to decrypt the discs were copyrighted.  What is interesting is that its HDKeys website is still up listing decryption keys, although without the BackupHDDVD utility.

While the commercial software AnyDVD HD also has the ability to decrypt HD DVD content, so far this appears to be unaffected at this time with SlySoft still selling it via its online store. 

 

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By Hypnosis4U2NV, Fri 2 Mar 2007 19:20
Hypnosis4U2NVOf course they cant send the notice to SlySoft.. They are located in Antigua and is the reason why AnyDVD has lasted as long as it did.. AnyDVD/HD will be the same, they will not go after them since they are not violating any Antigua copyright laws and the DMCA is only valid in the US..
By Chris (guest), Fri 2 Mar 2007 21:49
Hypnosis is right about that, Remember that CloneCD and CloneDVD was originally made by Ollie from germany, once the new EU copyright laws hit germany he sold the company. I also noticed that the comments have gone way down on this site, looks like when cdfreaks sold out it lost its loyal members.. knew it would happen.
By Nvidia256, Sat 3 Mar 2007 00:20
I do not understand what do you mean sold out? How did they sell out? Also when did this happen?
By neo1918, Sat 3 Mar 2007 00:20
That's ludicrous! In no way do decryption keys count as "creative works". Just as I can't claim copyright on my phone number, they can't claim copyright on a decryption key.
By Hypnosis4U2NV, Sat 3 Mar 2007 00:52
Hypnosis4U2NVNeo1918, your right about the keys but it still is copyright infringement.. Keys are useless but its when you use them to bypass a protection scheme that will get you in trouble.. Any device/program that circumvents the copyright protection scheme is violating the DMCA.. BTW: I dont think CDFreaks sold out, but the change in the sites layout did contribute.. I gotta admit myself, I liked the OLD site way better.. Sometimes change is good and sometimes it isnt.. I also think that we should start changing the name of the site.. Since the sites inception years ago, many new media formats have come along and CD's are the cassettes tapes of yester-year.. The sites name should change with the times so I was thinking renaming it MediaFreaks or something like that.. This is best left for another discussion.. LOL..
By 4633, Sat 3 Mar 2007 01:02
I was just thinking the same thing...media would cover everything...
By ivid, Sat 3 Mar 2007 02:02
Keep the name ! 1) CD's started it all for the optical mediums 2) CD's are still the best quality for music listening for the masses, (don't talk to me about DVD audio or HDCD or whatever it was called) 3) I still love & buy CD's Smilie 4) We are all still CD freaks ! Smilie
By johnzap, Sat 3 Mar 2007 02:06
johnzapHypnosis4U2NV, this program is nothing more than code taken out directly from the publicly available AACS specs. The author didn't reverse engineer anything. He just took the specs which anyone can obtain, turned them into code and that's it. The program by itself doesn't circunvent anything. Try it without the keys and it does nothing useful. Where the program becomes useful is when you supply the keys to it. But the program is not distributed with any keys whatsoever. Even the keys are not obtained via reverse engineering. It's a "simple" matter of searching memory for them, the players's code is not reverse engineered (doesn't need to be). Anyway this is all too little too late. You can obtain keys and all those tools via a lot of other sources. A simple Google search will return many results with links to everything. Once the cat is out of the bag, there's nothing those guys can do to stop it.
By Hypnosis4U2NV, Sat 3 Mar 2007 03:34
Hypnosis4U2NVjohnzap, combine this program and the AACS keys and you circumvent the copyright.. Unfortunately thats all it takes regardless of whether it finds the keys.. Besides, I dont think anyone has enough money to fight the MPAA in court to allow distribution of the BackUpHDDVD program.. Its easier to just give in then be sued.. Its politics and economics at play and its hard to beat both..
By Hypnosis4U2NV, Sat 3 Mar 2007 04:19
Hypnosis4U2NVjohnzap, combine this program and the AACS keys and you circumvent the copyright.. Unfortunately thats all it takes regardless of whether it finds the keys.. Besides, I dont think anyone has enough money to fight the MPAA in court to allow distribution of the BackUpHDDVD program.. Its easier to just give in then be sued.. Its politics and economics at play and its hard to beat both..
By Thommo, Sat 3 Mar 2007 09:46
The AACS keys are not copyrightable as they are not "creative works". As others have already noted above, however, BackupHDDVD is a copyright circumvention device as defined in the DMCA and is thus banned in the United States and any other country that has succumbed to American pressure to ban such devices.http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/BackupHDDVD-issued-a-DMCA-take-down-notice.html# Frown
By shaolin007, Sat 3 Mar 2007 14:46
shaolin007Thommo, the program BackupHDDVD cant backup up HDDVD without keys, so it cant do anything with HDDVD in circumventing protection. If the author had the time and money to fight the industry, then he/she would win because the program does nothing unless you supply those keys. As long as the program AND the keys are not issued together, they can't do anything. This reminds me exactly of video game and console emulation. The emulator program is useless without the roms, i.e. MAME, but you don't see companies going after the MAME developers or any other emulation developer because they are not distrubuted with the game roms. Back in the day they were and what happended then? People got in trouble for it!
By johnzap, Sat 3 Mar 2007 15:12
johnzapYeap. shaolin007 explained it perfectly. The program is completely useless on its own. Therefore it's not a device capable of doing anything. Again: the program is just the coding of the publicly available specs. This is just a feable attempt to stop what is unstoppable. They hope to stop it by threatening with litigation and knowing how expensive it is, even if you are right. One has to wonder if this, so called, justice system, is exactly that or just a means for the rich to kill the rights of the poor. Anyway, the cat is out of the bag. The program is everywhere, the keys also. If the original author is unable to continue work, others will certainly take over. Unless AACS changes the system dramatically, it's CSS all over again. Only this time it was a lot faster to circunvent it.

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