Macrovision has announced today that it wants to buy self-protecting digital content technology assets from Cryptography Research, which assets are used in Blu-ray technology. With the buy Macrovision would get SPDC technology which formed the basis of BD+ a part of the Blu-ray copy protection which was recently already circumvented by Slysoft. The technology will complement Macrovision's existing ACP and Ripguard video security solutions.

BD+ resides both in devices and on the media. Title-specific security code is embedded in each BD+ protected disc. On the device side, BD+ utilizes an embedded virtual machine and APIs that are integrated directly into the media player, which communicate with the code from the discs. As a result, new titles can carry unique security code to address emerging threats, thus providing content producers the ability to respond to security breaches without impacting legitimate consumers. This field upgradeability helps protect investments in the Blu-ray format over the long-term, a key concern of the motion picture industry.

Macrovision would pay $45 million in cash and Macrovision stock and the acquisition includes Cryptography's patents, security software codes and related agreements with third-party customers and partners.