DVD anti-piracy war sees adoption of 'RipGuard'

The film industry has revealed the next stage in its fight against the growing problem of DVD piracy with the release of Macrovision's RipGuard DVD, which prevents the unauthorised copying of commercial DVDs.

RipGuard DVD plugs the 'digital hole' created by PC-based DeCSS ripper software, which allows millions of average consumers to make unauthorised perfect digital copies of copyrighted DVDs in mere minutes. These copies can be burned to inexpensive recordable DVDs or uploaded onto the peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. P2P downloads and the 'rent, rip, return' of DVDs are an ongoing source of billions of dollars in annual revenue losses for the movie studios.

RipGuard DVD is a unilateral content protection system that is applied to DVD discs and requires no additional software or hardware to be incorporated into PCs, DVD players or DVD recorders. The combination of Macrovision’s analogue copy protection technology (ACP) and RipGuard DVD provides comprehensive DVD protection for both major piracy threats faced by video content copyright owners.

RipGuard DVD is a technological solution that effectively protects a copyright owner’s rights. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to attempt circumvention of such technological measures.

“Macrovision RipGuard DVD is designed to dramatically reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal P2P content. For over two decades, Macrovision has provided the premier solution for device-to-device copying using DVD players, VCRs, DVD recorders, digital video recorders, digital set-top boxes and media centre PCs,” said Steve Weinstein, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Macrovision’s Entertainment Technologies Group.

He added: “Ultimately, we see RipGuard DVD and the ACP framework evolving beyond anti-piracy, and towards enablement of legitimate on-line transactions, interoperability in tomorrow’s digital home, and the upcoming high definition formats.”

(GB)