SlySoft cracks BD+; developer sends note to Fox, endorses HD DVD

BetaNews reports on November 8, 2007:

A mere five months after the initial specification for the long-awaited BD+ copy protection system for Blu-ray Disc was formally released, SlySoft released a beta of its AnyDVD software that has apparently been proven capable of stripping BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs.

AnyDVD's author saw fit to insert a little open letter of sorts into the beta's change log text file (whose message is also posted in SlySoft's forum):

• Note to Twentieth Century Fox: As you can see, BD+ didn't offer you any advanced security, it just annoyed some of your customers with older players. So could you please cut this crap and start publishing your titles on HD DVD? There are thousands of people willing to give you money.

• Note to people considering to invest in HD media: Please buy HD DVD instead of Blu-ray. HD DVD is much more consumer friendly (e.g., no region coding, AACS not mandatory). Don't give your money to people, who throw your fair-use rights out of the window.

[Tru_Blu]

LOL like fox is going to jump ship now, to the side the pirates want them on... Correct me if I'm wrong also but I thought the whole point of BD+ was that it can easily be changed. To keep the pirates frustrated that every movie could use different protection schemes.

[cuco33]

BD+

Now that it was cracked so fast and so easily, what is Fox's main motive to stay exclusive?

As far as how 'easy' it is to change the system in BD+, BD stand alones had some issues already with Fox's first titles. Are we going to see more stand alones lock up or not play the disk until a firmware update is released for said player? or are we going to see how 'easy' BD+ is to crack again. It's the inevitable. You tell a hacker he/she can't crack a security system and all it does is drive them to do it faster and better than anyone else.

It's trying to prevent the inevitable.

[Grassroots]

you two realize that they can change to code for each disc making the process of cracking it again, and again, and so on.

Either way, these programs should be illegal (for back-ups), and the people should be convicted. This is not good for dvd, hd-dvd, or blu-ray.

[pornflakes]

different schemes cost lot of money.
And pirates always get them.

Just think before posting omg.

[Tru_Blu]

from afterdawn:

BD+ allows for dynamic encryption schemes, meaning that if the protection were to be cracked, manufacturers could SIMPLY change the encryption scheme on new discs, so one single crack could not open up all BD-ROM discs. This is, of course a major advantage over the Content Scrambling System (CSS) protection used on DVD discs which was cracked years ago. All old and new DVDs containing CSS can be ripped from the disc to a HDD, or software is available to simply remove CSS on-the-fly.

[Thugbot187]

Slysoft has cracked every disc protection out there, and if they change they will just release a new update that breaks that.

[Bad_Karma]

how many people out there actually use this program for making a backup of what they own on original DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray ? Slysoft endorses HD-DVD ? what a laugh ...Slysoft endorses pirating and thats all ...lying wankers

[kreetah]

Good going SlySoft, should not take much more to kill off HD all together and be done with it. Maybe the FTC can raid the developers and give them free room and board with free KY for the next 5 years.

[Kholinar]

"how many people out there actually use this program for making a backup of what they own on original DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray ?"

I don't know.

Should they be able to? Please answer this first.

And why is it somehow cheaper to buy a $500-800 burner plus $18 each media just to get a few free movies. At the cheap end the first fifty movies are going to cost you as much or more than buying an authentic disc. It's going to take you over 100 movies just to see some benefit with it. Are there really enough BR movies out there that you want?

Right now pirating doesn't even make sense unless you're a major illegal re-seller. So, given that Slysoft has a lot of subscribers and obviously aren't all major re-selling bootleggers. I'd say a lot of people are interested in fair-use backups.

[darthv72]

I have 3 kids who love to watch movies and have broken discs in the past. I really hate it when they scratch the discs and just dont know the proper way to handle them. So to protect the originals I make simplified backups that only play the movie. Anyone with children can tell you how impatient they can be waiting for the all the crap at the beginning to be done before you can get to the main movie.

Seems more lately the movie companies are locking out the ability to FF or skip the coming attractions...? Anyway, I like this program. I dont have any HD format movies (nor player) so my big thing is when getting a new movie from Target (like ratatouile) I make it easy for my kids to watch by just "drop and play" on their tv/dvd set.

I make my own CD's with mixing tracks from the hundreds of discs I have, why cant I make a backup of a movie I own to strip out the stuff I dont want to see?

[OMG 360 RUL3Z0RZ FTW]

So, I'm assuming you think that DVDJon is a criminal too?

Way to play directly into the media companies' hands. Here's why you're wrong, and why your opinions are what these companies want you to think:
1. "Piracy", A.K.A. Copyright Infringement, is NOT the same as theft. There are legal distinctions that date way back before digital distribution and digital media.
2. Fair Use is one of the cornerstones of copyright law, and personal-use backups of your _paid for_ media absolutely falls under Fair Use. Certain members of the RIAA have publicly stated that they consider ripping a CD to be the _same thing_ as downloading music illegally. They say things like this because they HATE Fair Use.

SlySoft are not criminals, they make software that allows their users to act within the law. If pirates use it, and by your logic, that makes SlySoft criminals, then why not accuse their OS developer, ISP, upload program, etc.?

[myabsolution]

fox claimed BD+ couldnt be broken for another 10 years... thats why they held off on releasing blu-ray movies until now, because they wanted it in place.

10 years took 3 months. GG

Fox should just go neutral since the added protection of BD+ was their main reason of staying Blu...

[Lucreto]

But Fox are like Sony they want region lock so they can make more money. HD-DVD has been hacked already and going neutral will be playing right into the hackers hands.

At least it is still expensive to make blu-ray and hackers won't see much profit from it.

People who buy hacked and copied software is low like robbing items from a 99 cent store.

[PopEmUp]

THe round peg if you want to comment on what you post please comment under the comment section not in your posting article

[ktchong]

I pretty much took everything from there.

http://www.betanews.com/art...

[Bathyj]

No one ever mentions lots of BR's are multi regional. Not all. Some are.

Anyway, pathetic story. Doesn't matter what protection they put on, it will always be cracked. And I thought Fox were waiting for a finalized format not the copy protection.

[Lumbo]

Quote from later in the same thread: "Are you sure your changelog is accurate? Users are reporting that BD+ rips do not work in standalone players or PS3.

Also the latest version of PowerDVD disables playback from hard drives completely. It might be back to the drawing board."

The warez industry is effectively driving the content producers away from formats the warzers support. This add to the changelog could backfire in a quite nasty way.

Additionally the next step is already in motion: standalone BD players will not play commercial movie files from BD-R media at all in future, as posted before in the media, unless its a special movie authoring media that will playback only non commercial material created with licensed video software. Commercial movies will then also carry digital watermarks identifying them as commercial, and standalone players will deny playback in that case. People might still be able to playback warez movies on their pc's, but thats not the mass market. Mass market is the standalone units connected to HDTVs. Thanx Warzers for making it more complicated for everyone.

I am no friend of warez in general, and therefor i am quite ok with the state of business in the PS3 scene right now, no warez, no hacks, no cheats. PS2 games make money cause of the mass of hardware sold, warez is common, but you still sell enough. Thats not true for the next gen consoles though, considering the low unit count compared to the PS2 and the higher cost of development you have to make sure you will be able to SELL your game to a rather big percentage of the owners to break even.

In such an environment warez can stiffle development cause compared to overall units in the market the warez units will be a higher percentage as with the PS2. So far the PS3 offers devs a complete warez free environment. Wheras the Wii and the Xbox are plagued by said symptom, the Wii more than the Xbox360 cause the Wii has nearly no good online multiplayer games. The xbox360 fights warez with the threat of online bannage if caught, still every single Xbox360 game is released as warez copy mere hours after it shipped only beat by the Wii games that turn up mere minutes after release. Singleplayer games like Bioshock suffer the most, online multiplayer centered games like Halo3 suffer the least.

[Mu5afir]

Simply because you can rent the movies you want for 5 bucks from Netflix.
Everyone say "Thank you Netflix". :D

[Maddens Raiders]

Desperate? Just beg.

[OOG FunK]

owch that is interesting since it was suppose to be like getting into a nuns panties on sunday that they cracked the code in such a short time....but ya know different schemes will come...but to say u will not be able to watch copied BR D on the bluray players would be crazy what would the people who end up using blu ray for recording home videos and things like that in the future be able to do? they would be limiting what their customers will be able to do in the future by not playing copied disks

[bloodzombie77]

This isn't necessarily about the code being cracked, as it is that that a bunch of worthless kids and pirates are getting their panties in a bunch because BD made them work for something.

Jeez, this artice might as well be about a thief suing some rich guy because his house wasn't easy enough to break into. Cry me a river, Slysoft, and then go drown in it.

[Fighter]

HD DVD getting desperate. First the $99 HD DVD player. Now a partnership with with Slysoft.

Anyways people have to buy a blu ray player to watch those movies.

[BlackCountryBob]

Isn't this a bit wrong having this story as it is basically advertising software that's sole purpose is to break copyright law.

[Kholinar]

Unfortunately copyright law is broken at the moment. Corporations are taking away more and more fair use rights from consumers. They're scared to death of burners and filesharing in the same way that they were scared to death of VCR's, cd burners and cassette tapes. So they've effectively taken away your right to the content that you've already bought.

I honestly don't like either of these formats as they're both draconian and self-serving in the worst possible ways, not to stop pirates (because pirates will never be stopped), but to stop consumers from making completely legal backups.

It reminds me of a non-profit in my area that wanted to by a small farmhouse to raise babies for a short time when mothers couldn't. A cemetary owner in the area wanted the farmhouse and its land desperately for expansion. So, years before, he bought 8 feet of land on each side of the farmhouse so that, if anyone tried to buy it, he could refuse them access, saying that they had to travel across his land to enter. In that way any sale would be fought in the courts for years and the courts would basically tell the buyer to buy the cemetary owner out. Which he would always refuse.

This is exactly what media content providers have done. They've said that the right of the consumer to make legal backups is fine. But then they passed a law (by exchanging large amounts of money with senators) to make defeating encryption illegal. So you can have your "right" but you have to cross their (encrypted) land to secure it.

Pirates have nothing to do with it. Pirating is already illegal and has been for eternity. It's the content provider's job to enforce that, not to take away consumer rights as an easier protection. This exists solely to entrench the consumer in a subservient role. Honestly, updates of firmware on this whole thing smells to me like they'd eventually like to move to pay-per-play on the discs. Don't think they wouldn't. They'd love to be able to count the number of people in your living room and not even allow a guest to watch without paying. It's been less than a year since a major exec said so...

[Ashta]

I just don't know what to say about that. I mean...I just witnessed an entire company throw a temper tantrum on how they had to work a little bit harder to crack the BR+ and then they pitch some sob story to Fox pleading with them to drop Blu-Ray for HD-DVD

I like how the guy who wrote the note still came off as a douche-bag and then seriously thinks that abrasive words towards a major corporation would actually persuade them.

"Yeah, yelling at Fox to "cut the crap" will teach them! They'll have learned their mistakes and fixed their ways! Yeah! Lets verbally berate people in to conforming to what we elitist crackers want! Yay!"

[myabsolution]

the only ones who came off as being douche-bags were Fox.

they basically taunted these nerds into trying to break BD+, "oh it will take them 10 years to break, at least."

[kreetah]

So now they are taunting the FEDS?
I hope they are not the typical nerd, my have a hard time in the big house.

[mistertwoturbo]

lol cracked or not, people still have to buy bluray players to watch blu ray movies.

[nirwanda]

because HD-DVD isn't region locked you can watch quite alot of the ble-ray titles just by importing the HD-DVD version from another country so you have the best of both worlds
Also if someone rips a blu-ray disk it they becomes digital content which can be transfered all over the world and can even be played on a DVD on a 360 for the price of a couple of blank disks and if you carn't be arsed burning it you can stream it straight from a pc

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

haha bad news day huh?

[Bleucrunch]

Dam why are they hating on Blu-ray? Just leave them alone gooooooooosh people really need to get a life, just ask me why the hell would you choose 30 gigs over 50 gigs.......O I thought so.

[PS3n360]

To rip BR exclusives and burn them to hd dvd and play em on a standalone hd dvd player. If any conversion was neccessary there would be program to do it in a matter of days. All that would be needed is a PC bluray drive, an HDDVD burner and the slysoft software and a blockbuster video account.

[trane007]

These damn people have gotten more desperate and desperate to scramble something so stupid and so un-necessary thats even remotely negative and its so damn funny as to how far round peg's dumbass will go.

Forum posts,
Random user comments,
dead articles,
Articles AGES old,
Blog posts from unknown websites
Duplicate stories with just more negatory twists
Etc.

And now you go and find something that says something negative against blu-ray even though its pirating and goes against copyright laws in the first place?!anything of use remotely negatory, and its pathetic. It truely is. From you and bloodmask.

"SLYSOFT ENDORSES HD-DVD!!!"
A pirate site. A place that does something illegal. Pathetic. Truely.

[kn]

If one were to break the encryption and copy the DVD, would it be possible to "burn" the movie onto another format? I.e. Blu-HD-DVD and vice versa. Aren't they encode as h.264 on both formats? It would seem to me that it could be possible and be lossless... How about a "service" that will take your LEGAL copy of any blu or HD-DVD and convert it to the other for a nominal charge? End of format wars overnight?

[darthv72]

if you look at the hd movies on live video marketplace they are all 720p and come in at around the size of a single layer dvd. So maybe the rest of the space on the hd discs are for uncompressed audio???

If the same hd movies in the store on hddvd or bluray can fit into the video marketplace then why cant they just be "hd" on a regular dvd9?

[beoulve]

would you listen to the group that going to pirate your product? this is crazy talk here. like trane007 said, I don't think HD-DVD forum want slysoft endorsement as well.

[highps3]

So hacking it was pretty pointless. Files are just to big now a days to really rip files like you use to.

Its just pointless.

And to be honest, I doubt they would want to listen to a hacker. Get a clue.

[Gahigiddy]

There may be thousands of desperate HD-DVDead owners, but there's millions of BR owners doshing out more cash RIGHT NOW!

This guy needs swift kick to the face.

@Xboxer, you too. Who the F*** will wait a "matter of days" with extremely expensive and rare hardware/software just to rip a BR movie they can get for cheaper on the most popular HD format?

AND HD-DVD got outsold 71:29 just after it failed to even be ON PAR with BR with the Transformers launch and after the "wildly popular" $99 player which doesn't do jack sh!t.

[AlbyX]

Wasn't HD-DVD cracked two months after it came out and by some guy sitting in front of his computer for a few hours looking at code. Bluray needed a full company, slysoft, to crack it. And on top of that DVD Shrink has support for ripping blu-ray and HDDVD, so this company really just wasted their time.

[Enigma_2099]

Why side with either?

[DJ]

Either way, cracked and ripped BD+ discs can't be read by standalone players or PS3s...which means "You can copy Blu-ray discs. Just don't expect your rips to work." Plenty of PS3 titles for example have been ripped onto the internet, but none of them actually run on the system, even when burned onto BD-R discs.

[Enigma_2099]

Is that what he's saying?