In case you have not heard, the New York Times ran a story on New Years Day that reported an anonymous hacker with the handle Muslix64 had published a YouTube video and subsequent code to “crack” the AACS (advanced access content system) copy protection used to protect both Blu-ray and HD-DVD content.  We figured this would get people talking so we dug a little deeper.  There is now an additional news story that purports to defuse the New York Times bombshell.  Well, sort of…

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
Projection Monthly

According to the story, the frustrated Xbox owner purportedly turned to crime (it’s a federal offense according to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act) following a legitimate act of purchasing hardware and content that didn’t work due to the onerous copy protection technology.  

Well that’s only part of the story.  Muslix64 did buy an Xbox HD-DVD player, but instead of connecting the device to the game console to view the latest wide screen films in HD, he/she used a software emulation product to make a PC look like an Xbox360 to the USB-connected HD-DVD drive.

The second-day story comes from Video Business, who makes the point that the encryption software worked like it was supposed to - it didn’t play.  That’s when Muslix64 went to work on a “crack”.   Long story short - according to Paul Sweeting at Video Business, the “crack” was no encryption compromise but rather a work around that simply exposed the decryption keys from the Microsoft HD-DVD player memory during playback.   

Muslix64 then wrote a simple decryption procedure in Java to copy the content to the PC’s hard drive - in an unencrypted state.  Keys to several HD films as well as a YouTube video on the procedure were posted on-line with the promise of more to come.

So the issue boils down to the details.  While the encryption of the keys seems safe, the work around does exactly what the Hollywood studio’s want to prevent - the ability of consumers to make a back up copy of HD content (what some call “fair-use”).  Hollywood wants this to prevent its (assumed) unlicensed use and distribution.

As for the AACS, their options are few.  Clearly this is a compromise of security albeit for a relatively few number of HD titles and PowerDVD players.  The group could resort to its “revocation mechanism”, issuing new player keys that would in effect revoke the keys of all existing players.  Translation: all HD discs pressed from that point forward would be unplayable in the “cracked” PowerDVD players - effectively revoking all the players including non-guilty parties.  Many believe this is too radical a step even for the Hollywood elite to take.

The alternative course would be to revoke keys at the disc level where new copies of just those affected titles will receive new keys.  The new disc’s will not play in existing players until updated keys for the PowerDVD player could be distributed on all future HD film discs.

Bottom line, if it seems complicated you are not alone.  This convoluted system that assumes all customers are thieves wanting to steel HD content is attracting the very results Hollywood is trying to prevent.  The bulk of HD consumers are honest, law abiding folks and will take the path of least resistance, choosing to pay a fair price for content rather than steal.  The studios may eventually learn it is more profitable to simply focus on delivering fair-use content at a fair price rather than elaborate protection schemes that punish the innocent along with the guilty, and inevitably and ultimately fail.  But don’t bet on it.