Anti-piracy technology targets DVD rippers

Macrovision has created anti-piracy technology which it claims will slash the supply of pirated content downloaded from peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

The company said that its RipGuard DVD product can plug a "digital hole" created by PC-based DeCSS ripper software, which allows consumers to make digital copies of copyrighted DVDs.

These copies can be burned to recordable DVDs or uploaded onto the P2P networks, Macrovision warned, costing movie studios billions in lost revenues.

Macrovision explained that RipGuard is applied to DVD discs and requires no additional software or hardware to be incorporated into PCs, DVD players or DVD recorders.

The company said that the combination of its analogue copy protection (ACP) technology and RipGuard DVD provides comprehensive DVD protection for major piracy threats faced by video content copyright owners.

"Macrovision RipGuard DVD is designed to dramatically reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal P2P content," said Steve Weinstein, executive vice president and general manager of Macrovision's Entertainment Technologies Group.

"Ultimately, we see RipGuard DVD and the ACP framework evolving beyond anti-piracy, and towards enablement of legitimate online transactions, interoperability in tomorrow's digital home, and the upcoming high-definition DVD formats."

The two processes of applying RipGuard DVD and ACP to DVD optical discs can be transparently combined at the replication facility, regardless of the type of manufacturing systems used, the company said.