Blu-ray beefs up copy protection

A new layer of copyright protection has been added to the Blu-ray high definition format to prevent piracy.

The addition of BD+ was fast-tracked in recent months by the Blu-ray Disc Association to protect it from the hacking problems suffered by the rival HD DVD format. The AACS (Advanced Access Content System) used by both HD DVD and Blu-ray was hacked repeatedly this year but BD+ promises to make Blu-ray movies pirate-proof.

While AACS uses the same encryption key on all copies of a movie, BD+ is a dynamic encryption system that will let movie studios change the code on different movies, and even different copies of the same movie.

A disc with BD+, when inserted into a player, installs a small encryption program - or ‘virtual machine’ on the player. This checks the player’s firmware to see if it has been hacked and can prevent the movie from running. It also unscrambles parts of the movie so that they can be viewed during playback and it runs continuously while the movie is running to prevent any form of copying.

The arrival of BD+ is expected to boost the number of Blu-ray movies being released as certain studios, especially Fox, have been holding off on large scale launches until BD+ was in place.

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