DVD Copy Control Association
The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) is an organization primarily responsible for the copy protection of DVDs. The Content Scramble System (CSS) was devised for this purpose to make copyright infringement difficult, but also presents obstacles to some legitimate uses of the media. The association is also responsible for the controversial Regional Playback Control (RPC), the region encoding scheme which gives movie studios geographic control over DVD distribution.
As of 2001, members included film distributors such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros.[1][2]
They filed the much publicized case versus Jon Johansen whom they alleged wrote DeCSS. The case was dropped in January 2004. CSS decrypting software (such as DVD Decrypter, AnyDVD, and DVD Shrink) allows a region-specific DVD to be copied as an all-region DVD. It also removes Macrovision, Content Scrambling System (CSS), region codes, and user operation prohibitions. Additionally, they also filed a suit DVD CCA v. Bunner against people who distributed DeCSS, seeking injunction to stop further distribution based on trade secret claims. The injunction was eventually denied because CSS was no longer a secret by the time litigation occurred.
Features restricted by manufacturers
All hardware manufacturers (especially DVD player/burner manufacturers) implement DVD CCA-mandated enforcement features on their products; some even go beyond that and implement additional features to restrict ripping, for example:
- RIPLOCK: many manufacturers put an artificial limit, or lock, on ripping speeds. Some of these drives have alternative 3rd-party firmware that have this removed to enable faster ripping. See the RPC-1 Firmware Site for example.
- RPC-1: there is a region code present on the drive, and it will be changed if a DVD from another region is read. Usually, there is no limit on the number of DVD region changes that can be made.
- RPC-2: some manufacturers put a limit on the number of times that a drive's region code setting can be changed (say, 5 times or less); after this number of changes, the drive becomes "locked" on the last region set and is unable to be changed. Some alternative 3rd-party firmware have this limit removed to enable unlimited region changes. It is also possible, even on an unmodified drive, to perform a brute-force attack on the DVD's encryption to overcome the region limitations.
- Bitsetting/Booktyping: this is a feature which makes DVD+Rs readable by older DVD players that can play DVD-ROMS only. Some manufacturers disable this feature on their drives. Again, some alternative 3rd-party firmware can enable this so that burned DVDs appear as DVD-ROMs and are playable by older DVD players.
See also
- Blu-ray region code
- Blu-ray Disc, the successor of DVD
- DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Bunner
- Universal v. Reimerdes
- DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Kaleidescape, Inc.
- RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc.
References
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