Every licensed Blu-ray playback device since 2012 has supported the technology which is designed to limit the usefulness of pirated content. Illicit copies of movies protected by Cinavia work at first, but after a few minutes playback is halted and replaced by a warning notice.

This is achieved by a complex watermarking system that not only protects retail media but also illicit recordings of first-run movies. Now Verance has been awarded a patent for a new watermarking system with fresh aims in mind.

The patent, ‘Watermarking in an encrypted domain’, begins with a description of how encryption can protect multimedia content from piracy during storage or while being transported from one location to another.

“The encrypted content may be securely broadcast over the air, through the Internet, over cable networks, over wireless networks, distributed via storage media, or disseminated through other means with little concern about piracy of the content,” Verance begins.

Levels of security vary, Verance explains, depending on the strength of encryption algorithms and encryption key management. However, at some point content needs to be decrypted in order for it to be processed or consumed, and at this point it is vulnerable to piracy and distribution.

“This is particularly true for multimedia content that must inevitably be converted to audio and/or visual signals (e.g., analog format) in order to reach an audience,” Verance explain.

While the company notes that at this stage content is vulnerable to copying, solutions are available to help protect against what it describes as the “analog hole”. As the creator of Cinavia, it’s no surprise Verance promotes watermarking.

“Digital watermarking is typically referred to as the insertion of auxiliary information bits into a host signal without producing perceptible artifacts,” Verance explains.

In other words, content watermarked effectively will carry such marks regardless of further distribution, copying techniques, or deliberate attacks designed to remove them. Cinavia is one such example, the company notes.

However, Verance admits that watermarking has limitations. In a supply chain, for example, the need to watermark already encrypted content can trigger time-intensive operations. For this, the company says it has a solution.

Verance has come up with a system with the ability to insert watermarks into content that has already been compressed and encrypted, without the need for decryption, decompression, or subsequent re-compression and re-encryption.

In terms of an application, Verance describes an example workflow in which movie content could be watermarked and then encrypted in order to protect it during distribution. The system has the ability to further watermark encrypted content as it passes through various supply chain stages and locations without compromising its security.

“In a forensic tracking application, a digital movie, after appropriate post production processing, may be encrypted at the movie studio or post production house, and sent out for distribution to movie theaters, to on-line retailers, or directly to the consumer,” Verance explains.

“In such applications, it is often desired to insert forensic or transactional watermarks into the movie content to identify each entity or node in the distribution channel, including the purchasers of the content, the various distributors of the content, the presentation venue and the time/date/location of each presentation or purchase.”

Verance believes that being able to track distribution points, sales locations such as movie theaters or stores, and even end users will be a big plus to adopters. Those up to the complex analysis can see how the company intends to work its magic by viewing its extremely technical and lengthy patent.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This means that camcordings of Cinavia-protected first-run movies, Blu-ray and DVDrips can be easily detected.

Support for the technology has been mandatory for all hardware and software Blu-ray players since 2012, which causes headaches for many pirates every day. Pirated movies protected by Cinavia work at first, but after a few minutes playback is halted and a warning notice appears on the screen instead.

“Audio outputs temporarily muted. Do not adjust the playback volume. The content being played is protected by Cinavia™ and is not authorized for playback on this device,” one of the notices reads.

Cinavia has been hailed as an unbeatable anti-piracy technology and up until today it was impossible to crack through a simple software solution. However, after several years DVD-Ranger has now solved the puzzle.

The company informs TorrentFreak that their Cinavia removing solution is now able to remove the play restrictions from pirated downloads in various video formats, something that was previously impossible.

“We have improved DVD-Ranger for use with torrent files. Now DVD-Ranger CinEx HD can remove Cinavia from downloaded torrent video files such as avi, mkv, mp4, mov and others,” DVD-Ranger’s Ingo Förster explains.

“The new module first scans the audio and then removes the Cinavia protection on the first pass. The contained video and subtitles will be handled pass-through, meaning that only the selected audio track will be re-encoded,” he adds.

On their website the software specifically targets BitTorrent pirates, many of whom have run into Cinavia protection in recent years. With DVD-Ranger’s “CinEx HD Advanced” software this is no longer a problem, although freedom doesn’t come cheap at $69.99 per license.

Förster and his colleague at DVD-Ranger have been working in the DVD-copying business for over a decade. For them, it was mostly the challenge that made them decide to break the Cinavia technology.

“Me and my partner are working both in science jobs and we were in contact with digital watermarks many years before Cinavia was born, so we know many things about digital watermarking. After we saw how many problems the major players such as DVDFab and Slysoft had with Cinavia, we started our own development,” Förster says.

Technically, Cinavia is not copy protection so the German based developer doesn’t believe they are breaking any laws. The files can be copied with and without a watermark, and their software only removes these “play” restrictions.

“In our country it is only forbidden to develop and sell software that circumvents copy protection. The law doesn’t mention digital watermarks. So is it legal? Definitely,” Förster notes.

In any case, DVD-Ranger’s breakthrough is likely to cause concern at Verance, the company where Cinavia is developed. Perhaps it’s the start of a new watermarking arms race?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The decision follows legal action taken by AACS, the decryption licensing group founded by movie and technology partners including Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft and Intel. The companies say that the Chinese company behind DVDFab violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause by selling tools that can bypass their DVD encryption.

The orders of Judge Broderick, handed down after a DVDFab no-show, will see the company lose several domains, its social media accounts, bank account funds and payment processing options. Now, several days later, the effects of the ruling are being felt by other companies offering similar products.

First up Aiseesoft, another Chinese-based company behind a suite of video and ripping tools. The company was singled out in February’s USTR “rogue site” report for offering products that “allow users to circumvent technical protection measures and view video content in an unauthorized manner.”

Despite DVDFab never appearing on the “rogue” list, that company was targeted first, something that has clearly unsettled Aiseesoft. As reported by a Myce user, this week following the DVDFab ruling the company began sending out emails to its users, announcing its exit from the ripping market.

“Here I would like to represent our Company, Aiseesoft to inform all of you that as Aiseesoft settles a new product development plan, in which Aiseesoft will no longer sell software that rip or copy Blu-ray/DVD Videos,” the broken English email begins.

“According to that, we will remove some products that are relevant to Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow (20140314), which means you and your visitors will lose the access to any products that involved. It is a hard decision for us to make. But we have to focus attention on products that are promising.”

As can be seen from the Aiseesoft website, all DVD and Blu-ray ripping software has now been removed. While the company will no doubt be seeking its deletion from the USTR’s notorious markets list next time round, others not on the list are also seeing the writing on the wall.

Canada-based LG Software Innovations has also announced that it will discontinue its 1CLICK BLURAY COPY software.

Citing issues with the Cinavia Blu-ray protection mechanism, the lawsuit against DVDFab, and the apparent inability of companies outside the US to escape the jurisdiction of US courts, the company said that its forthcoming Blu-ray product will be shut down.

“Unfortunately, in light of recent events, we will not be releasing a final Blu-ray copy product for sale,” the company said.

“It was once thought that companies that were situated outside the U.S. could operate with impunity; this no longer appears to be the case. We do not wish to take any risks that could jeopardize our ability to continue to provide support and updates to our loyal 1CLICK users.”

But just as others exit the market, DVDFab says it is making every effort to undermine the actions taken against it, with new domains, a new support site, prize giveaways, product discounts and even protest graphics.

“In order to protect the interests of our existing customers, we have already recovered all the normal businesses to www.dvdfab.cn. At the same time, we promise to reverse the situation through every possible effort,” the company said on its new support site, ILikeDVDFab.com.

“DVDFab Team as a whole, will stick to the same mission in the years to come, to better your entertainment life. We shall not perish from this earth!”

In the meantime Slysoft, the business behind the famous AnyDVD software, remains on the USTR’s rogue list. The company, reportedly based in Antigua and Barbuda, has shown no public reaction to the DVDFab decision and continues to offer its products as normal.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Cinavia anti-piracy system operates via a special type of watermarking that stays resident in a recording despite re-recording, transcoding, compression, or other type of transfer. This means that camcordings of Cinavia-protected first-run movies and unauthorized copies of Blu-ray or DVDs can be detected by Blu-ray players.

The system, a mandatory feature of all Blu-ray players since 2012, has just received a software addition known as Cinavia 3. It operates in a similar fashion to standard Cinavia when it comes to detecting pirate content but also has a trick up its sleeve.

While previously unauthorized content would be simply blocked by a Blu-ray player, with Cinavia 3 viewers are also informed on-screen where they can buy a legitimate copy of the content, whether that be through iTunes or some other digital retailer.

According to a Variety report, it will be the manufacturers of playback devices who get to choose where users are directed to after illicit content is detected – Apple would direct users to iTunes while companies like Samsung might choose Amazon, for example, each taking a cut of sales as they do so.

“The common misconception is you are either a pirate or you’re not,” said Joe Winograd, executive VP and chief technology officer of Cinavia creator, Verance.

“In reality, there are many layers of gray. Research indicates over a third of people watching pirated films are not hardcore techies but responsible, high-performing individuals who believe it is socially acceptable to search for a ‘free’ movie on a search engine.”

Verance hope that when offered a convenient opportunity to obtain quality content at a fair price, former pirates will consider going straight. Let’s see if that’s what they are actually offered when the system goes live.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Since 2012 the ability to detect Cinavia signals has been a mandatory feature of all Blu-ray players.

In the Blu-ray environment Cinavia can recognize whether a disc being played has a “theatrical release” watermark. If it does then it knows that the audio was recorded illegally. It can also recognize if a disc has been copied from an original Blu-ray.

The end result is that playing or copying of an unauthorized disc is eventually disabled by the player, be it a hardware Blu-ray player such as the one present in a Playstation 3 for example, or a software based player commonly loaded onto a PC.

However, a few days ago software company Slysoft released an update to its popular AnyDVD software which hinted in its changelog that Cinavia had been at least partially thwarted.

New: Option to disable Cinavia detection when using AnyDVD with ArcSoft TMT 5.3, TMT 6.0 or PowerDVD 12

After installation, users confirmed that the new feature worked as advertised. Had Slysoft really cracked Cinavia?

Intrigued, TorrentFreak caught up with the company for a comment.

“We haven’t really cracked anything,” they told us. “We simply disable the software player’s ability to see the trigger when AnyDVD is running and doing the Cinavia muting as built into their product.”

So rather than a wholesale crack this seems to be more of a workaround for now, but apparently greater things are on the horizon.

“As far as a global ‘stop’ when playing a burned BD copy we are a long way from that. We are working on a solution to defeat Cinavia in connection with our pending product Slyce since AnyDVD can not do this, but this will not happen until later in the year,” Slysoft concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.