HD DVD Anti-Piracy Compromised; HD Movies Appear on BitTorrent

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 17, 2007 - 10:19am.

San Francisco - A group of hackers has compromised the anti-piracy technology on Toshiba's new HD DVD format, and high-definition copies of several feature films have been uploaded to the BitTorrent file-sharing network, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Less than a month ago, a programmer called "Muslix64" released free software that lets users make copies of HD DVD movies; however, the crack needed specific title keys for each film to work. Over the weekend, dozens of keys for films, including "Serenity," "King Kong," "Mission: Impossible 3" and "Superman Returns" appeared online.

A lawyer for Toshiba, which invented the HD DVD format, told The Times that the A.A.C.S. anti-piracy technology hack was serious, but could potentially be fixed by remotely disabling certain licenses.

"It's like somebody picked the lock on an individual house, but he has not discovered the secrets to lock-making at the master padlock company," Toshiba attorney Michael Ayers told The Times.