Richard's Kingdom

Various reports are circulating that Microsoft is using Digital Restrictions Management to prevent users of Windows Media Centre from recording certain programmes. The company confirmed Tuesday that its software had disabled recording of the US TV show “American Gladiators” at the request of the broadcaster NBC. Microsoft claim this so-called “broadcast flag” mechanism was installed [...]

Microsoft have this week demonstrated the dangers of buying into DRM-crippled systems by announcing that their unloved software PlaysForSure (oh the irony) will be switched off on 31 August. After this date, content encumbered by the system will still play, but it will become locked to a single computer or device. You will no longer [...]

Further to what I said here, I’d like to add the following to the discussion on whether AACS is broken beyond repair 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2 Once again, that is all. [1/6/07 - Edited to add] BoingBoing has the scoop on the unusual [...]

There’s good news this week if you want to watch HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks on your computer, because reports indicate that their AACS Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) “feature” has been broken beyond repair: a victory for consumer rights. AACS is Hollywood’s attempt at restricting what you can do with your HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks – [...]

In mid February, AACS, a DRM scheme used to encrypt data on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks, was cracked wide open by Arnezami, a hacker posting at the doom9 forums. Now the MPAA are abusing US copyright law to try to remove all references to the HD-DVD processing key – published by Arnezami – from the [...]