Rabid Defense

Do they look nervous? Of course not, they're just logosRemember the other week, when it came to light that the AACS encryption system, the first line of digital defense on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, was almost laughably vulnerable?

Well, the folks over at DVDFile.com — who are usually pretty level-headed about this sort of thing — have decided to stand up against the evils of hackery in this completely over-the-top editorial, which argues that the compromising of AACS threatens the very existence of the burgeoning high-definition DVD market, since studios will stop releasing their titles to either format if they know those titles are just going to be pirated as soon as they hit the market.

Money quote:

Such criminals threaten to destroy the home theater technical progress that can bring pleasure to millions. The mentality of such a sociopath is equivalent to those who release computer viruses and Trojan horses into the wild to wreak random havoc. They are anarchists intent on destruction. They are no better than terrorists.

Um … what?

Look, I’m as eager to see high-def DVDs enter the mainstream — with all the attendant affordability and breadth of catalogue that such success would entail — but this is just plain ridiculous.

Neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray will live or die on the impregnability of its content protection; after all, standard DVD is about as pregnable as a female rabbit, and studios aren’t exactly hesitating to release their biggest titles to the format, as quickly as possible.

In a rather specious bit of reasoning, the DVDFile editorial argues that Fox pulled its March and April Blu-ray titles from its schedule because of the revelation of AACS’ vulnerability. That’s probably a bit of a stretch.

Fox did announce that it was rescheduling some of its March and April titles, but not all of them … and I suspect the rescheduling has more to do with Blu-ray replication facilities being pushed beyond their capacity than anything else.

Anyway. Just trying to be the voice of reason here. Carry on.

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