After several years of wrangling and almost two years after DVD video arrived, the music-recording industry has a copy-protection plan for DVD Audio that's ready for commercial use.
On Wednesday, IBM, Intel, Panasonic, and Toshiba announced the development of a content-protection framework for DVD Audio that uses encryption to scramble data. Five major music companies -- BMG Entertainment, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group -- approved the system.
Digital Versatile Disk Audio, or DVD Audio, discs are similar to audio CDs, but can encode higher-quality, multichannel surround sound and hold about 13 times as much data.
The new framework will allow content owners -- i.e., the record companies -- to set various levels of copy protection on the DVD discs they distribute. At the minimum, consumers will be able to make one CD-quality copy of their DVD disc. If the company allows it, consumers will be able to copy the DVD disc at its full quality as many times as they like.
"In order to encourage the music companies to put their music on DVD Audio, we had to arrive at this framework," said Alan Bell, IBM program director of digital-media standards and co-chairman of the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, or CPTWG. "If there were no protection, the music companies would not put it on, so we've put a series of parameters included on the disc for copy control and copy permissions."
Part of the framework, in addition to encryption, is a watermarking scheme that future DVD and CD recorders will be able to recognize. In addition to providing data about the owner of a disc, the watermark will prevent copying on future generations of DVD and CD recorders.
"One cannot eliminate CD copying overnight, but we're hoping that over a period of time, consumers will migrate to DVD, and we will flood the world with compliant recorders.... We're keeping honest people honest," Bell said.
The format gives publishers the option of providing an override mechanism to set restrictions on discs that can be updated. This is done by connecting the player to the Internet to allow for additional copies.
As with any encryption system, though, it is possible that it could be compromised in the future. With this in mind, Bell said the system is flexible enough for upgrades in the event that it's cracked.
"There's no such thing as perfect security, and we agreed in a framework that, first of all, the robustness of the encryption will be at least as good as DVD video. There will also be some level of renewability. If there is a successful attack, we'll be able to expire the keys so the attack is not fatal."
