It's ironic: The copy protection created to stop the illegal copying of DVDs is the same technology that has prevented users from legally downloading paid-for content and then burning it to a DVD for playback in their living rooms. At the time the copy-protection rules were created, they had no provision for user recording of protected content to a recordable DVD, as opposed to a factory-replicated DVD-ROM.
All of that changed about a month ago. The DVD Copy Control Association passed an amendment to the Content Scramble System (CSS)--the copy protection used on commercial DVDs--specifying a standard for recording electronic downloads to recordable DVD media. The standard, dubbed Qflix, is still in its infancy, but already a movement is afoot to bring this technology to drugstores, and perhaps even to a PC desktop near you.
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News source: PCWorld
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