Warner’s Hacked Off??

Tech Giants Sued over HDCP Hack

Intel’s Digital Content Protection has cooperated with Warner in a bid to take down a firm making goods helping to bypass HDCP copy protection.
The products in question used the cracked HDCP master key which could convert digital to analogue signals and therefore were really useful for those who wanted to connect digital devices to analogue displays. However, these devices could also be used by pirates in order to copy pay-per-view, on-demand, and other premium content, so Intel and Warner were a little miffed.

Actually, the HDCP key was cracked 2 years ago. This opened a so-called “analogue hole” which allowed everybody to copy digital video, including pay-per-view streams. The tech company promised to crack down on abusers of the key. Intel claimed that if anyone created a circumvention device, they should regret about that. However, this never happened: the first devices of such kind were released soon after the key was made public, but neither Intel nor the Hollywood studios did anything to prevent that.

Only now Warner and Intel have filed a joint lawsuit at a federal court in Ohio against the company named Freedom USA and its chief executive officer Alex Sonis. The plaintiffs accuse the Ohio firm of copyright violation, claiming that the company breached the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

Media reports revealed that the tech company, also known as AVADirect and AntaresPro, produces various devices that allow people to convert HDCP-encrypted digital signals to analogue signals.

In the lawsuit, Warner explained that the company required the use of HDCP in many of its distribution licenses for pay-per-view, video-on-demand and other premium digital content delivery services. They also pointed out that bypassing of HDCP causes more pirated copies being made available. This, in turn, decreases the demand for legitimate content.