Locking Down the Optical Disc By Jon Iverson October 18, 2004 — Both Macrovision and Sunncomm have been releasing technologies aimed at restricting how consumers can use their legally purchased music and movies. Add Dynamic Media Solutions to the pack.

The Israeli company announced last week that it has developed a "novel technology" that, it claims, will provide a "far-reaching copy protection solution for current and next-generation optical media, which include CD/DVD, CD/DVD recordable, and DVD-Video media." DMS says its approach is "fully compatible with today's CD/DVD players and drivers, and is extremely cost effective." The company also says that its system applies directly to the restriction of DVD-Audio discs, but not audio CDs at this time.

Current restriction technologies generally rely on permanent digital signatures or algorithms that are embedded on the disk and have so far had limited success in preventing copying. To solve this problem, DMS says, its technology utilizes a unique combination of a patented chemical compound and a software algorithm. The company says that these two components, when used together, produce a "versatile signature by dynamically influencing the laser beam in a way that cannot be reproduced on the copied media."

According to DMS, the result is an approach that offers customized configurations for each title to provide copy restriction from the compilation/authoring stages through to the consumer release. "It makes 1:1 copying virtually impossible, employs an extremely high level of hacking protection and prevents unauthorized mass production," the company claims.

DMS says its current version allows for a limited number of authorized backups, with both the source and backups restricted, and that it will continue to develop new generations of chemical compounds, "each one providing different protection characteristics, ensuring the technology's dynamic, long-term copy protection."