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Sometimes I wonder how there could possibly be so many jobs for lawyers … but then I start researching my next column and all I can find is lawsuits.

A company named 321 Studios has done the inevitable; they have authored a program that allows exact copies of DVD movies to be made on any DVD burner. This is an identical operation to copying an audio CD on your computer except that DVDs have copy protection software, which DVD X Copy (the product in question) cleverly sidesteps. 

The program simply plays the entirety of the DVD, decoding the encrypted data as if it were being played, but it intercepts the audio and video information and records it instead of actually displaying it. Amazingly, the program doesn’t lose any of the menus or special features nor does it degrade the quality at all. The only caveat is that commercially produced DVD’s can hold over 9 gigabytes of data while store-bought DVDs can only hold 4.7 gigs of data. In this case, you simply have to split the DVD onto two discs.

I don’t know what I’m more pissed off about -- that the Motion Picture Association of America is suing 321 Studios over their product or that I probably won’t get my hands on the program before it disappears. Actually, in this case, 321 Studios was pretty sly in that they preemptively sued the MPAA, demanding that the judge acknowledge that their technology does not technically disable CSS (content scramble system) copy protection. 

This stay has allowed 321 to release their $99 program, but the program could disappear by the time spring break rolls around, so you best jump out there and get it while you can before it passes like gas in the legal wind.

In DVD X Copy’s favor is the fact that various security features are built into the copies that you make with it. When you buy the program, you have to register it for it to work, and every copy that you make will have an identifier that can be traced back to your registered copy of DVD X Copy. This is to protect against sharing the copies with others (which is illegal).

To that end, any copies that are made with DVD X Copy have a notice placed at the beginning of the DVD saying that the movie is a copy and therefore cannot be duplicated. This protection scheme is almost identical to that used by minidiscs, which have been popular in Japan (and my house) for a decade.  

For the sake of consumers, let’s hope that programs like DVD X Copy are successful and that they don’t lead to illegal file sharing, which will just hike up DVD prices. Let’s hope that DVD X Copy isn’t doomed to a Bleemesque (Bleem was the short-lived program that allowed Playstation games to be played on PCs) fate of just being the cool program that could have been awesome had it succeeded. I would start another sentence with a “let’s hope” at this point, but I haven’t got one. I’m over it.

As DVD burners pierce into CD burner price territory and the popularity of DVDs increases, I see some form of DVD copy software making it through the great fair-use prophylactics that are the MPAA’s lawyers. And in the mean time, I think I’m going to law school.

E-mail Esposito at resposito@media.ucla.edu if you have any questions about life, love or the pursuit of better technology.