интересная подборочка статеечек  :glasses:

Pirates now offering Blu-ray movies
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure: /2008/11/18/pirates-now-offering-blu-ray-movies-kind-of/

Blu-ray is the high-definition format of choice for movies and games which is starting to gain in popularity. But that popularity could be adversely affected by Chinese pirates who are starting to offer fake Blu-ray discs for sale. Is it time for Hollywood to panic?

Blu-ray, as a format for movies, seemed to be gaining a bit of a foothold, with retailers starting to dedicate healthy shelf space to it, and new movies such as The Dark Knight shifting units. There’s also the forthcoming Black Friday which will surely see the price of Blu-ray players decrease considerably.

However, a few things are going against the format. First came the global economic collapse which is seeing many people tighten their belts and prevented them spending their hard-earned on luxury goods. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Blu-ray is now going to have to start contending with pirates.

Ars Technica is reporting that authorities in Shenzhen, China recently found a shipment of 800 fake Blu-ray discs containing the latest movies. The MPAA is claiming this to be the first seizure of this kind in China.

The pirated discs aren’t actually Blu-ray, but they are high-def, and good enough quality to fool the vast majority of consumers. The pirates are cracking Blu-ray’s AACS and BD+ encryption and then re-encoding them in to the AVCHD format. While not offering full 1080p resolution, these will play back at 720p. The added advantage for the pirates is that the reduction in resolution means the movies will fit on regular DVDs.

The movie industry is obviously concerned and is right to be because there’s no question that DVD piracy has affected retail DVD sales considerably. The same could now happen for Blu-ray discs but the timing could mean the format actually gets hindered from really catching on in the first place.

With SD DVDs continuing to sell and high definition downloads becoming more feasible, Blu-ray is going to struggle to fight the war on all fronts, and the pirates have just opened up a new one.

:flag: Hong Kong pirates selling bootleg Blu-rays on DVDs :flag:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16038.cfm

According to a new Wall Street Journal article, Hong Kong based movie pirates have begun selling bootleg Blu-ray films on standard DVDs, using the AVCHD format to fit a 720p film onto a cheap DVD-5.

Although the AVCHD discs only offers 720p and not the full HD 1080p, most consumers cannot tell the difference, and just see it as an upgrade from standard DVD anyways when playing back on their Blu-ray players.

The MPA warns that because blank DVDs can be had for, on average, 30 cents a unit, the pirates are making a huge profit on every bootleg sold.

"We are concerned and are assigning priority to this issue," said Mike Ellis, the Asia-Pacific managing director for the MPA.

The industry only first began taking notice last month when a large stash of the bootleg Blu-rays were found during a raid in China. Some of the 800 discs seized included popular titles such as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", "Transformers", and "X-Men 3." The bootleg discs were packaged in blue cases and even included holograms to make them look like the originals.

"Pirated DVDs from this region...have been exported all over the world in the last few years. These syndicates are very quick to spot market opportunities," said Mr. Ellis.

The MPA added that while retail Blu-ray discs retail for $25 or so, the pirated AVCHD discs sell for $7. Fortunately for the industry, the MPA says, the discs have not yet appeared outside of Asia.

"When we created the specifications for Blu-ray, we were very serious about trying to stem the tide of pirate discs regardless of where they were in the world," noted Andy Parsons, a senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics Inc.'s Home Entertainment Group and the U.S. chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association Promotions Committee.

Unfortunately for them, all Blu-ray protections have been broken and BD rips can be found around the Internet, usually before the retail even hits shelves.

:flag: Report: Chinese Pirates Crack Blu-ray Encryption :flag:
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/11/18/report:-chinese-pirates-crack-blu-ray-encryption

Los Angeles - Police in China conducting a recent raid on a movie pirating facility found what the Motion Picture Association International (MPAI) deemed to be the first pirated Blu-ray movie discs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Over 800 discs were found, in packaging complete with counterfeit Blu-ray holograms.

According to reports, it appears that the pirates were able to defeat the Blu-ray encryption security, and then transfer the the contents to AVCHD format -- a downgrade from Blu-ray's 1080p to 720p, but still considered high-definition quality, and better than DVD.

"We are concerned and are assigning priority to this issue," Mike Ellis, managing director of Asia-Pacific for the Motion Picture Association, told the Journal.